AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.Of course, doing away with the US Constitution has always been the goal of the "progressives", and has always been their proffered "answer" to every "crisis" -- even if they have to exert themselves in a truly heroic manner to manufacture that "crisis". That is, it isn't that case that "observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken"; rather, these "observers" start, and have always started, from that axiom.
And, by the way, it's not even remotely true that "the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos", for the government is not the nation.
Consider, for example, the assertion by the Senate minority leader last week that the House could not take up a plan by Senate Democrats to extend tax cuts on households making $250,000 or less because the Constitution requires that revenue measures originate in the lower chamber. Why should anyone care? Why should a lame-duck House, 27 members of which were defeated for re-election, have a stranglehold on our economy? Why does a grotesquely malapportioned Senate get to decide the nation’s fate?"Why should anyone care?" -- Translation: Why should we "progressives" care about the clear rules when we think we have the raw force to do, and to compel others to do, whatever it is we wish?
An appeal to morality isn't going to hake headway with "progressives", especially when they're feeling their oats. So, let's try "self interest" -- Dude! You people aren't *always* going to have the presumed authority to get away with whatever you want to do. And, in truth, you don't even now have the raw force to compel the rest of us to bow to your shibboleths. You get away with imagining you have this authority (and this force) only because the rest of us -- the enemy -- are still playing by the rules. Make is obvious that you "progressives" have destroyed the rules, and things will get very interesting very quickly.
"Why should a lame-duck House, 27 members of which were defeated for re-election, have a stranglehold on our economy?"
What's going on in Washington has next to nothing to do with the nation's economy, except to make the economy weaker -- "fixing" the federal budget will not fix the economy. Even truly fixing the budget -- something the "progressives" will never allow -- will not fix the economy.
The economy does not originate in DC, and Washington can *never* 'grow' the economy -- the nearest any government can get to 'growing' an economy is to stop sucking all its lifesblood from it. But, "progressives", being vampires, can nevercountenance such an idea.
"Why does a grotesquely malapportioned Senate get to decide the nation’s fate?" -- Translation: Let's complete the Great Project begun in the Civil War and brought closer to fruition with the Seventeenth Amendment -- Let us finally get serious about abolishing the States which *created* the Union for which we claim to be speaking!
"Progressives" loathe decentralization and the general dispersion of power (and force) that is explicit in the American Union.
(h/t K T Cat)
Edit 2013/01/04:
If Gentle Reader can stomach wading through them, the reactions of the "liberals" and other leftists who infest Michael Engor's blog may be informative of the standard-issue leftist mindset.
Edit 2013/01/07:
Here is Michael Flynn cpmmenting on the matter: Sometimes the Mask Slips, Just a Little
2 comments:
If we followed the Constitution we wouldn't have this fiscal mess. After all, we are implementing, and trying to pay for, all sorts of programs that the Constitution itself does not permit us to enact at the federal level, as if "to promote the general welfare" were the same as "to promote welfare generally."
Of course. We wouldn't be in all sorts of messes if we had been following the Constitution for at least the last century.
But my purpose here is to point out -- to try to get non "progressives" to open their eyes to the truth of the matter – that the "Progressives" are beginning to acknowledge (*) that their goal is the overthrow of the US Constitution in the name of “democracy”.
The explicit purpose of the US Constitution, spelled out in the document itself, is to define the authorities and limit the scope of the general government. For this reason, the “Progressives” have always hated the US Constitution (**).
(*) For the second time, actually. For, at the beginning of the “Progressive Era”, a good 120 years ago, all their arguments were premised upon their assertion that the Constitution was “out-moded” and no longer up to the task of defining the general government of a continental union.
(**) Which probably explains why, when we gave the Japanese and Germans and Italians new constitutions after the war, they weren’t modeled on our Constitution, but rather on the parliamentary system of Britain. As an example, consider Italy; specifically consider the constantly collapsing governments of Italy post-WWII -- had Italy had a “presidential/congressional system”, rather than a “premiere/parliamentary system”, isn’t it likely that there’d have been more stability in their government?
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