I was going to post this link as a comment in one of your videos, but YouTube is down for maintenance at the moment.
http://fringeelements.tumblr.com/post/411147276/the-united-states-constitution
What I read, I wasn't very impressed with, however.
So what do you think of it?
He seems to be very critical of the language they used.
While I'm not too fond of constitutionalism, I think he needs to be trying to do so on the proper terms (e.g. the original meaning of the words not what they mean, or what the idioms, etc would mean today).
"The constitution grants the U.S. government unlimited power; see my article on the constitution." --Fringeelements
Yeah...
Wow, this article is so full of bullshit it's hard to know where to begin.
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By the use of this phrase, there is a clear inference that the people on the United States either directly or through their representatives either wrote or approved of this document. That is NOT true.
Yes actually, it is. The Constitution had to be ratified by the representatives of the various states, who were elected. These same states have since ratified all of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, along with the Congress, which was ELECTED. To say that, "the people" don't have a say in the Constitution only demonstrates a a deep and abiding ignorance of how the republican system works.
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I'm not at all certain that I would favor [a more perfect union]. The idea of a "perfect union" can be traced to Plato's Republic, which was his vision of a perfect society where everyone had a place in society and was to be under a captain at all times,
This is just a total non sequitur. There is no reference to Plato anywhere in the Constitution or in the writings of the founders about the Constitution. They were clearly referring here to improving upon the Articles of Confederacy, which were decidedly imperfect. Federalists and anti-Federalists could both agree that the Articles were inadequate in spelling out a federal government's powers.
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"establish justice,"
Now what does that mean? Establish means to found, to do something for the first time. This presupposes that there was no justice prior to the constitution. Apparently the writers of this instrument were going to "establish justice" for the first time for us. How kind of them.
Let's take this warped definition of establish and apply it to the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting the [founding of, for the first time] religion. As you can see, it's an utterly nonsensical definition and it's not what the founders meant by establish at all. He goes right on to misdefine justice as well. He's either stupid, or is being deliberately dishonest.
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"insure domestic tranquility,"
What does that mean? Insure is obvious, it means to guarantee, to make certain.
Tranquility is also obvious, we have pills for that. You can have tranquility through meditation and avoiding conflict.
Yes, because when the founders talked about tranquility, they were clearly referring to anti-depressants.
Quote1. Domestic as opposed to foreign in the sense of being within the borders of the United States as opposed to within the borders of the United Kingdom.
2. Domestic in the sense of inside somebody's home.
And both interpretations have been accepted. The US Federal Government, by this statement, has the power to interpose in your home to insure that you are tranquil. Well what if you don't want to be tranquil? In fact, why is tranquility something to be strived for at all?
So when the federal government refers to domestic policy, it means the inside of your house? Or could this possibly be a reference to Shay's Rebellion? Shay's Rebellion was an uprising of Revolutionary War veterans that threatened the stability of the United States because the Articles of Confederacy did not have a means by which the federal government could quickly muster troops to put the rebellion down. This was cited as a direct and immediate reason why the Philadelphia Convention needed to happen. Assuming they're referring to intervention in your house, ignores history and common sense.
Quote"provide for the common defense,"
What does that mean? Provide means to pay for. So the Federal Government is to pay for the common defense, how generous of them.
What is common defense? Well I suppose it is defense against any common danger. Now what are the common dangers? Well there would be dangers of invaders from abroad, bank robber, rapists, murderers, arsonists, theives, etc. - but there are many others.
Though other types of dangers could be a lack of work, education, money, opportunity, bad health, termites, rats, etc. Almost anything that exists could be viewed as a common danger. Does this authorize the state to intervene in these areas? Indeed it does, and indeed the government has.
Can you think of something that doesn't represent a common danger? Drinking too much water could drown you, taking too many aspirins could kill you, eating too much meat could give you a heart attack. There is nothing we are not in danger from. This gives the state wide open doors to provide against any danger, as long as we experience it on a common ground.
Again, this is blatant assertion on his part. If he'd even made a cursory check of what was meant by common defense he'd know exactly what the language means. The preamble does not give the power for the government to intervene in "these areas" and everybody with half a brain knows that. When was the last time the Supreme Court cited the fucking PREAMBLE as a justification for regulation of anything?
I could go on and on but the entire thing is like this so let's skip to the end:
QuoteAll language has to be interpreted, and will have some vagaries. This includes private contracts between two people. This is why private contracts can only be functional as a reminder of something explicitly agreed upon by two individuals. Now it is impossible for both parties to be in perfect harmony of understanding as to the agreement, and this disharmony will eventually manifest is some sort of conflict. Perhaps the contract can be referenced, but if the conflict persists they will have to consult a mediator. If the conflict still persists, then what? Well then both parties must break off the agreement.
No actually, contracts are specifically written to avoid language open to interpretation, especially when your interpretation is completely divorced from context, history or reality. Mediators serve not to interpret the language of a contract but to clarify it and enforce it, to figure out which of the parties is not living up to their obligations.
QuoteA state constitution is like a contract except that it is involuntary. So even if it were written to clearly limit the powers of the state (which the US constitution is NOT), if individuals cannot break off (which they can't in the US), then you are stuck with a contract that cannot be exited. And the result is an artificially high level of conflict, because the contract can't simply be exited as occurs in normal, sane human interaction, we are artificillay stuck in this contract and this leads to a STATIST level of conflict.
Again, the assertion that a document which had to be ratified, and which can be amended by the actions of the people is somehow involuntary is breathtakingly ignorant. Anyone who could call a document that specifically sets out to limit the power of government Statist just demonstrates that he has no idea what that word means either. This is embarrassing.
QuoteThe freedom to leave regulates behavior. State constitutions prevent leaving, and hence lack the primary means of regulation on a free market: freedom of association.
The free market doesn't rely on freedom to leave, it relies on protection of rights. It relies on protecting the market from the intervention of state and the expression of coercive power over possessions and thought. This is exactly what the Constitution was designed to do, it replaced an inadequate and dangerous system with one that guaranteed that protected property rights, took power out of the hands of legislatures and divided it among different branches of government, put in place mechanisms to change and refine the document, and explicitly laid out what the government could and could not do. This kind of interpretation of the constitution is just as dangerously stupid as ultra-liberal interpretations of the Constitution as some kind of living breathing entity which can be made to say whatever you want.
Alright, I finally developed the stomach to get back to this thread, read it, and post a reply.
Quote from: AHPMB on April 04, 2010, 08:26:43 AMYes actually, it is. The Constitution had to be ratified by the representatives of the various states, who were elected. These same states have since ratified all of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, along with the Congress, which was ELECTED. To say that, "the people" don't have a say in the Constitution only demonstrates a a deep and abiding ignorance of how the republican system works.
To be fair, just because they were elected doesn't mean that people gave their explicit consent.
Case in point: the wall street bailouts.
Also, even if every single sentient person living in the USA at that time had given his/her explicit consent, putting his/her signature on the Constitution and asking for clarification of what it means for them, it still wouldn't mean their decedents would agree.
Just like how I can run up a ton of debt, all voluntarily, but obviously if I put it all on my future son's tab, that would be an invalid contract simply because he couldn't have consented to such a thing.
As for the amendment process, I fail to see how trying to spent millions of dollars, and hundreds if not thousands of hours in a currently rigged system to get something changed that never should have been imposed on a person or people in the first place is hardly a solution.
Why not simply allow unlimited secession?
You could argue that if a person doesn't want to go through the hoops that he/she doesn't want it enough/hasn't consented, etc, but how is that any different from the socialists who say the same things about people going through hoops in bureaucracies?
Heck, he could have just pointed out that because there was compromise between the Federalists and the Nationalists, that there were taxes levied that, (last time I checked) were involuntary, and via the economic argument I made here (https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=465.0) regarding the imbalance of incentives and ripped the concept of a minimal state (what is apparently set up by the US Constitution) to pieces.
Yet despite all that, Fringeelements' point is still irrelevant.
As I already said, he's put too much emphasis on subtle language cues, that likely would never have existed back then, and is almost to the point of Alex Jones level conspiracy. As Shane demonstrated,
the proper way to interpret the constitution is via the meanings of words during the time of ratification. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mu8Z-E-BrI)
Also, the US Constitution applies to the government, not to you. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7qF0t_2xms) Heck, he even goes on about how the parts of the constitution that do allow or call for the initiation of force (or something to that effect) are illegitimate.
Hard as it might be for Fringeelements to believe, even the founding fathers would have agreed with the statement that he so often makes:
"We are not the state."
To add to my initial point:
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