Submitted by Kibitzer on November 5, 2008 – 8:04pm.
He talked about how the Constitution is all about “negative liberties” – ie, what the state can’t do to the individual, deprive you of free speech, etc. But he bemoaned the fact that it never referred to “what the federal government must do on your behalf”.
This is why I’m not so sure that he actually sees the Constitution as the framework on which the government is based…and it’s limitations as well. This is pretty much what I was afraid of.
He (and others like him) seen to think of the limits placed on their actions within their tenure in office as “an “obstacle”… The entire idea of the Constitution as a “living document”, meaning it has a certain “flexibility” makes me cringe every time I hear or read it somewhere.
The very fact that this man stands for a forced redistribution of wealth, and is seemingly willing to encourage the ascension of activist judges to the bench, scares the daylights out of me where it concerns the rule of law, and the “Big Brother” factor in the daily life of the average citizen of this country.
At the end of the day, I have to ask just what it is going to take to get a Federal Government that is out of my bedroom, out of my wallet, out of my personal business, and committed to respecting the Constitutional rights of the citizenry of the country by way of conducting themselves within the non-negotiable (read as non malleable) constraints of the the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
These documents are not a series of “polite suggestions”…rather the basis of the conduct of governance in this country.
The idea of these documents being politely, and willfully ignored by both those that govern in OUR name, and those that are governed by their consent, leaves me crossed eyed in frustration…When did it become O.K. to be a sheeple?
Submitted by Kibitzer on November 5, 2008 – 8:04pm.
And he seems to have a very decided attitude about it, as – in the parlance of many liberals – being ‘a living document’. Or wishful-thinking it is. Or making it so. And therein lies a grave danger to the American republic, and its enthronement of the basic concept of liberty.
This country is in trouble. Bush as Cheney’s “foil”, was a danger to this country right from day one…So HOW we ever survived eight years of of his “misadministration” is still a serious cause for surprise in my view…and even now in the closing days of his personal agenda for the dismantlement of the country, I think he’s still ~very~ dangerous…with Cheney even more so…
Yet the stunningly open Socialism that the President elect is espousing, is equally, dangerous to the preservations of the few rights and liberties yet to be abrogated or simply trampled into the dirt by an executive branch so far out of control that I fear that there is no possible way to bring them back to heel.
Equally guilty in this are “We the People”, for it is ourselves that have allowed this to happen through a collective apathy so great in its scope as to leave the path open, the gate unguarded, and a giant poster at the portal that says: “Please abuse me”, where once the path was guarded, the gate barred, that the poster read: “Don’t tread on me”…so what happened?.
I fear for the country. I fear for our legally enshrined rights and freedoms. I fear for “We the People” as the true seat of power in this country.
Submitted by Kibitzer on November 5, 2008 – 8:04pm.
Unless he chooses to go flat-out for Marxism/socialism; perhaps under the rubric, as in Europe, of ‘social democracy’; which presumably is less statist than ‘democratic socialism’. Either way, it is going to set up a battle with those in America who want to stay with the Constitution, and its built-in limitation against the collectivist way of thinking. Thus a constitutional crisis is looming. It may well be less challenging to the social order than the way the neocons and other New World Order zealots were trying to get rid of that block to their agenda – by creating a crisis that would allow them to declare Martial Law, and thus suspend that goddamn piece of paper. But it is still – would be – a challenge to the established order of things. And would thus incur reaction.
I agree. I think at the very least, we’re looking at the catalyst for a Constitutional convention, at best…At the worst…a forced “conversion” to a completely subjugated populace that will enjoy “privileges” at the will and whim of a totalitarian regime known as the the the Federal Government.
As far as I can see, we’re headed quickly to one extreme or the other sooner than most people are prepared for, or believe possible.
It will be very interesting to see the reaction once the “honeymoon” is over, and the realization of just what they’ve done dawns on the populace.
Admittedly I could be entirely wrong. It is possible that the part of the voting populace that votes themselves “things”, or “benefits”, or whatever you choose to call it, manage to carry the day, and the Republic simply slides away into the night without notice, and we will have crossed over into the “Sheeple Zone” with no way back. Hard to say really.
M Terry.
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
~George Washington
