So, whose Constitution is it anyway????
Who the hell are We the People? Who appointed political parties to be in control of anything?
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
You perhaps recognize that sentence as the preamble to the constitution of the federal government of the USA. I did a little homework before writing this, and was not surprised to find out that preambles were fairly normal to legal documents at that time. The preamble explains the ‘why’ for the existence of the ‘what’ of the document. So, we have the constitutional preamble which tells us why they went to the trouble of creating a constitution in the first place.
That all seems to make sense, but there are issues. Who, exactly, are We the People? Is it the Indians? Decidedly not. Indian nations were recognized as having their own governments, apart from white government. Sure, it’s convoluted now, but remember that, at the time, North America was very sparsely populated by any sort of humans. The entire North American population of humans might not have been as large as just the population of New York City today. Additionally, until there was a central government as specified in the constitution, governments were local. So Indian settlements in and amongst white settlements could have their own governments without being too confusing to anyone. Apart from the thirteen new states, there were vast territories to the west that were marginally known. Mostly, in those regions, it was wild and unsettled. There were governments in name only.
‘We the People’ didn’t include Indians. Did it include black slaves? Did it include women, considering that they generally had no vote? Frankly, there is no answer to that question. In 1787, when the constitution was ratified, such questions weren’t in need of any immediate answer. After all, ratifying a constitution that authorized a federal government didn’t mean they HAD a federal government. It took many years before the federal government amounted to much. They were at least a century away from having anything resembling today’s top-heavy central government.
‘We the People’. Yes, that’s a little confusing, because nobody ever really said who those people are. In fact, and I just learned this in my research, some at the constitutional convention objected to the term. Patrick Henry said,
“Who authorized them to speak the language of We, the People, instead of We, the States? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great, consolidated, national government, of the people of all the states.”
WOW!!! I always knew that the constitution was created and ratified by the STATES and not We the People. I always knew that the states wanted full, direct control of the central government, but I didn’t realize that Mr. Patrick ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ Henry was so adamant.
And the preamble that we have was not the first version. Here’s the first version:
“We the People of the States of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, and Georgia, do ordain, declare and establish the following Constitution for the Government of Ourselves and our Posterity.”
That’s right; it was made clear that the states controlled the central government, but We the People controlled the states. When you think about it, that makes sense. Keep in mind that there is no United America, there is the United States of America. Plural. Not one country, but many. The USA is frequently referred to as the Union. Where else do we hear that term? Oh, yeah, the European Union. It is a confederation of 27 European countries, such as France, Germany, Italy, etc. Does the central government of the European Union get to dictate the internal policies of individual nations? No, it does not. The central government of the EU cannot dictate to the individual states any abortion law, education law, healthcare law, pension plan, or retirement plan. THAT is how it’s supposed to be in the USA. THAT was the intention.
Oh, but France is a country and Ohio is a state. OK, so what’s the difference? Essentially, there isn’t one. An area with reasonably well defined borders with an autonomous government can be called either a state or a country. And, no, size is irrelevant. An area with defined borders, but with another government that has authority over the local government, is a province, as they have in France and Canada.
OK, so, if you didn’t know it before, you now know that the federal government in Washington DC is operating almost entirely outside of its constitutional mandates. And Patrick Henry is NOT pleased. Neither am I. How did it get that way? Why did the states let this happen? Because our elected officials in each state stopped representing the people who elected them, and started supporting political parties, instead.
There have been various permutations, but today’s two parties have fairly direct lineage going back to the very beginnings of our federal government. And they have been grabbing for power the entire time. The sickening part is, the two parties have NO governmental authority whatsoever. NONE! But they have the power, because they wanted it, and we did not stop them.
Maine’s governor recently signed a bill that commits Maine’s electors to vote in snyc with the entire nation’s popular vote. Sound good? Maine will make its own people irrelevant! No matter how We the People of Maine vote in a presidential election, the electors will vote in accordance with how the people of the USA voted. Only trouble is, the USA is not a country, it is a federation, a Union of countries. Maine’s electors are now committed to voting for a president who might NOT be who the people of Maine wanted. Why would anyone even WANT to do that to Maine? Anyone who wanted their political party to have more power than legitimate governments, that’s who. And other governors in other states are doing the same. They are all democrats.
The democratic party has recently been winning the popular vote in presidential elections, but not the electoral vote. They think that’s unfair. What’s unfair is that ANY political party would attempt to usurp a constitution that was intended to keep states in control of the central government, and not the other way around. Two states, CA and NY, have immense control over the federal government because of their number of representatives in congress. They are both ruled with an iron fist by the democratic party. Here’s some names of people from those two states that you may have heard of: Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Chuck Schumer, Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters. This is a rogue’s gallery of people who control the democratic party in DC. These people, from just two states, think it’s unfair that the other 48 states get input into who the president will be. Their governors, who have sworn to uphold the constitutions of their states, and who have no governmental obligation to a political party, have sold out.
Ironically, I think we’re at the cusp of a vast shift in political leanings. These governors may have unwittingly committed their electoral votes to the republican presidential candidates. Whether that happens or not, if we want government by We the People, we must first regain state sovereignty over the federal government. That’s the way it was designed; it works for the European Union. The two political parties have no concern with destroying this Union, as long as they get to be in control while it happens.
Comments?
Geographically defined jurisdictions are obsolescent. We the people, regardless of whether we are physically sitting in Ohio or France, spend more and more of our time and energy in this digital space that you and I mentally occupy right now. The word "virtual" in this context is denial of reality.
Terrestrial governments will go the way of county government in Massachusetts. No one knows what Massachusetts county governments do besides invisibly consume a portion of our "state" tax.
Norfolk County Agricultural School still exists to train farmers in a suburban Boston county that has practically no farms left; it's just another part of the anachronism that is geographically defined jurisdiction. Norfolk Aggie will be around for another hundred years, providing a sinecure for school administrators who are confident in the knowledge that everyone's too busy writing and commenting on blogs to bother to ask questions.