Things have been pretty dead around this blog lately and I'm not sure if that's good news or bad news.
Speaking only for myself, and not all of this site's contributers, I thrive on critiquing court decisions that I believe ignore the rule of Law in the interests of furthering the favored idealism of the justices. That there has been a dearth of such court decisions recently is good for the survival of consent over tyranny, but bad for inspiration for posting cool blog entries.
So, I'm going to make a rather selfish request of all those State and Federal courts out there -- 9th Curcuit, I'm looking in your direction... -- to, please, make with some whacky court decisions already! Have you all gone sensible on us?!
Rule that NAMBLA is as legitimate as UNICEF. Or that Russians have a long unnoticed Constitutional right to U.S. Medicare benefits. Anything!
You could claim that Pat Buchanan won the 2000 election or that saying "bless you" after someone sneezes is not protected speech. Throw me a bone, I'm dyin' here!
Go Here and find the comfort you seek.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at February 6, 2004 10:44 PMOnce the effects of Peak Oil permeate and reverberate throughout the land, and the sheeple wake up from their opiate of choice (religion? TV? Consumerism? Eating? Staying warm? Staying cool?), it'll probably be too late.
The "Intelligence Failures" you keep hearing about are yet another cruel hoax upon We The People (IOW, it's OUR intelligence failure, not "theirs"...! We're too stupid to notice what's going on.).
I studied physics, not political 'science', and I'm here to tell you that "hijackers" were neither necessary (http://www.boeing.com/commercial/757family/200back/back4.html) nor sufficient (http://www.justiceforwoody.org/re911/papers/volumev3.html) to account for the massive damage to the World Trade Center on 9/11/01.
12/2000 was a judicial coup d'etat and 9/11 was a military coup d'etat and still no one in the USA seems to have noticed -- there remain too few of us who have to matter. (Must we as individuals suck it up and find the courage and wisdom to communicate with the Ned Flanders of the world 1-on-1?)
http://users.adelphia.net/~earthwatch/
Whatever, dude.
Spork, I'll post something up soon...anybody else?
Posted by: Noel at February 13, 2004 05:37 PMRe: An urgent plea for insanity (Feb.6 2004)
OK, I am slowly going nuts here, so try chewing on this...
May I take the liberty of suggesting a provision of the U.S. Constitution grievously in need of revision?
This country was founded on certain basic principles, one being that:
"...governments are instituted among men - - deriving their just powers from the **consent** of the governed."
(** my emphasis).
In the passage of the Declaratory Act in 1766, the British Parliament asserted "full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, **in all cases whatsoever**."
(**my emphasis).
This contravened the basic first principle of democracy, that power resides in the people, since the colonies were not even represented in the British Parliament. Ten years later, the colonists revolted against such an unwarranted assertion of power. Thomas Paine said it well:
“Britain [read Congress?], with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right(not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is mpious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.”
Unfortunately, ten years later, the Founding Fathers, in their rush to design a new government, failed to note that, in writing the U.S. Constitution, they were subjecting the denizens of the new nation’s capital to the same sort of colonial status they had recently overthrown, when they similarly asserted Congress’ right (U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 17, the so-called "District Clause") to exercise exclusive jurisdiction, also **in all cases whatsoever**, over the (un-represented) residents of Washington, DC. (**my emphasis**)
Where were the guiding “first principles” such as “just power derives from the consent of the governed” when this provision was written? Had they forgotten so soon the rallying cry of the Revolution, “Taxation without representation is tyranny”?
The truth is that they are not the only ones who have overlooked the God-given rights of denizens of the nation’s capital. Over the years,
through more than 200 years now, that unjust situation has persisted. Some Americans have occasionally given the matter lip-service, but nothing substantial has yet been done to right this grievous injustice.
In the current situation, the district known as Washington DC is not truly a part of the nation formed by the 50 United States. Rather, the District, and the more than half a million souls inhabiting it (as large as many Congressional Districts and more populous than the State of Wyoming), are in effect a colony of the fifty united states, a place separate and unequal, unrepresented at the national table, voiceless in national debates, and voteless in national decisions.
This situation creates in DC a colonial mentality, a mentality that saps the native energy of the local population, making them dependent on others for their subsistence. As de Tocqueville might have said, "it does not tyrannize, (so much as) it hinders, compromises,
enervates, extinguishes, dazes,..."
“Nor have We [DC denizens] been wanting in attention to our [American] brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”
OR, we could, in fairness, justice and equity, permit the denizens (can't really call them citizens, until they are treated as such ) of the District to exercise their God-given rights to both representation at the national table, and local self -rule.
I suggest an amendment to clarify the Constitution, giving Americans living in the District equal representation in the House and Senate, and full local self-rule. Concerns about control over the seat of national government could be assuaged by making any local self-rule provisions in the District subject to over-ride by a vote of, shall we say, two-thirds of both houses? (It currently requires only a simple majority for the Congress to muck up local DC affairs). This would reasonably protect the principle of "consent of the governed", while allowing the American nation as a whole to over-ride local DC decisions, but only when clearly necessary for the compelling national interest.
What say you?
Posted by: gwenham at February 16, 2004 08:43 AMhttp://www.jellybean.com
Posted by: Jelly Bean at November 2, 2005 10:54 PM