Category Archives: Federalism

Confederation Of Knaves Votes ‘On The Major Issue of the Age’

Federalism, History, Intelligence, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Liberty, Race, Regulation, The State

The confederation of knaves is the California legislature. The pressing issue it has decided to tackle relates not at all to the following signs of “degradation and decline” in “the lost commonwealth on the Pacific,” as described by historian Clyde Wilson:

Public spending and debt have reached catastrophic levels unmanageable by a society of self-centered individuals and interest groups. Gang warfare dominates the urban jungle. The state doubtless leads the Union in … perverts, dopesters, and aborted children. Hollywood, once a source of pleasant diversions, now pollutes not only the U.S. but the entire world with pornography, nihilistic violence, and, what is worse, bad taste. The Terminator and various other flakes have been elected governor. Productive citizens are fleeing east and north by the thousands. If illegal aliens are not counted California is losing population for the first time in a century and a half of American settlement.

Rather, the “looming threat to human progress” that was banished from gangland is the Confederate flag, “(Though apparently the Hammer & Sickle, the Swastika, and Che Guevara and Black Power fists are still welcome) …”

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Where’s America’s Right To Referendum, Secession?

Federalism, Foreign Policy, Liberty, Military, Multiculturalism, Neoconservatism, Political Correctness, Russia

“Where’s America’s Right To Referendum, Secession?” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

From a node in the neoconservative network, a Fox News studio, Charles Krauthammer has complained about the eviction of the Ukrainian Navy from the city of Sevastopol, where it was headquartered. Not a word did the commentator say about the city’s location: Sevastopol is on the Crimean Peninsula. It would appear that the city now falls within Crimean jurisdiction—starting on March 16, the day the people of Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine.

By most estimates, between 97 and 93 percent of Crimean voters said yes to a reunion with Russia. High too was voter turnout. McClatchy pegs it at 83 percent of registered voters in Crimea. BBC News was agreed, also reporting a ballot of ‘more than 80 percent.’ Zerohedge.com counted a ‘paltry’ 73 percent turnout, still ‘higher than every U.S. presidential election since 1900.’

As rocker Ted Nugent might say, the Russians and Crimeans are blood brothers. Nugent got into trouble for using this perfectly proper appellation to describe his affinity for a politician, of all people: Texas Republican gubernatorial hopeful Greg Abbott. Notwithstanding that in the land of the terminally stupid, linguistic flourish can land one in hot water—blood brother is a good, if colorful, turn of phrase that denotes fealty between like-minded people. Steeped in state-enforced multiculturalism, America’s deracinated, self-anointed cognoscenti have a hard time grasping the blood-brother connections between the people of Russia and Crimea.

For no apparent reason other than that it is pro-Russian, Americans have reflexively aligned themselves against the swell for secession in southern Ukraine. Separatist referenda in Kosovo, Catalonia, South Sudan and Scotland have been accepted without demur by a political and media establishment unprepared to countenance a similar referendum in Crimea. …”

… Read on. The complete column is “Where’s America’s Right To Referendum, Secession?” now on WND.

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Bad Dreams From Dinesh D’Souza*

Federalism, Founding Fathers, Neoconservatism, States' Rights

What if Lincoln had not won the War of Northern Aggression?

According to the quintessential neoconservative, filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, had Lincoln lost, America would not be America. By which D’Souza means that the “union would not have existed. And America would be completely different.”

The Anti-Federalists warned that the creation of a national government would sunder the autonomous states and usher in an empire.

Indeed, if not for Lincoln, the US might have reverted back to a decentralized confederation of sovereign states (and slavery would have ended without bloodshed, as it did almost everywhere else).

“While a national government will add to the dignity and splendor of the United States,” wrote “A Farmer” (an anonymous anti-Federalist), in March of 1788, “true happiness lies in a simple quiet government.”

Before consolidation under the Constitution, Americans hardly had a government.

If only…

* Dreams from My Father is a book by Barack Obama.

The Talented Mr. Turley

Constitution, Federalism, History, Law, libertarianism

I find myself having to often defend against libertarian critique of my interest in the U.S. Constitution and the history of the republic. (Yes, imagine making excuses for intellectual curiosity.) I’m fascinated by it all. The disdain for American constitutional history among some libertarians seems to stem from laziness, which has invariably fed an attitude that treats the non-aggression axiom as if it materialized magically, and was handed down to the faithful at a Mount-Sinai like event, rather than from “the nit and the grit of the history and culture from which it emerged,” in the words of Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.

It’s pitiful that one should have to defend against an incurious, ahistorical mindset. Nevertheless, I plead guilty of an interest in Jonathan Turley’s February 26, 2014 remarks to the Committee on the Judiciary, of the United States House of Representatives, even though, as a libertarian, I most certainly do not identify with their impetus: “Enforcing the President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws.”

Most of what the government does is either naturally illicit, immoral or both. If a president arose who refused to enforce MOST of our laws; I’d cheer him on. And one can hardly accuse the Judiciary of not doing much, as Turley does. The opposite is the case: there are no means to punish the Bench for its infractions (such as Zero Care).

Still and all, Turley is interesting (I apologized for my interest, did I not?), and he writes beautifully, using some marvelous analogies:

… We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis with sweeping implications for our system of government. There has been a massive gravitational shift of authority to the Executive Branch that threatens
the stability and functionality of our tripartite system. To be sure, this shift did not begin with President Obama. However, it has accelerated at an alarming rate under this Administration. These changes are occurring in a political environment with seemingly little oxygen for dialogue, let alone compromise. Indeed, the current
anaerobic conditions are breaking down the muscle of the constitutional
system that protects us all. Of even greater concern is the fact that the other two branches appear passive, if not inert, as the Executive Branch has assumed such power. As someone who voted for President Obama and agrees with many of his policies, it is often hard to separate the ends from the means of presidential action. Indeed, despite decades of thinking and writing about the separation of powers, I have had momentary lapses where I privately rejoiced in seeing actions on goals that I share, even though they
were done in the circumvention of Congress.

There is no license in our system to act, as President Obama has promised, “with or without Congress” in these areas. During periods of political division, compromise is clearly often hard to come by. That reflects a divided country as a whole. Such opposition cannot be the justification for circumvention of the legislative branch. Otherwise, the separation of powers would only be respected to the extent that it
serves to ratify the wishes of a president …

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