Category Archives: Federalism

California’s Centrally Planned Neighborhoods

Federalism, Founding Fathers, Private Property, Regulation

Think Americans still live in the decentralized republic the Founding Fathers bequeathed? Think Americans benefit from a federal form of government, where control is local and residents get to decide about the character of the place they inhabit? Think again.

Consider California’s housing-supply law. If residents of a community don’t want to “develop” their corner of the world—if they wish to preserve the character of the place they call home—Big Brother Central Planner will make them.

Gavin Newsom, California’s new governor, is suing “Huntington Beach, a coastal city in Orange County, for failing to comply with the state’s housing-supply law.”

California has a severe shortage of affordable housing, and he wants to bring a sense of urgency to the problem. The state has the highest poverty rate in America when adjusted for the cost of living. One-third of renters pay more than half of their income towards rent, and homeownership rates in the state are at their lowest level since the 1940s.

The lawsuit against Huntington Beach is meant to be a warning shot to cities that they cannot stonewall development. Fifty years ago the state passed a “housing element” law requiring communities to plan for new housing for all income groups, based on forecasts for population growth. In 2017 the state legislature passed several bills to speed up housing development and approvals. Until recently many cities have not met their housing numbers but faced little consequence …

MORE: “Why California’s governor is suing Huntington Beach: Can a lawsuit compel upscale cities to build more housing?“

America Was Never Meant To Be A Raw, Ripe Democracy

Conservatism, Constitution, Democracy, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Natural Law

In the context of last week’s column against democracy, it’s important to remember that, “the reason the American democracy has been more successful than others is precisely because “the fathers of the American Republic devised an instrument of government unparalleled as a conservative power for ordered liberty.” (“The Conservative Mind” by Russell Kirk.)

Everything in the American Constitution was wisely designed to constrain raw democracy. A “great part of that accomplishment results from the wise conservatism of the Federal Constitution,” which avoids “the peril of a single assembly,” recognizes “the rights of several* states and the necessity for limiting the power of positive legislation.”

However, warned Kirk, the father of American conservatism, “[I]f there is a weak point anywhere in this “artificial reservoir,” “the mighty force which it controls will burst through it and spread destruction far and near.”

(“The Conservative Mind” by Russell Kirk, p. 335)

And so it has.

* The meaning of “several” in this sentence is “individual,” I believe.

** Image is of the guillotine, French democracy in action

Posse Comitatus? You’re Being Told That America Doesn’t Have Borders, So No Law Can Defend Her

Federalism, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Military, Neoconservatism, Secession, States' Rights

The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act: It’s the excuse parroted by almost everybody, Republicans included, for lack of vigorous military action against invaders on the border.

It took Ann Coulter to point out the obvious: “You can’t shoot … AMERICANS. You can shoot invaders.”

What on earth is The US Army for?

In effect, what you’re being told is, there is no law that’ll defend American borders.’

Or, America doesn’t have borders. Therefore, there is no law that can defend a de facto and de jure borderless country. And certainly some laws even prohibit a defense of America’s borders.

In truth, and according to the Congressional Research Service, as relayed by the Military Times, the Act means that “the U.S. military is not used to control or defeat American citizens on U.S. soil.”

The hordes amassed on the border with Mexico, rushing the port of entry in San Ysidro, Calif., are not Americans. They are not even very nice.

Posse Comitatus sets “limitation against active-duty U.S. forces conducting law enforcement on U.S. soil,” but watch how quickly military force will be used “to suppress insurrection or to enforce federal authority.”

Feeling free?

Why Liberals Hate The Original Constitutional Scheme

Constitution, Egalitarianism, Europe, Federalism, Founding Fathers

Liberals disapprove of the brilliant men “who wrote America’s constitution,” you know, the geniuses of the pale patriarchy.

Yes, concedes the Economist, the Senate was devised “to represent places, not people, and there is a case for that; other constitutions, such as Germany’s, look to ensure regional representation in their upper house.”

So far, so good.

But liberals want heavily populated cities and city slickers—they vote Democrat—to drown out rural people, who vote Republicans. So, for ensuring that “the largest states do not dominate the rest,” the Senate is considered bad by liberals. “[T]he constitution provides equal representation for all the states, large and small alike. This builds in an over-representation for people in small or sparsely populated places.”

That liberals can’t abide.

But for the electoral college liberals, who’re ignorant of any political theory other than egalitarianism, reserve the ugliest terms.

The “electoral college,” writes the Economist, is as system “that America’s founders jury-rigged in part to square the needs of democracy with the demography of slavery.”

Come again?

See: “The minority majority: America’s electoral system gives the Republicans advantages over Democrats,” July 12th 2018.