Sunday, January 13, 2008

Is Anything "Unconstitutional"?

In the comments to a previous blog, my friend ElfNinosMom stated that: "The Constitution created Congress, and gave Congress the power to make laws. One of those laws is the FECA, and the FEC was created by Congress to enforce and administer the FECA. It's therefore not illegal, and it's not unconstitutional."


That makes me ask: Using that yardstick, how could anything be unconstitutional?




So..... What of the Constitution? The current situation makes me think that it was a contract which one party, the US Government, broke unilaterally. I guess that means it "expired".


It is no secret that I don't think the Constitution is sacred. Either it created the current mess or it did nothing to prevent it. Anything in the Constitution that violates individual liberty is just as abhorent (and null and void) in my eyes as any edict from Osama or Napoleon. This is not a case of me making up my own rules, but of holding everyone, including myself, to the same standards of behavior.


The current government claims to get its authority from the Constitution. If that is the case, it should be held very strictly to the letter and intent of the law. No quibbling; no "interpreting", and no breaking the laws. After all, they demand the same of us with regards to all the millions upon millions of laws they claim apply to us. Right?





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13 comments:

  1. Wow, I'm famous now. ;-)

    Seriously, lots of things are unconstitutional. For example, if Congress were to enact a law which restricts one's right to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, that law would violate the First Amendment, and would therefore be unconstitutional.

    However, since there is nothing in the constitution which says elections can't be monitored by the government, the laws creating the FEC are constitutional.

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  2. Is there anything in the constitution against toppling the US government and replacing it with a federation of Anarchist communities?

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  4. I had to fix typos...!

    It seems to me that the FEC (and 99.99999% of the rest of the government) violates the Constitution's Amendment 9 (The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.) and Amendment 10 (The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.) just as clearly as an anti-FSM law would violate the relevent parts of Amendment 1 (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...). Otherwise, once again, you get into a situation where government can pretty much claim authority to do just about anything it wants.

    I have never read anything specifically prohibiting the establishment of a federation of Anarchist communities. I would say that the Decalration of Independence actually encourages such: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." The only government that can accomplish this is self government.

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  5. elfninosmom,
    Nothing in the Constitution says that elections ARE TO BE, or CAN be monitored by the government. Not listed, not enumerated as one of the powers of the federal government, not constitutional. You want it to be constitutional then amend the bloody piece of paper. Personally I think that any and all amendments ought to be passed only be a unanimous vote of all parties. That would help to keep the bloody thing simple, and would reduce the power of the majority from infringing on the minority.

    Yes, that means that the FDA, EPA, USDA etc... are not constitutional.

    Congress is in existence to enact laws that fall within the boundaries of the constitution.

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  6. I knew you were, Francois.

    I think in the case of your federation, that is a legitmiate action because the Constitution was violated by the US government. Now the freedom lovers need to say "Next!" and do whatever is necessary for the personal liberty we have been told is our heritage.

    You can read the Constitution as I have done. It speaks of "treason", which I have no doubt the US government would claim was being committed if a federation of Anarchist communities were established here. Yet, the way I see it, treason is what the US government has been committing since its inception.

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  7. If an Anarchist Federation is more constitutional than the War in Iraq, that's kindof ironic isn't it?

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  8. If you read through the Constitution it is disheartening how unfamiliar the government described seems.

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  9. I still think Kent should be utilizing 'illegitimate' laws as opposed to 'illegal' laws. Something cannot be A and not A. I'm sure Mr. Tremblay can substantiate such epistemological underpinnings (Aristotle right?). I'm enjoying 'But Who Will Build the Roads ?' btw . . .

    Keep in mind that judicial review has a very large role in all of this.

    Bruce Ackerman of Yale has a great book about how this unfolded in his book "The Failure of the Founding Fathers". He outlines the idea that the Federalists were in fact retrenching during the Jefferson years and could not really invoke judicial review until almost twenty years after Marbury v. Madison.

    Viewing the Constitution as some immutable force of logic or morality inevitably fails when confronted with the reality of the legal and American culture. It has become a dogmatic and moldable piece of paper. Patrick Henry opposed the adoption of the Constitution. It only passed by three votes in Convention in NY. Madison didn't even want it to go to the people to vote ! Admittedly qualifications to elect reps and even the vote thereof were less for this particular event. Couldn't piss the guys who were just shooting and dying for you too much. See "America's Constitution - A Biography" by Akhil Reed Amar for a great history of the document.

    While there may be no provision for toppling the government, the absence of such provision is generally not considered an adequate substitute for the replacement project (sigh - in the minds of the trained statists anyway), whether its Mormons or anarchists.

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  10. That these "laws" are counterfeit goes without saying. I am just trying to show that even using their own rules they are cheating.

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  11. My own position is that the Constitution is invalid. I don't have any legal training, but Lysander Spooner did, and he made the case far better than I ever could!

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  12. Training ? Training is for bureaucrats FT. I'm surprised you are so pliant about such matters.

    I did do a year of law school and frequently read theory and history that is not part of that curriculum. The legal culture is rarely inured with what is right or wrong. Some would say that's the role of the Supreme Court, but that frequently fails unless something ground breaking like Roe v. Wade or Brown v. the Board. Even then, they argue and struggle over matters of precedent and tradition then any real moral compass based on an underlying philosophy.

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