Happy 222nd B-day United States Constitution! | |
S.I.A. User ID: 741073 United States 09/17/2009 01:00 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | You can search all the threads and one in particular, I had shared with the OP or someone in that thread the fact that since I was 16 that's 1990, i have been seeing the number 222. Sure enough, here it is again. It must have significance on an synchronistic level. No? |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 763527 Argentina 09/17/2009 01:01 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Mr. Whitey
(OP) User ID: 529821 United States 09/17/2009 01:02 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | You can search all the threads and one in particular, I had shared with the OP or someone in that thread the fact that since I was 16 that's 1990, i have been seeing the number 222. Sure enough, here it is again. It must have significance on an synchronistic level. No? Quoting: S.I.A. 741073Yes. We are all going to die today. If you force me to do violence, I shall be so savage and so cruel, and hurt you so badly that the thought of revenge shall never cross your mind. -Machiavelli There is nothing more real than a man’s character and values. The track record of what he has actually done is far more real than anything he says, however elegantly he says it. -Thomas Sowell Rep. Paul Ryan's [R-WI] 'A Roadmap For America's Future': [link to www.americanroadmap.org] |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 667248 United States 09/17/2009 01:02 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Zerocyber User ID: 648354 United States 09/17/2009 01:04 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted." Question: What is Congress is itself the traitor? Can they Punish themselves? They Comfort the enemy on a daily basis. The proof is in thier voting records. They have given aid to those that have broken our laws countless times, (one example, widely known- ACORN.) But yes, I love the Constitution, and I believe it will out live our Congress, our President, and our very (potential, or actually) grandchildren's lives. Or, atleast I hope it will. :'( |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 763527 Argentina 09/17/2009 01:05 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 772172 United States 09/17/2009 01:19 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Article 1, Section 3, Clause 1&2. Quoting: Zerocyber 648354"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted." Question: What is Congress is itself the traitor? Can they Punish themselves? They Comfort the enemy on a daily basis. The proof is in thier voting records. They have given aid to those that have broken our laws countless times, (one example, widely known- ACORN.) But yes, I love the Constitution, and I believe it will out live our Congress, our President, and our very (potential, or actually) grandchildren's lives. Or, atleast I hope it will. :'( We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness; That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it and institute a 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. |
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Anonymous Coward User ID: 772254 United States 09/17/2009 01:30 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
ExhaleAeonVolts
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ExhaleAeonVolts
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Anonymous Coward User ID: 763527 Argentina 09/17/2009 01:37 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
XSog User ID: 772951 United States 09/17/2009 01:42 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
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Anonymous Coward User ID: 772254 United States 09/17/2009 01:51 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | it was put into a comma in the mid 1800s and for all intensive purposes died in 1913 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 391254:( Some worship government, literally. Their supreme council is located there, like Mecca or the Vatican. [link to nmazca.com] |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 667248 United States 09/17/2009 01:52 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 755952 Canada 09/17/2009 01:53 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Wake up America. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 763527Say it with me now brothers and sisters .. "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." God bless you and may God bless America. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 731551 United States 09/17/2009 01:56 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Article 1, Section 3, Clause 1&2. Quoting: Zerocyber 648354"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted." Question: What is Congress is itself the traitor? Can they Punish themselves? They Comfort the enemy on a daily basis. The proof is in thier voting records. They have given aid to those that have broken our laws countless times, (one example, widely known- ACORN.) But yes, I love the Constitution, and I believe it will out live our Congress, our President, and our very (potential, or actually) grandchildren's lives. Or, atleast I hope it will. :'( Do your homework. The Constitution has essentially been without balls since the 14th Amendment was given a second glance and half a million Americans were killed to ensure it. Successive Acts continued on through the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1933 where if you didn't realize it before, you did then.....the Constitution is a faint memory. Freedom was exchanged for this thing called U.S. Citizenship. Yeah, that's right prior to the mid 1800s there was no such thing. But what does it all mean? Today we are only reminiscing about the balls that were once there and speak of how virulent and capable they [were]. NONE ARE SO HOPELESSLY ENSLAVED AS THOSE WHO FALSELY BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE FREE - GOETHE |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 755952 Canada 09/17/2009 02:11 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | The Meaning Of The Constitution September 16, 2009 by Edwin Meese III WebMemo #2616 An excerpt from The Heritage Guide to the Constitution The Constitution of the United States has endured for over two centuries. It remains the object of reverence for nearly all Americans and an object of admiration by peoples around the world. William Gladstone was right in 1878 when he described the U.S. Constitution as "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." Part of the reason for the Constitution's enduring strength is that it is the complement of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration provided the philosophical basis for a government that exercises legitimate power by "the consent of the governed," and it defined the conditions of a free people, whose rights and liberty are derived from their Creator. The Constitution delineated the structure of government and the rules for its operation, consistent with the creed of human liberty proclaimed in the Declaration. Justice Joseph Story, in his Familiar Exposition of the Constitution (1840), described our Founding document in these terms: We shall treat [our Constitution], not as a mere compact, or league, or confederacy, existing at the mere will of any one or more of the States, during their good pleasure; but, (as it purports on its face to be) as a Constitution of Government, framed and adopted by the people of the United States, and obligatory upon all the States, until it is altered, amended, or abolished by the people, in the manner pointed out in the instrument itself. By the diffusion of power--horizontally among the three separate branches of the federal government, and vertically in the allocation of power between the central government and the states--the Constitution's Framers devised a structure of government strong enough to ensure the nation's future strength and prosperity but without sufficient power to threaten the liberty of the people. The Constitution and the government it establishes "has a just claim to [our] confidence and respect," George Washington wrote in his Farewell Address (1796), because it is "the offspring of our choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers uniting security with energy, and containing, within itself, a provision for its own amendment." The Constitution was born in crisis, when the very existence of the new United States was in jeopardy. The Framers understood the gravity of their task. As Alexander Hamilton noted in the general introduction to The Federalist, [A]fter an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal govern ment, [the people] are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the Union, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. Several important themes permeated the completed draft of the Constitution. The first, reflecting the mandate of the Declaration of Independence, was the recognition that the ultimate authority of a legitimate government depends on the consent of a free people. Thomas Jefferson had set forth the basic principle in his famous formulation: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That "all men are created equal" means that they are equally endowed with unalienable rights. Nature does not single out who is to govern and who is to be governed; there is no divine right of kings. Nor are rights a matter of legal privilege or the benevolence of some ruling class. Fundamental rights exist by nature, prior to government and conventional laws. It is because these individual rights are left unsecured that governments are instituted among men. Consent is the means by which equality is made politically operable and whereby arbitrary power is thwarted. The natural standard for judging if a government is legitimate is whether that government rests on the consent of the governed. Any political powers not derived from the consent of the governed are, by the laws of nature, illegitimate and hence unjust. The "consent of the governed" stands in contrast to "the will of the majority," a view more current in European democracies. The "consent of the governed" describes a situation where the people are self-governing in their communities, religions, and social institutions, and into which the government may intrude only with the people's consent. There exists between the people and limited government a vast social space in which men and women, in their individual and corporate capacities, may exercise their self-governing liberty. In Europe, the "will of the majority" signals an idea that all decisions are ultimately political and are routed through the government. Thus, limited government is not just a desirable objective; it is the essential bedrock of the American polity. A second fundamental element of the Constitution is the concept of checks and balances. As James Madison famously wrote in The Federalist No. 51, In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to controul the governed; and in the next place oblige it to controul itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary controul on the government; but experience has taught mankind necessity of auxiliary precautions. These "auxiliary precautions" constitute the improved science of politics offered by the Framers and form the basis of their "Republican remedy for the diseases most incident to Republican Government" (The Federalist No. 10). The "diseases most incident to Republican Government" were basically two: democratic tyranny and democratic ineptitude The first was the problem of majority faction, the abuse of minority or individual rights by an "interested and overbearing" majority. The second was the problem of making a democratic form of government efficient and effective. The goal was limited but energetic government. The constitutional object was, as the late constitutional scholar Herbert Storing said, "a design of government with the powers to act and a structure to make it act wisely and responsibly." The particulars of the Framers' political science were catalogued by Madison's celebrated collaborator in The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton. Those particulars included such devices as representation, bicameralism, independent courts of law, and the "regular distribution of powers into distinct departments;' as Hamilton put it in The Federalist No. 9; these were "means, and powerful means, by which the excellencies of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided." Central to their institutional scheme was the principle of separation of powers. As Madison bluntly put it in The Federalist No. 47, the "preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct," for, as he also wrote, "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." Madison described in The Federalist No. 51 how structure and human nature could be marshaled to protect liberty: [T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. Thus, the separation of powers frustrates designs for power and at the same time creates an incentive to collaborate and cooperate, lessening conflict and concretizing a practical community of interest among political leaders. Equally important to the constitutional design was the concept of federalism. At the Constitutional Convention there was great concern that an overreaction to the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation might produce a tendency toward a single centralized and all-powerful national government. The resolution to such fears was, as Madison described it in The Federalist, a government that was neither wholly federal nor wholly national but a composite of the two. A half-century later, Alexis de Tocqueville would celebrate democracy in America as precisely the result of the political vitality spawned by this "incomplete" national government. The institutional design was to divide sovereignty between two different levels of political entities, the nation and the states. This would prevent an unhealthy concentration of power in a single government. It would provide, as Madison said in The Federalist No. 51, a "double security. .. to the rights of the people." Federalism, along with separation of powers, the Framers thought, would be the basic principled matrix of American constitutional liberty. "The different governments;' Madison concluded, "will controul each other; at the same time that each will be controulled by itself." But institutional restraints on power were not all that federalism was about. There was also a deeper understanding--in fact, a far richer understanding--of why federalism mattered. When the delegates at Philadelphia convened in May 1787 to revise the ineffective Articles of Confederation, it was a foregone conclusion that the basic debate would concern the proper role of the states. Those who favored a diminution of state power, the Nationalists, saw unfettered state sovereignty under the Articles as the problem; not only did it allow the states to undermine congressional efforts to govern, it also rendered individual rights insecure in the hands of "interested and overbearing majorities." Indeed, Madison, defending the Nationalists' constitutional handiwork, went so far as to suggest in The Federalist No. 51 that only by way of a "judicious modification" of the federal principle was the new Constitution able to remedy the defects of popular, republican government. The view of those who doubted the political efficacy of the new Constitution was that good popular government depended quite as much on a political community that would promote civic or public virtue as on a set of institutional devices designed to check the selfish impulses of the majority As Herbert Storing has shown, this concern for community and civic virtue tempered and tamed somewhat the Nationalists' tendency toward simply a large nation. Their reservations, as Storing put it, echo still through our political history.[1] It is this understanding, that federalism can contribute to a sense of political community and hence to a kind of public spirit, that is too often ignored in our public discussions about federalism. But in a sense, it is this understanding that makes the American experiment in popular government truly the novel undertaking the Framers thought it to be. At bottom, in the space left by a limited central government, the people could rule themselves by their own moral and social values, and call on local political institutions to assist them. Where the people, through the Constitution, did consent for the central government to have a role, that role would similarly be guided by the people's sense of what was valuable and good as articulated through the political institutions of the central government. Thus, at its deepest level popular government means a structure of government that rests not only on the consent of the governed, but also on a structure of government wherein the views of the people and their civic associations can be expressed and translated into public law and public policy, subject, of course, to the limits established by the Constitution. Through deliberation, debate, and compromise, a public consensus is formed about what constitutes the public good. It is this consensus on fundamental principles that knits individuals into a community of citizens. And it is the liberty to determine the morality of a community that is an important part of our liberty protected by the Constitution. The Constitution is our most fundamental law. It is, in its own words, "the supreme Law of the Land." Its translation into the legal rules under which we live occurs through the actions of all government entities, federal and state. The entity we know as "constitutional law" is the creation not only of the decisions of the Supreme Court, but also of the various Congresses and of the President. Yet it is the court system, particularly the decisions of the Supreme Court, that most observers identify as providing the basic corpus of "constitutional law." This body of law, this judicial handiwork, is, in a fundamental way, unique in our scheme, for the Court is charged routinely, day in and day out, with the awesome task of addressing some of the most basic and most enduring political questions that face our nation. The answers the Court gives are very important to the stability of the law so necessary for good government. But as constitutional historian Charles Warren once noted, what is most important to remember is that "however the Court may interpret the provisions of the Constitution, it is still the Constitution which is the law, not the decisions of the Court."[2] By this, of course, Warren did not mean that a constitutional decision by the Supreme Court lacks the character of binding law. He meant that the Constitution remains the Constitution and that observers of the Court may fairly consider whether a particular Supreme Court decision was right or wrong. There remains in the country a vibrant and healthy debate among the members of the Supreme Court, as articulated in its opinions, and between the Court and academics, politicians, columnists and commentators, and the people generally, on whether the Court has correctly understood and applied the fundamental law of the Constitution. We have seen throughout our history that when the Supreme Court greatly misconstrues the Constitution, generations of mischief may follow. The result is that, of its own accord or through the mechanism of the appointment process, the Supreme Court may come to revisit some of its doctrines and try, once again, to adjust its pronouncements to the commands of the Constitution. This recognition of the distinction between constitutional law and the Constitution itself produces the conclusion that constitutional decisions, including those of the Supreme Court, need not be seen as the last words in constitutional construction. A correlative point is that constitutional interpretation is not the business of courts alone but is also, and properly, the business of all branches of government. Each of the three coordinate branches of government created and empowered by the Constitution--the executive and legislative no less than the judicial--has a duty to interpret the Constitution in the performance of its official functions. In fact, every official takes a solemn oath precisely to that effect. Chief Justice John Marshall, in Marbury v. Madison (1803), noted that the Constitution is a limitation on judicial power as well as on that of the executive and legislative branches. He reiterated that view in McCullough v. Maryland (1819) when he cautioned judges never to forget it is a constitution they are expounding. The Constitution--the original document of 1787 plus its amendments--is and must be understood to be the standard against which all laws, policies, and interpretations should be measured. It is our fundamental law because it represents the settled and deliberate will of the people, against which the actions of government officials must be squared. In the end, the continued success and viability of our democratic Republic depends on our fidelity to, and the faithful exposition and interpretation of, this Constitution, our great charter of liberty. Edwin Meese III is Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. This essay is excerpted from The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, a line-by-line analysis of the original meaning of each clause of the United States Constitution, edited by David Forte and Matthew Spalding. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 731551 United States 09/17/2009 02:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Say it with me now brothers and sisters .. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 755952"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." God bless you and may God bless America. Know that the "PLEDGE" was composed by a socialist named Francis Bellamy in 1892. Socialism is the national foreplay required for Communism and we've been at that for a long time. Anyway, the original pledge did not have the words "of the United States of America" in it. THAT alternate language was not coming online until around 1927. The original? I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the Republic ....etc. Conversions are purposefully slow here in America because people think they are free. A sudden change might make them feel otherwise. A couple of generations is plenty of time to make some change you can believe in. |
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Anonymous Coward User ID: 755952 Canada 09/17/2009 02:35 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Constitution Day: 'Liberty Aflame' by Peter Boyce By Digger [link to www.diggersrealm.com] Today, September 17, is Constitution Day, a day to celebrate the greatness that is the triumph of the US Constitution - a document breaking thousands of years of lack of freedom to humans. With that I bring you this article by Peter Boyce of the Constitution Party. Liberty Aflame By Peter F. Boyce “We the People” are asleep in a house which is burning. The smoke we are beginning to smell is that of the U.S. Constitution. "No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffuse[e]d and Virtue is preserv[e]d. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauch[e]d in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." --Samuel Adams, 1775 Our ignorance is due in part to our apathy and the failure of both public and private schools to clearly teach the principles of liberty embodied in America’s founding documents in a manner applicable to our daily lives. Our elected officials, on both the state and federal levels, get away with plundering the labors of the people through a blank check provided by our own ignorance of the limitations imposed upon them by the Constitution they swear to honor. Debauchery results from the insufficient patriotic fire and moral indignation expressed from the pulpits to stand up against the relentless onslaught of the mainstream media. For decades the agenda of the major media has been hell-bent on eroding the moral fiber which used to be the hallmark of the American people. Recognizing our descent into the abyss of socialism, Senator Robert Byrd (WV-D) wisely slipped in an addendum to a major appropriations bill establishing September 17th as “Constitution Day”. Since 2004, Public Law 108-447 requires that on that day each year, all Federal employees must receive educational training and materials on the U.S. Constitution. It also mandates that all educational institutions that receive Federal funds in a fiscal year must hold an educational program on the Constitution. It is not too late to begin exercising our duties of American citizenship. That duty begins with the careful reading, clear understanding, and then the respectful demand that our elected representatives restrain their legislative passions to within the boundaries prescribed by the Constitution they swear to. Haven’t read it since high school? In commemoration of Constitution Day, we are offering, free of charge, a pocket Constitution and the DVD “Overview of America” which I believe is the best DVD ever produced about our precious constitutional Republic. Please call 609-501-3351. Peter F. Boyce Constitution Party NJ 2nd Congressional District Coordinator |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 772954 United States 09/17/2009 02:43 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
the dude User ID: 747129 United States 09/17/2009 02:49 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | They are good kids (Big 10, I am tenured), diverse and motivated. Some will say 10 (number of the Bill of Rights amendments), some will say more (the 1st contains several). They are always interested when I say, "None. Our rights and liberties are ours. We were born with them. The framers always intended the Constitution to limit the power of government (and also to remind us of our natural born rights and liberties)." As long as I live in a country where I can teach that, I have hope. To those who think that colleges and universities are lost, maybe not. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 755952 Canada 09/17/2009 03:10 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | The Star Spangled Banner Part 1 of 2 The Star Spangled Banner Part 2 of 2 [/youtube] [link to www.youtube.com] |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 755952 Canada 09/17/2009 03:11 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 755952 Canada 09/17/2009 03:16 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Here's another video on the History of the Star Spangled Banner. [/youtube] [link to www.youtube.com] |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 755952 Canada 09/17/2009 03:20 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Here's another video on the History of the Star Spangled Banner. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 755952[/youtube] [link to www.youtube.com] IN DEFENCE OF FORT M'HENRY [link to en.wikipedia.org] |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 773056 India 09/17/2009 05:40 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | YOUR CONSTITUTIO NIS A MASONIC ONE WHICH ALLOWS SLAVERY AND GIVES NO RIGHTS THE TRUE CONSTITUION WAS THE ARTICLS OF CONFEDERATIONS WITOUT JERRERSON'S INSISTENCE THE BILL OF RIGHTS WOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN YOUR CONSITUTION "rticle I, Section 9 reads in part: The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year 1808, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. And, worse, Article V of the U.S. Constitution declared that this awful clause could not be amended before 1808! The Declaration of Independence was stripped of its anti-slavery clause because of the American Founding Fathers' love of property. By the time the Constitution was written, just 11 years later, the institution of slavery was actually enhanced as sanction of it was affirmatively inserted into the Constitution, which document is the foundation of all laws in America." |