Annotated, by the hero of the recent Supreme Court fight over ObamaCare, Randy Barnett.
Also, the Declaration, brought into modern times:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to strengthen the political bands which have connected them with the Global Community, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the cooperative and deferential station which a careful review of the relevant peer reviewed literature suggests is most appropriate for long term win-win outcomes, a decent and rigorously equal respect to the opinions of woman- and man- and transkind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the ever deeper union.
It should be obvious that you want to read the whole thing.
Karl Denninger also has an annotated Declaration post which is likewise read-the-whole-thing worthy.
July 4th Musings
Rasmussen had a poll last week which said that only 22% of the American public believe that the government has the consent of the governed:
22% Believe Government Has Consent of Governed
Note that that article appeared before the events of last Thursday.
Rickl – In the USA at least, you voted the current kleptocracy in and you can vote them back out again. But that takes work. One possible aid to this would be the current campaign to vote out incumbents in the primaries. Another would be term limits (and also something similar for unelected government bureaucrats). But probably the best idea of all would be to back off just a little from the idea of a universal franchise – in other words, institute some form of voter qualification, the most basic of which would be “makes a net contribution to the public purse”.
Naturally, making sure that every single person voting is who he or she says he or she is – and is a living citizen of the USA who has not already voted elsewhere. Which implies ID checking and heavy restriction on absentee voting. Another reason for restricting absentee voting is perhaps more basic; if you can’t be bothered to make a short trip to the polling station, should you be entitled to vote in the first place?
Also naturally, being in hospital or serving abroad in the military or some such real reason for needing a postal vote should still get you one.
BTW, as some people will know I am not personally involved in all this, being British. But similar remarks apply over here, as well. One absolutely glaring (and legal) example of abuses is that over here, citizens of Ireland living in the UK are entitled to vote. I have never seen any satisfactory explanation of that.
Rickl, whether the current government of the USA is a good one or not – they do indeed have the consent of the governed. And therefore, if you have a bad government it is your own fault.
I’m pondering plan B?
Win or lose the election and we still haven’t dealt with the issues. Too many people have a serf mentality. Too much corruption exists from top to bottom.
People are poorly educated regarding the nature of what our founders gave us. It’s not possible to keep it when they don’t even know what it is.
Let’s start with every idiot that calls it a democracy. That alone is an indication of a severe dumbing down. We are specifically not a democracy for very specific reasons. However, a republic does have similar shortcomings which we’ve seen with this last admin.
Are we going to keep it? Can we? Is the experiment over (nothing left but the crying?)
We will win this election. Will it make a difference or only change the rate?