After a month away from this blog, I looked back at my last thoughts on this attempt by politics to hijack this virus scare:
Will our existing political class figure this out? Not a chance.
Will voting help? Not a chance.
The US still has the USPS and Amtrak, if they can be trusted with little things, you can safely say they can’t be trusted with MAJOR things.
This nation will have to split into many smaller republics before any of this can be addressed.
Whoever can be trusted with small things can also be trusted with big things. Whoever is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in big things too. – Luke 16:10 (Bible)
Is there any doubt by those that can critically think that our political apparatus from DC to the state’s governors and to the large (and small) city mayors are not full of want-to-be tyrants and sociopaths? When one follows the money, it gets even more immoral as the political class (BOTH sides of the so-called aisle) want to be re-elected so bad that they were all willing to place a big old pacifier in the mouths of millions of let go workers so that 65% or more would receive more weekly income than they had prior to this crisis. This is indeed immoral since to entice people to sit on their couches in their homes in time will lead to lives without any purpose. Life on the government plantation has ruined other cultures like the American Indian and the African American groups in the USA. This is how you emasculate the male population towards a purposeless life as government becomes both nanny and daddy.
But I digress. We should be in better position today to see the federal and state governments for what they really are. This “union” has been poisoned for some time. In fits and starts one can see how the federal government opted to be the “safety net”, like somehow a “neutral” entity could care for our communities and societies better than the locals could. That this safety net could extend to big business so that there was no risk in forgoing savings and instead buy back stock shares to prop up the stock prices. So whether this is individual or corporate welfare, both are immoral as one robs some people of their money and uses it to its own agenda’s purpose picking winners and losers in the marketplace as well as in towns and cities and farms across this land.
The southern states endured the reallocation of their taxed and tariff-ed economies from at least the War of 1812 up until the so-called Civil War (War Against Southern Independence). The South attempted to be “above-board” with their last ditch effort to save themselves from economic ruin by legally seceding (at first only 7 states) from this “union” (marriage). But Lincoln would not have his cash cow as a next-door free-trade zone, so he labeled it an “insurrection” and used George Washington’s illegal put down of the Whiskey Rebellion (25% tax thanks to Alexander Hamilton, so how bad was King George for wanting 3%?) as a template for saving the union.
This HAS to sound familiar right? The whole US government (in parallel to so many other governments) is trying to “save” us from Covid-19 while actually killing society and communities in the process. From 1861-1865 the “union” lost about 800,000 lives. What will the final death count be for the Covid-19 response by 2024 when the unintended consequences of good intentions has run its course with suicides, PTSD, mental health issues from the economic fallout AFTER the unemployment checks run out (now slated for 31JUL2020 but many want this extended to 31DEC2020)?
Smaller republics are the only answer that makes sense. Not existing state lines, although that would be a start, but republics that have like-minded people geographically grouped so that government reach can be minimized for liberty folks and maximized for totalitarian minded folks.
Reflecting on the course of what the southern states sailed can be very helpful. Sure they were not perfect and should have jettisoned chattel slavery at the very start (although this would have upset both white and black slaveholders) and compensating these owners with hard currency.
Consider what the Confederate government learned in the 80 years under the US Constitution.
- That unlike the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation which BOTH had God, our Creator, as whom we derived our natural rights from, the US Constitution written in 1787 failed to give such indication as its North Star
- That the US Constitution failed to protect the people from the 1798 Alien and Sedition Act that made it a crime to criticize the US Government.
- That the US Constitution failed to protect various regions of the land from the plundering ambitions of other region’s agenda and greed.
- That the US Constitution’s Supreme Court hijacked the ability of the states to determine which laws were unconstitutional.
It is the last point that is highlighted in this article from Abbeville Institite here. I do think it is the proper time to consider what real justice is these days and know how much a failure this a-political Supreme Court has been.
Although the Court would increasingly try to narrow the realm of States Rights, Madison [author of the US Constitution] denied that “the Federal judiciary” was the ultimate judge of such limits because it was the people of the states themselves who were the final authority.
It was in fact the US Government’s (called General government in those days, now labeled the Federal Government) over-reach that set-off a push back politically:
The conflict became obvious when President John Adams pushed through the 1798 Sedition Act, making it a crime to speak ill of the President or Congress. Since it was harshly enforced for some of the mildest criticisms, strict constructionists respond. Among them was future President James Madison who is known as the Father of the Constitution. He denied that the Supreme Court was the ultimate authority on States Rights. This can be seen from the 1798 Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions he helped write with Thomas Jefferson condemning the Sedition Act as unconstitutional.
Jefferson’s presidential victory in 1800 guaranteed that the 1798 Alien and Sedition Act would be eliminated, but by 1833 things were simmering again. By this stage of the republic’s life the South was losing its position as being a strong entity within this federation and saw New England culture and character make huge inroads into the federal government’s choosing of winners (railroads, canals and the steel industry) over losers in the marketplace:
Calhoun would build upon the Resolutions to formulate his nullification theory that South Carolina invoked in 1833 to nullify the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. Calhoun argued that the tariff was not uniform in terms of geographic economic impact and therefore unconstitutional. When the Federal Government crossed over constitutional lines, a state could take action as the final authority of constitutionality in its borders, not the Supreme Court. All states could only be forced to conform to such a law by passing a new amendment specifically making it constitutional.
This “one-size-fits-all” approach (sound familiar?) is a recipe for disaster, for just as all individuals are different, so too are the states.
The Supreme Court early on made a huge mistake that made it necessary to add an 11th amendment in 1795 when the US Constitution was less than ten years old:
When a 1793 Supreme Court ruling held the state of Georgia at fault in a suit brought by a South Carolina resident, Georgia denied the Court’s jurisdiction. After the adverse ruling ten other states joined Georgia to ratify a new (11th) Amendment specifying that individuals outside an applicable state could not sue that state without the state’s permission. The Amendment’s prompt ratification indicates a widespread belief that the Court was unexpectedly and quickly overstepping its authority.
Now you know why the Confederate government opted NOT to have a supreme court at least initially. Lesson learned.
Now it is our turn to learn from history and push for a government that is more commensurate to the people’s desire of liberty, freedom and self responsibility .. at least in certain geographical regions of this land we call America.
Peace out.
-SF1