Political Crossfire Forums

[bigstick61]

Congress can give it to him by declaring war on another country for the purpose of conquest, the power to declare war being one which is granted to Congress in Section 8, Article I of the US Constitution. In republics, to include the US, the law was made intially (i.e. Constitutions) with popular consent or direct popular influence. The term republic means thing of the people in Latin.

In terms of other Presidential powers held nowadays, these are mostly not powers which the President legally may exercise. It is a fact that since our country became more democratic, that Congress has allowed the President to usurp more and more power, which has also resulted in him doing so on his own accord. None of that is legal. In the Constitution, the President has no lawmaking power whatsoever. Also, even now, it is not him who proposes bills and things like the budget. It is introduced for him by a Congressman who is willing to do so. Things like signing statements and executive orders were only meant to affect things within the executive branch, for example, an EO which directs, within the law, the manner for the execuive to execute a new law. They are not laws themselves, and those which are used as such are unconstitutional. The President can, however, disregard laws which are unconstitutional; it is part of his oath of office. If the President has done something wrong, is doing a terrible job, or broken the law, then he can be impeached, and if found guilty, can have his pay reduced, be fined, or be removed from office.

From your posts, it is obvious that you have a misunderstanding of what a republic is, what natural rights are, and what jury nullification is. Jury nullification is something which is part of Common Law, which guides our judicial system. Jurors may judge the law as well as the facts. Also, the Declaration of Independence did not found a democracy; it did not found much of anything. The first founding documents were the Articles of Confederation, which established a confederacy of republics. The Constitution founded a Federal Republic, replacing rhe Articles of Confederation.

[LostSoul3412]

Republic > Democracy

The people are too stupid to rule over themselves.

[Fido]

LostSoul3412 wrote: Republic > Democracy

The people are too stupid to rule over themselves.

It is wrong to assume the cop on every corner is why people act with self control. Rather, the existence of laws steals value from every good act of restraint and kindness by forbidding its opposite. Yet people are social even when not compelled by restraints and can usually govern their circumstances to a draw even when they have a bad hand from the start. We do not need government, but government needs us. Without our faith the edifice of government would crumble under it pretenses.

If I agree with you, that counted as individuals people are pretty stupid it must be with the understanding that they are far smarter than myself in their collected mind. Since life is a communal effort their mind wins every time. Everybody knows something, and if you can put us all together we know more than something. Self government is just another technology that if people do not master will come to master them.

[Fido]

Quote: bigstick61 wrote: Congress can give it to him by declaring war on another country for the purpose of conquest, the power to declare war being one which is granted to Congress in Section 8, Article I of the US Constitution. In republics, to include the US, the law was made intially (i.e. Constitutions) with popular consent or direct popular influence. The term republic means thing of the people in Latin.

Yes, essentially democratic is republican. I do not dispute that republics have some democratic elements. What does it matter to me if the slave owners govern themselves democratically or any other sense, except that they would make better common cause against me as a democracy? A nation where a population governs itself is a democracy, and a democracy over a subject population is a republic. There is noting in the nature of a democracy that makes a person more or less virtuous. This in not a value judgment. The guides to our democracy came from the end of the continuum of democracy. We took from the Iroquois, and from the Romans. The Iroquois in our democracy has saved till now the Roman, which has nearly brought us to extinction.

Quote: In terms of other Presidential powers held nowadays, these are mostly not powers which the President legally may exercise. It is a fact that since our country became more democratic, that Congress has allowed the President to usurp more and more power, which has also resulted in him doing so on his own accord. None of that is legal. In the Constitution, the President has no lawmaking power whatsoever. Also, even now, it is not him who proposes bills and things like the budget. It is introduced for him by a Congressman who is willing to do so. Things like signing statements and executive orders were only meant to affect things within the executive branch, for example, an EO which directs, within the law, the manner for the execuive to execute a new law. They are not laws themselves, and those which are used as such are unconstitutional. The President can, however, disregard laws which are unconstitutional; it is part of his oath of office. If the President has done something wrong, is doing a terrible job, or broken the law, then he can be impeached, and if found guilty, can have his pay reduced, be fined, or be removed from office.

It is good to hear that the least representative portion of our government is one most responsive to the popular will, even if I do not believe. The dictators in Rome where for a time representative of the people, and it is thought that Caesar wanted to extend the Roman franchise to every conquered land. Your reference to wrongs of a president do not shine in the light of party. Here party does not serve the nation, but itself. People attack presidents wrongly because of party, and defend presidents wrongly because of party, and even success draws fears of a collapse of faith, or a turning on a dime of public sentiment. So here, as in other situations, nothing rather than something is done. Time deposes all kings, and every congressman knows it. Wrong has nothing to do with it, except in the sense of giving one power to do great good is giving them power for harm.

Quote: From your posts, it is obvious that you have a misunderstanding of what a republic is, what natural rights are, and what jury nullification is. Jury nullification is something which is part of Common Law, which guides our judicial system. Jurors may judge the law as well as the facts. Also, the Declaration of Independence did not found a democracy; it did not found much of anything. The first founding documents were the Articles of Confederation, which established a confederacy of republics. The Constitution founded a Federal Republic, replacing the Articles of Confederation.

You say we fought a war was fought and nearly over before the government that fought it was finally federated (1781)? People fought for all men created equal and won with life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but lost to life liberty and property. How did Calhoun describe our republic; as absolute as any Autocrat of Russia, and as despotic in its tendency as any absolute government that ever existed? May be he had a grudge, but having powers we do not have to give, gives them the power to take all power.
What a jury decides can be jury nullification. But every trial is Kafka's to some body. Most law is dead, meaning less, and nullified by time. Laws are a testament to their times and the powers live men once held over the living. Now, law is as much powers the dead beneith our feet hold over the living. I know the nonsense people mouth about natural law. Only human nature makes law. Basically, natural law is our mortality, and the fact that we know we will die, and want to control the living, and want to be immortal, even while some of us hope to see tomorrow. Life is the father of every right, and every law seeking peace through justice.
You should look again. The war of the revolution and the civil war were each fought under the declaration of independence. Look to the Gettysburg address where lawyer Lincoln said it so.

[bigstick61]

The Declaration of Independence was not the law of the United States. It was exactly what it says: a declaration of independence from Britain. It had to espouse some egalitarian ideals in order to get more people to fight, but in the end, most Americans knew that a republican form of government was best, and democracy wasn't all too popular back then in the US. The three most fundamental rights in general are the rights to life, liberty and property. This has always been such in the US. Calhoun did have a grudge in a sense. He wanted the US to be a confederacy, where the States were virtually independent, and the Federal government had no real power, such as under the AoC, where the States could ignore Federal laws and the government was powerless to do anything about it. The fact that under the Constitution, the States gave up a small portion of their sovereignty, is what got him so against the US gov't. It is a core conservative belief that natural laws/rights arise from someething completely independent and out of the control of man. The fact that you do not believe is quite possibly what is resulting in us having such a different opinion on the matter.

[Fido]

bigstick61 wrote: The Declaration of Independence was not the law of the United States. It was exactly what it says: a declaration of independence from Britain. It had to espouse some egalitarian ideals in order to get more people to fight, but in the end, most Americans knew that a republican form of government was best, and democracy wasn't all too popular back then in the US. The three most fundamental rights in general are the rights to life, liberty and property. This has always been such in the US. Calhoun did have a grudge in a sense. He wanted the US to be a confederacy, where the States were virtually independent, and the Federal government had no real power, such as under the AoC, where the States could ignore Federal laws and the government was powerless to do anything about it. The fact that under the Constitution, the States gave up a small portion of their sovereignty, is what got him so against the US gov't. It is a core conservative belief that natural laws/rights arise from someething completely independent and out of the control of man. The fact that you do not believe is quite possibly what is resulting in us having such a different opinion on the matter.

Of course the Declaration isn't the law, but it is presented in a legal format, signed and fought over, and won over. In times of revolution there is no law, but ours was not without a foundation to a new society even within the legal frame work of the old. And there was a government, a congress, and I do not know that they were different from those who signed the declaration. And what does the declarations say? There was already a beginning of an enumeration of rights, equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This people, some of my people to my understanding, fought for this promise; and if to meet external threats, and to form an effective organization not always consumed with working out authority- the constitution was written, it was accepted because people are sometimes willing to compromise their rights for peace or prosperity.. These have not been the result of this constitution.
Was the constitution a success. Clearly not, because it has made us nationally great, but because of the limits on rights, and the protection of property rights it has made us nationally great, and for the most part in debt, in doubt, and in the control of a wealthy minority who use our own rights against us.
Now, Lincoln was no basher of the constitution. He talked against mobocracies. He consulted the writings of the framers to find their views on slavery, and on the permanence they expected of the constitution. He also recognized as others had, the dictatorial powers of the court. Lincoln said: If the policy of the government upon vital questions concerning the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions from the Supreme court... The people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned the government into the hands of that eminent tribunal... At least one who helped to draft the constitution would not sign it over this very issue. He, like myself, and most others accept a continuity to our nation that began in 1775. But even the constitution, beginning with- we the people -is testimony to the source of all authority in government.
Was the constitution a success? We have fought a civil war over it and all it left undone. Before the South seceded, there were many in the north willing to secede over slavery, and making the argument for that act. We are no less a house divided, and that division is not simply whether government should answer the needs and demands of the people for justice, but whether it will continue to force people to share their civil rights with property, which was the cause of the last civil war. In fact Property came out of the war with better protections than it entered the war, in my estimation, even though property was the cause of the war.

As far as any meta physical basis for natural rights; I reject these. Rights clearly are a quality of the living, and for the safe keeping of the future. If our fathers found it necessary to give wide powers to government, then I refer to the argument between Paine and Burke on whether one generation can surrender the rights of the next. Of course that is out of memory, and I'd have to hunt up a book for exact wording, but I stand with Paine.

[bigstick61]

Well, I'm going to have to disagree with your sstandpoint on rights and natural laws. I think that this is what has resulted in the difference of opinion between us, as our opinions are laid down upon completely opposite foundations. It's still made for good philosophical discussion, which I certainly always enjoy.

[Fido]

bigstick61 wrote: Well, I'm going to have to disagree with your sstandpoint on rights and natural laws. I think that this is what has resulted in the difference of opinion between us, as our opinions are laid down upon completely opposite foundations. It's still made for good philosophical discussion, which I certainly always enjoy.

Is this your admission that your acceptance of Natural Rights is based as they originally were on medieval metaphysics? I understand there are few willing to defend this prejudice. Start a thread and defend it if you can. Medieval philosophers, like myself, are agreed that natural rights are based upon the nature of Mankind. Unlike them who accepted as a natural fact that we were created as individuals, and that individuals exist; I believe humanity exists, and individuals live. We only carry the life of humanity to another generation. In that regard the defense of our rights, and even their fact is a matter of our own responsibility to future generations and to those who gave us life. We cannot abandon our struggle for life and rights to institutions formed by the past to meet past needs.
Peace,,, Fido