By: RBurnett

RBurnett — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 01:57:07 +0000

So McCain blew a hole through the Constitution with his campaign refomr act?
And the Federalists, Adams, Washington and Hamilton did not with the Sedition act of 1796?
So the buy-outs are in violation of the Tenth Amendment? And the Louisiana Purchase, done by Jefferson (that oh so libertarian thinker) and Congress (filled with founders and framers, which not only expanded the central government’s power, gave money to Napoleon, got us involved in the wars in Europe, and gave a big push towards Empire building aka Manifest Destiny, was not?
Not the intent but the letter–how naive.
What does the phrase “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America” mean? What is “executive Power”? How do you follow the letter of the law when the defintions of the words in the law are not or cannot be defined?
OK–let’s take an example of how deep the waters are. There’s this king, who has to decide to which of two women a baby belongs. Each mother contends that the child is hers. So this king suggests to divide the child, to cut it into two parts. One mother says, OK. The other says that shed rather the child be kept aliove, even if it has to go to the other mother. The king then gives the child to the mother who did not want it divided.
There was no Jewish or Israeli law that Solomon could have followed to make this decision, as it wasn’t either thought of in that law or the issue too thorny to be written down. So Solomon went outside of the law, from necessity–as did Jefferson with the Purchase.
Barr. making the letter supreme, shows he lacks wisdom. Indeed, in Christian teaching, the law can only condemn, not save, only instruct in what to do and what not to do, but cannot teach wisdom, which has to do with the intent of the law. And such wisdom has to do with the intent of the political community.
Finally, hasn’t anyone told old Bob Barr that the Constitution that he brandishes is a collection of compromises–hardly a sacred text, that the “we the people” can not only amend the daylights out of it (the 14th Amendment opened the door to federal interference in the States, as an example) and that this same people will get what ever it is that they want out of it(as a rueful Madison noted, regarding paper money)
Sure, it’s a nice theory that the bad things were the result of conspiracy, of elites, of Bilderburgers and the rest–but it is more complex–the “we the people” got in their licks, too.
So, yet again, the LP has sent another message that is laughable and impolitic–not to mention simply foolish.

Comments on: Bob Barr Clings To The Constitution While McBama Ignores It

By: RBurnett