Why worry about the rationale? Just compare the society we have to the preamble. They set their goals. Have they been met? Why have they not been met? No good for the whole people can be accomplished without the people being good, and no people can be good without the power to be good, or bad. The one power left to the people that is supported fully by the constitution is the power to gather wealth, and that is the key to political power. Even in their day they knew that one man’s gain was another’s loss; so how did they propose to keep the gain of a few from becoming the loss of the entire nation? Having the model of Rome, and building this republic as the image of that republic they should have known what the result would be. They were guided by hope, and they set common sense aside. Let us not follow in their mistakes.
I’m concerned with rationality when it comes to every aspect of life…I can’t even begin a fair analysis before I understand thoroughly what the founding fathers had in mind, and more importantly, why they thought it.
If you look at the issue of slavery you can see Lincoln concerning himself with the intent of the founders. He was closer to them in time, and in spite of the glaring problem left by the founders in slavery, few were willing to abandon the constitution as a failure unless we consider the vast numbers in the north who considered succession over slavery followed by those in the South who actually did succeed.
My point is this: We have fought a terribly bloody civil conflict over the failures of the constitution. Seen in the light of the preamble where the goals are plainly set forth, the constitution has been a bust. What does it matter what there private goals were if the official goal has not been reached? It is like asking if an old man having an auto accident was going to the movie or the drug store. In short; it is immaterial. The failure is clear. The reason behind the failure is unimportant. What is important is our reason. We will build a new constitution and find a new reason for being or we will live to see our failures destroy us. There is nothing wrong with this people. There is something wrong with our government or our expectations of government. It is not us falling short in the eyes of an immortal document, but the document that is failing us.
Oh i’m not afraid this country is bound to collapse in on itself whether we have the constitution or not.
and one thinks the “terrible bloody civil conflict” is over?
LMAO…
-Imp
It most certainly should be over. All forms of relationship are held together with trust, and faith. There is no one compelling anyone to go to work, pay their taxes, grind out their hopless existence, and support the government that makes their misery possible. Disenthrall yourselves. Quit beating your dead horse, and set about forming new relationships. Look at the grand impedments of monolythic government. Look at their army, their court houses, their prisons, their capitals. It is all a message that they are built for the ages, and will not be easily swept away. They are meant to impress the simple. They are all form, and no relationship. I mean, we still call ourselves americans and wave the flag. We would prefer that the form had some life in it. But it takes life. We support this society, and it no longer supports us. It drains the life out of the old and the future out of the young, and for whose benefit? If society has reached a point where only the chosen few feel blessed by it then it has failed all of us. Withdraw your trust. Do no overt act to stir it to violence. Build a new constitution, and a new form of relationship inside of the old, and then shed the old form like a snake sheds its skin. Violent revolution is illegal in this land. Violence is not necessary. Without the consent of the people, not even violent reaction to revolution is possible.
illegal? what patriot ever worried himself with legality?
the revolution is coming and it will be bloodier that the revolutionary and the civil wars combined…
-Imp
The existence of Western law as we know can only be understood as part of a revolution in society, and every war, every revolution and almost every injustice has has some legal justification by some one. If the first thing every revolution throws out is the law, it is also the first part of government reconstituted. People find they cannot have stability in society without it. What I would have people realize is that law is just another form of relationship; and people can have the law they want, because they make the law, and are the law. Law does not have to be the great destoyer of communities that we know now. It should be minimal like the government itself. And it should flow from the will of the people, and get its strength from the number of those who consent to it.
If we say no cop no crime, it reveals our contempt of a coersion that grips us, that we never have the power to deny. So, lawlessness become the common form individual self expression takes. We should not portray ourselves as a nation of laws unless laws flow out of the nation. We should be a government of the people, with the vision of each generation left powerful in its own right. We cannot do more than guide the future and inform them of our vision. We cannot impose our failed sight on them. We have had enough of the blind leading the blind.
I think your optimism is underwhelming.
I have to agree with this, since most indications are that we have not the constitution.
I also agree that rewriting the thing would be a valuable and cathartic exercise.