Are you often put off by national politics?\u00a0 Do you sometimes think there is no difference between the two major political parties?\u00a0 Are all politicians “dirty” and\/or corrupt?\u00a0 Does the gridlock in DC put you off?\u00a0 Well, your answer to any or all the above is “yes”, you are not alone.\u00a0 It seems that the gears of the national government are at best snafu … continuously.\u00a0 It has always been the same in my 50+ years of watching the process.\u00a0 So recently I began to study why.<\/p>\n
We must remember that the United States is made up of 50 more or less independent republics … sovereign States.\u00a0 The federal government in DC was created by those States to unite themselves by their mutual consent with a compact of common interests.\u00a0 The States had originally banded together against Britain for the common goal of independence and would likely have to mutually aid each other again in the future.\u00a0 After the Revolution, they needed to be able to freely trade among themselves and with foreign governments.\u00a0 They had common interests in things like mutual protection, protection from one another, free communication amongst themselves and free commerce.\u00a0 They needed a common currency, and needed to affirm certain principles like patents, copyrights and a uniform bankruptcy code.\u00a0 The Constitution that they wrote affirmed 17 issues important to each and all.\u00a0 In their august document, as an afterthought, they affirmed that certain enumerated rights would be equal for all.\u00a0 Beyond that, the Federal Government was to be secondary as was articulated in the 10th Amendment… “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”\u00a0 The States governed the people, the Federal Government was to protect the States, free trade and the rights of the people.<\/p>\n
The republic was founded to protect the individual<\/em><\/strong> … not the crowd.\u00a0 The founders knew that democracy did not work on a massive scale, where the individual was but an unheard voice coming from a blurred face in the seething masses.\u00a0 Only on the local level, where the voice of each individual could be heard directly by his peers, did democracy work.\u00a0 Only where each person interacted with his neighbor was majority rule fair, solving truly mutual problems.\u00a0 The genius of the Founders, in that long summer of 1787, was that they crafted a national government that guaranteed that each voter had a direct pipeline to the national government while retaining democracy where it counted \u2014 at home.<\/p>\n There was no way that population alone could guarantee a viable government \u2026\u00a0 that was decided at the outset.\u00a0 If at that time there had been a pure national democracy, the votes of Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and Charleston would have decided every national issue … for that is where the population lay.\u00a0 In order to have a viable system every area had to be represented, so each State, regardless of its population was given two Senators.\u00a0 The House of Representatives was adjudicated based upon population, with the proviso that each State was guaranteed at least one member in that body also.\u00a0\u00a0 The Founders intended for the less populous States to have a method, by their presence in the Senate to counterbalance the overwhelming power of the more populous States \u2026 the principle of the protection of the minority.<\/p>\n The point that is almost always missed is the manner of election of the Senate.\u00a0 The Senate was to be elected by the state legislatures.\u00a0 Since the senators are in real fact the ambassadors of their states to the Congress, it is altogether proper that they be beholden to the elected officials of their states.\u00a0 What could give the officeholder better perspective than direct communication with their democratically elected state representatives?\u00a0 But further, since the local voters knew that representative personally, they had real incentive to participate in politics.\u00a0 Senators who lost touch with their home states found themselves swiftly replaced.\u00a0 Even less understood is the devastating effect of the Progressive action of a Supreme Court decision ruining the makeup of state legislatures.\u00a0 The Constitution guarantees the states a republican form of government similar to the national Congress. (see: Article V, Section 4)\u00a0 The Court abrogated that with their Progressive \u201cone man one vote\u201d reading of the 14th<\/sup> Amendment.<\/p>\n The Progressives of the early 20th Century killed this fundamental concept by adopting the 17th Amendment.\u00a0 With its demise came the consequence, intentional or unintentional, of hugely costly campaigns caused by outside interests like eco-groups, corporations and organized labor.\u00a0 These external interests inject out-of-state influence and money.\u00a0 This influence and money, using the mass media with its electronic demagoguery, has bought and still does buy senate seats for carpetbaggers, party hacks, handsome charlatans and the unqualified.\u00a0 How much better would it be if the senators came from the will of those elected to represent us, our legislators \u2026 who, in turn, owe their own position to a truly democratic election by their local constituents?<\/p>\n Do you want a true democratic republic like the one given us by our forefathers, where the state and local governments are the main concerns of our public life?\u00a0 Or do you prefer the tyranny of a burgeoning, unresponsive national bureaucracy like the one fulminating in DC?\u00a0 The genius of the Constitution lies in the supremacy of the states over the federal government, and of the individual over the states.\u00a0 What better time than now to begin restoring this vision to our nation once more?\u00a0 Repealing the 17th<\/sup> Amendment is of paramount importance to this goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Are you often put off by national politics?\u00a0 Do you sometimes think there is no difference between the two major political parties?\u00a0 Are all politicians “dirty” and\/or corrupt?\u00a0 Does the gridlock in DC put you off?\u00a0 Well, your answer to … Continue reading