Reflections on 1776
TB's good buddy and co-author of certain book (watch this space) Ed Kozak has just sent him these words;
Two-hundred and thirty-three years ago American colonists were fighting and dying for their rights and liberties, guaranteed to them as British subjects, denied them by a tyrant, His Majesty George III. One-hundred and forty-six years ago men of the South were fighting and dying for their rights and liberties, guaranteed to them as American citizens, denied them by a tyrant, Abraham Lincoln. Now, we're still fighting for our rights and liberties, guaranteed to us by the Constitution as Americans, yet denied us by a tyrant, Barack Obama. How long, I wonder, before Americans start dying again to protect and reclaim those rights and liberties?
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28 comments:
Which precise rights and liberties is he talking about? The tea-baggers (for that is the unbelievable name they have themselves chosen) never quite explain that.
That would be the right to chose one's own government, the right to peaceably separate from a government that tries to take one's property by force, and the right of a people to determine their own economy and society. Liberty: the unconditional ability to enjoy and take advantage of one's rights.
Cheers for that TB. Most hilarious rewriting of history and misreading of contemporary politics I've read in a long time. Why don't you run along and join the Sarah Palin for President society while you're at it? I do hope this silly hard core Republican tendancy doesn't last too much longer in CF. It's becoming very annoying.
One-hundred and forty-six years ago men of the South were fighting and dying for their rights and liberties to deny other men rights and liberties.
And anyway, it's self-contradictory: the men of the South would argue that their rights and liberties were not guaranteed to them as American citizens, but as citizens of their constituent states; that was kind of the point of the civil war.
Rather interesting that in two out of three of these examples he's described black people getting ahead as "tyranny". That says more about him than 1776.
Benjamin, would like to have thought your renound intellect would have prevented petty accusations of racism. That sort of arguement has been banded about by the left for too long and thought you were better than that. The underlying tensions of the civil war had nothing to do with race and slavery, that was a mere catalist. The infringment on the rights of the individual states went way beyond slavery. As for the notion that people don't lie obama because he is black is frankly pathetic. the critcisms levelled at obama are because he is a socialist with nothing but contempt for the constitution not because of the colour of his skin.
Jez. Low.
Benjamin, it's not contradictory at all. Did I ever deny the right of the enslaved to resist? The morality of chattel slavery isn't the issue here, it's the legality of the practice and the illegality of the way the North tried to impose their social and economic values on the South that's important. I suggest you read Lysander Spooner's pamphlet 'No Treason'. It was written in defense of Confederate soldiers. Just a taste:
'The question of treason is distinct from that of slavery; and is the same that it would have been, if free States, instead of slave States, had seceded.
On the part of the North, the war was carried on, not to liberate slaves, but by a government that had always perverted and violated the Constitution, to keep the slaves in bondage; and was still willing to do so, if the slaveholders could be thereby induced to stay in the Union.
The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.'
Moreover, the fact that the American Civil War and the election of Barrack Obama symbolize to you 'black people getting ahead' shows that you sir, not I, are the one preoccupied with race. If that's all you get out of a war that fundamentally undermined the entire American project and the election of a President who wants to fundamentally undermine the Constitution then I feel sorry for you.
Anonymous, I'd check your history. Lincoln was a Republican. Libertarian, please.
I would like to be shown how Obama has contempt for the constitution, that's a strong claim to make.
And Obama is only socialist as compared to US politics, he's quite centre ground when compared to the UK, he's only slightly left of the Tory party (if he even is left of us at all).
What? Obama a tyrant?
In what parallel universe are you living?
Ed, I admit it was a cheap shot and you probably aren't a racist, but it's what you bring on yourself when you go into such immature hyperbole as describing President Obama as a "Tyrant". Your words employed twisted logic to make bizarre connections; you can't really complain when I do the same thing to them and establish connections where there aren't any. Don't dish out what you can't take.
The race issue only factors in because you glorify an extremely murky cause in a one-sided fashion. Yes, the South may have had some justification within the letter of the law, but then it displays something of a mean-spiritedness to look at the conflict solely through this lens, much as many of our MPs have displayed a rather great arrogance in claiming their dodgy expenses were "within the rules". Your argument also ignores the considerable weight of legal opinion on the side of the Union.
Although it is always popular to state that the war had little-to-nothing to do with race or slavery, the pendulum is probably swinging too far the other way here. That slavery was not the primary proximate cause of the war, and that the permissive factors were significant in the casus belli does not mean that it can be discounted. It is as erroneous to say that the war had nothing to do with slavery as it is to say that it had everything to do with it.
If I am not allowed to draw parallels on the matters of race however, perhaps I might look at the matter of Presidents Lincoln and Obama both being lawyers, and ask whether you are in fact one yourself? It would certainly give your claim that they are trying to undermine the constitution a little more weight.
What has he done?
Illegal Wars?
Tax breaks for the rich?
Let the poor die after and during natural disasters?
Pardoned criminals?
Had state sponsored kidnapped and torture as official policy?
Very confusing post?
Pardon me, but I feel the need to expurge my two cents at this point.
In the above excerpt it seems bizarre that a fresh (Democrat) president is dismissed as a tyrant in regards to civil liberties, in lieu of his (Republican) predecessor who passed the PATRIOT Act - some would say opportunistically or even manipulatively - in the wake of 9/11. The same individual who undermined Habeas Corpus a "cornerstone of legal justice since the Magna Carter" by allowing emprisonment without trial to take place. I would class that as a fairly large omission in any thorough discussion of civil liberties.
And dare I say it - it looks as though it has been done for rather partisan purposes.
"The morality of chattel slavery isn't the issue here, it's the legality of the practice and the illegality of the way the North tried to impose their social and economic values on the South that's important."
I imagine that the above practice was, in fact, illegal. I therefore consider this book incomplete without a thorough discussion of how the 'Law' is a man-made construct - an art rather than a science - unless of course the author is already planning to prompt us to consider whether what is legal is always right and if what is illegal is always wrong and I stand corrected. In this case I'm going to let the legality of the (200+ year old) issue slide, I'd say the abolition of slavery was worth it.
I also look forward to the author's discussion of the legality regarding the last (Republican) administration's imposition of it's way of life upon the people of Iraq.
Sounds like an interesting book - TB you sure know to whet a girls appetite.
"The morality of chattel slavery isn't the issue here, it's the legality of the practice and the illegality of the way the North tried to impose their social and economic values on the South that's important."
Yet you refer to the South fighting for "rights and liberties", which presupposes some moral value. That's what makes the morality of slavery the issue. You made no mention of them fighting for a law, only for the rule of a law that deprived others of their rights. Your morality/legality distinction is rather difficult to make when you are talking in implicitly moral terms.
Ed - as far as I remember, Obama was elected democratically and has done nothing to change that system, so I don't see how your right to choose your own government is being stymied.
All governments take property by force - it's called taxation, and grown-ups tend to be ok with it as long as Obama keeps levels of tax roughly where that ol' socialist Ronald Reagan left them.
The right of a people to determine their own economy and society? Sounded better when chanted through a megaphone by the Weathermen and other assorted anarchists, but within the realms of democracy, I don't see how Obama has infringed this any more than, say Nixon or Ford.
That's what is so annoying about Barack Obama for the truly right wing. The man simply refuses to do anything that is extreme enough to make the criticism seem lucid. Arguably, there's nothing he could do that would actually do that, but he doesn't even get halfway.
The teabag protests, the cries of socialism and tyranny, the insistance that it's so bad that *secession* might be back on the table: it's the single most embarassing political tantrum that I can remember, and it does untold harm to Republicans who actually want to capture any of the middle 60% of the country.
Labour should learn a lesson from the GOP when they finally lose power: Shut The F*** Up for 2 solid years. Don't say a damn thing. Every time you open your mouth, you sound like your taking crazy pills, and everyone remembers why they threw you out of power.
They remember why they hate you, and why they don't trust you. On losing power, and losing it badly, the best advice is to keep the doom-mongering to yourselves for 2 long years, until everyone has forgotten the sound of your voice.
When you start speaking again, start by talking slowly and clearly. You shoudn't reach the point of shouting feverishly about the End of Days until at least 6 months after the midterms. Just...*shhhh*
The GOP hasn't learnt that lesson, and it shows. Until they can understand how ridiculous they sound to people who don't have a congenital hatred of Obama, they can't win, won't win, and won't deserve to win.
Obama's contempt for the Constitution is obvious. The Constitution is an enumerated document; it states what Congress and the President may do, explicitly, and the United States Government may do nothing except that which is mentioned in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Where is the clause allowing them to own car companies?
Where is the clause allowing them to cap carbon emissions?
Where is the clause allowing them to give out hundreds of billions of taxpayers' money to failures?
Where is the clause allowing them to run hospitals and healthcare?
You will note that Bush performed many such unenumerated actions, and also (as stated) breached several other clauses in the Constitution and its amendments. That is right, for he, too, was a tyrant. So much for there being a Republican tendency here.
Oli - it's not a wholly enumerated document, and unless you can find a clause that is violated by bailing out car companies and running hospitals and get the SCOTUS to rule in your favour, it isn't unconstitutional.
It if justified (as is 90% of Congressional legislation) by the first clause of Article 1 Section 8 "to provide for the Defence and the General Welfare of the United States"
I might not like it, you might not like it, but it isn't unconstitutional, and it doesn't quite make for tyranny.
It would be wrong not to offer this up to all the folks who haven't see it
https://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=223862&title=baracknophobia-obey
Seems sort of appropriate re: this debate about 'tyranny'
The General Welfare clause is the most abused clause in the Constitution, and the one taken most out of context.
James Madison (the author!) detailed exactly what he meant by it in Federalist Paper #41. That is, any act of Congress must abide by the general welfare clause AND come under one of the enumerated powers.
Alexander Hamilton wrote in another Federalist Paper that he thought it ought to mean something else. That's great, but Hamilton didn't write the Constitution - his argument had no weight against someone that did! Madison knew what the words he wrote meant - and if Obama disagrees with them, he disagrees with the Constitution.
I am, of course, also under no illusion that presidents pre-Obama or pre-Bush abided by the Constitution. However, it is clear, those that celebrate the Revolution are celebrating constitutionally-bound government in the style that Madison and Jefferson advanced, that set America apart from the rest of the world. What's the point in celebrating anything that didn't set America apart?
Oli - I'm no originalist, so I don't put any more store by Madison's view of the Constitution than Sarah Palin's.
Of all the many abuses of the Constitution, the one you cite may be the most widespread (everyone except Ron Paul in the history of the Federal Government), but it's far from the most serious, and far from the one that truly consitutes tyranny.
As someone clearly well-read in matters constitutional, you might like this whimsical piece I wrote a little while ago - "A typo in the Constitution?"
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/31/737181/-A-Typo-in-the-Constitution
What a load of bollocks.
What? Ha! U dont half talk nonsense... Love u man!
I don't believe I ever said Bush was a great guy who always obeyed the laws of the land. He too was a twat of the highest degree. But while I believe Bush was merely a misguided idiot who thought he was doing the right thing, Obama is clearly a scheming, manipulative propagandist of the highest order.
Aric: Obama is a socialist by all standards. This whole myth that everyone in America is naturally more right wing is crap. I lived most of my life there. A socialist is a socialist. Maybe I am wrong, but I always though nationalised healthcare, redistribution of wealth, nationalisation of industry, the creation of civilian quasi-militias adjunct to the military (CEF), and mandatory state service were socialist no matter where one is.
Benjamin: I fully understand what you are saying, and perhaps I could have been slightly more explicit. But you have to understand, the defeat of the Confederacy was the death of America as it was supposed to be - as the Fathers imagined it. Slavery is irrelevant because the war was not fought over slavery. It was fought to 'preserve the union' - to stop the South from existing in the manner which it wanted to exist. Lincoln only freed slaves in Confederate territory. At the start of the war he tried to coax the South back into the Union by promising them to keep slavery legally enshrined. If slavery was so important, why didn't the South just accept Lincoln's proposal and be done with it. Because slavery was just a red herring. It was about the mercantilist system the North had imposed on the South. Sure, slavery may have been a catalyst, a magnifying glass with which to see the inherent problems in difference between the North and South, but it was a war of conquest pure and simple.
Half the Story: Tax breaks for anyone are a good thing. The concept of an 'illegal war' is ridiculous because it implies the U.N. has moral and legal authority over what I, as a citizen of the U.S. and a subject of the U.K, can or can't do. Well fuck that. As for Katrina, maybe if the blacks in New Orleans hadn't been so state-dependent they would have evacuated just like all the white people did instead of rushing into the city centre, sitting on their hands, waiting for the government to help them. Honestly, Katrina was handled about as well as it could have been given the circumstances. Go listen to Kanye. Also, all presidents pardon criminals - it's a tradition. And personally I don't give a flying fuck who the CIA tortures as long as it's not an American citizen. The AMERICAN government only exists to protect the life, liberty, and estates of AMERICANS. Contract theory, gotta love it.
Sarah Scarlett: Speaking of the Patriot Act, it's interesting how Obama campaigned on abolishing it, but, surprise surprise, is keeping it. How about the 80,000 U.S. soldiers Obama has ordered to do 'Homeland Patrols'? Again let me reiterate, I never expressed support for the Iraq War. Slavery was perfectly legal, and no - just because it's law doesn't make it right. As Algernon Sydney said, 'that which is not just is not law, and that which is not law ought no to be obeyed.' So while I believe the Southerners had a perfectly legal right to keep slaves and practice slavery, the slaves also had a perfectly moral right to resist their bondage. But how that has anything to do with the North invading the South, destroying its way of life, and freeing a group of chattel slaves in order to put the entire country into political slavery is beyond me. To once again quote Spooner, "there is no difference, in principle - but only in degree - between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure."
And Morus, ever heard of 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."
Those powers delegated to the federal government are in Art. 1 Sec. 8 of the Constitution. I can assure healthcare isn't one of them.
Ed - If you'd read the discussion between Oli and I, you'd realise that 'General Welfare' in Article 1 Section 8 means precisely whatever Congress wants it to mean, and Obama is no more redefining that than any other previous President.
There wouldn't be a 10th Amendment conflict anyway, even if healthcare were not included in Art 1 Sec 8: universal healthcare will not be paid for at a Federal Level, it will pass on the mandate to the States.
The idea that Obama is a Socialist in any meaningful sense of the word is facile. His tax rates are no little different to Reagan's, the furthest Left he will go on Healthcare is considering the Public Option (not Single Payer, not NHS) and will probably not even pass that bill, and he hasn't tolerated what Nixon and Johnson allowe which is a draft of American teenagers (which I think would count as mandatory state service?)
Shouting about Socialism and Tyranny is pathetic and juvenile. Obama's doing a lot wrong, but you undermine your own chances of defeating him when you embrace frothy-mouthed alarmism.
Oh, and this:
"As for Katrina, maybe if the blacks in New Orleans hadn't been so state-dependent they would have evacuated just like all the white people did instead of rushing into the city centre, sitting on their hands, waiting for the government to help them. "
that's where our conversation ends.
Wow.
"And personally I don't give a flying fuck who the CIA tortures as long as it's not an American citizen. The AMERICAN government only exists to protect the life, liberty, and estates of AMERICANS. Contract theory, gotta love it."
Just wow.
Constitutions are not simply a matter of authorial intent: they have to live and grow.
@Scarlett:
Actually Ed is correct. Except for a small condition called the Convention on Human Rights which I believe the United States of America is a signatory to.
@Ed
Such slavish drooling adherence to the constitution seems odd coming from a "libertarian". Especially when you consider that the US constitution was written before the invention of the motor-car, the telephone, the internet, the computer, the nuclear bomb, the aeroplane, international relations on any meaningful level and the brunt of industrialisation in the Western world. I have no doubt that Madison, Jefferson et al were genuises of the highest order, and great men, but given that I also have no doubt that were they writing the constitution again in the modern world knowing what we know now, the consititution would probably be very different.
Further, the way you are treating Madison's stance on the constitution reminds me of the way people talk about the Quran which talk about the eternal word of Allah. Its the document that is important, not the author, no? And it is we that have to live in this world, not Madison. Don't lose sight of the forest for the trees.
Jack
"And personally I don't give a flying fuck who the CIA tortures as long as it's not an American citizen. The AMERICAN government only exists to protect the life, liberty, and estates of AMERICANS. "
It looks like you're of the "takes one to know one" school of tyrant-recognition then.