Checks and Balances?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Well now...

There's been quite a bit here recently about the Supreme Court's recent defecation upon the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Amendments. It has reminded me of a question I once asked in my high school civics class. (I went to a private, Christian high school, where they actually endeavored to teach us something) We had a lot of discussion in that class, but we never arrived at a satisfactory conclusion on this issue.

I thought I'd pose that question here, to see if you fine folks might be able to shed some new light on my old question. It goes something like this:

The Founding Fathers came up with several clever systems to keep the government in check. The most meaningful is probably that which is commonly termed "Checks and Balances". They separated the legislative, executive, and judicial functions of government into thre unique branches, and gave each branch specific controls over the other two. That way, if one of the branches of government got out of line, the other two could bring the offender back under control. (Of course, you already knew this...)

The system works very well when one branch of government runs aground of of the peoples' rights.

So here's the question: What happens if all three branches neglect their duty to the Constitution and our rights simultaneously? What if all three were to agree to pass, approve, and enforce tyrannical laws, while agreeing not to enforce their mutual checks and balances on each other?

The "campaign finance" thing particularly reeks of this scheme. The legislature passed law restricting free speach, in such a way as to exclusively benefit incumbant politicians. The president signed into law, as he benefits from it too. The Supreme Court upheld the law, reasoning that eliminating the appearence of coruption somehow trumps the 1st Amendment (thus establishing themselves as above the Constitution). So, in effect, all three branches made a power grab for themselves, and each ignored their duty and responsibility to mind the Constitution by keeping the other two in check.

So what happens now? Do the people have any recourse? The 2nd Amendment comes to mind. But are there any other options?


Having wrestled with this situation once in the past, I'm pretty sure that there is no simple answer. I hate to admit it, this may one of the few true flaws in the Founders' otherwise exceptional plan of government. But I would greatly appreciate any thoughts you might have on the matter.

Thanks,
John

 

[Psssniper]

The power of the Jury
But even that avenue is closing

 

[Pilgrim]

The Checks and Balances system relies on institutional jealousy and the need for power on the part of the players. If all the branches are satisfied with the power they exercise, and don't feel threatened by the other branch, then they will all do their individual little things and all are happy.

The executive and legislative branches do a pretty good job of keeping each other checked and balanced. However it seems, the two haven't quite figured out how to get that pesky court branch under control. It seems the only thing that keeps the Supremes from being royalty is they can't pass on their seats on the Court to their heirs.

It appears to me the only check that will be an effective counter to the courts will be the electorate. If enough people get steamed about the courts they will back off and reconsider, as was evidenced by the Ninth Circuit's reconsideration of the Pledge of Allegiance decision concerning the "under God" phrase.

I thought for a moment another stand against the courts would take place when that supreme court judge in Alabama refused to submit to a federal court judge's decision concerning the Ten Commandments monolith. It turned out he was stabbed in the back by his colleagues.

I am told there is a mural in some country, in their highest court, of a crooked judge being skinned alive by the people. Perhaps that is what we need here.

Pilgrim

 

[jimpeel]

There is the power of the rope.

 

[ravinraven]

They're asking for it!

NOTE: I've posted this in two other places tonight on threads that are more or less the same.

============

A little while ago, there was a thread which got the terd a-stirring. Something about "Do we have a moral obligation to obey unconstitutional laws?"

Here, folks, is the most tremendous opportunity we have been given in my memory to exercise.......what?........Morality! That's it!

This is a law that has to be disregarded and disobeyed or WE HAVE LOST THE RIGHT TO HAVE A FREE COUNTRY!! This is right up there with electing Hitlary as a test of whether we have a right to be free.

How do we go about giving this law the respect it deserves? I can advertise with all the money I have and no one would notice. If around the world trips were a dollar a dozen, my money wouldn't get me out of sight, but something has to be done.

When I signed up for the USAF lo those many years ago, the oath I took, and everyone who ever signed up for any branch of the military took, stated, in part, that we would "defend the constitution of the United States of America from all enemies foreign and domestic." Guess what? There are no foreign enemies we have ever encountered who give one damn about our constitution. They wanted our tails in a box. To hell with the constitution. The only "enemies" we have who are interested in dumping the constution are "domestic." This abomination proves the truth of that idea. And you and I gave our holy word that we would defend that paper. The US Constitution. Aren't we great as defenders? Let's see what's on TV. I've got a couple six packs and.....

I'm getting damned old. If they take me out tonight, I won't have missed much. Maybe it's us old phartz who, after all, allowed them to screw this country up, who should try to straighten it out.

I think that if some organization blantly refused to obey this law, we could get enough attention to get the various anti-liberty a**h*l*s involved to drop this idea. Then we might instill enough cajones [sp?] in the public to take on the anti 2A crowd.

As I understand it, a private citizen can pay for ads and do anything he/she wants to for a candidate any time he wants to. It's the corporations, such as PACs and the NRA who are the most effective who are being muzzled.

We need to form a public corporation that takes a stand for or against certain candidates for valid reasons and see what happens. The NRA is thinking of buying a TV station to get around the fact that the media can talk while private corps cannot.

I have a name. It just popped into my head. "The Liberty Project, Inc." We incorporate and start supporting some people. Dare the bastards to screw with us. I think we can keep stuff a churning for years or until this idiocy is dropped.

Any lawyers out there who want to get his/her name in the news??

Let's roll!

ravin[rantin]raven

 

[Waitone]

There are theories out there which claim the legislature can indeed thrrow a blanket over the supreme court. It has not been discussed in the past simply because SCOTUS has pretty much avoided agitating the peasantry. Those days are over.

What can be done? Civil disobedience is as American as apple pie and naplam. Seems to me the latest SCOTUS outrage is tailor made for civil disobedience.

Canada's firearms registry is failing because the good citizen simply refuse to cooperate. What would be the effect here is people simply decided to not participate in unconsitutional laws. I doubt there will be a general strike. More than likely it will be Joe and Martha Sixpack simply saying "enough."

The founding fathers were flaming brilliant. The wrote a constitution reflecting what human nature was, not what they wanted it to be. Every time we get into trouble it can be traced to an improvement we made to the constitution or bill of rights. I specifically mention direct election of senators (big mistake), national income tax (a really big mistake), and imposition without challenge a central bank (a colossal mistake).

It will be interesting what we do about a run away supreme court.

 

[geekWithA.45]

What can be done? Civil disobedience is as American as apple pie and naplam. Seems to me the latest SCOTUS outrage is tailor made for civil disobedience.

This is one of those cases, like taxes, where civil disobedience would be difficult to accomplish, because there are so many enmeshed and conflicting interests.

examples:

Taxes: You might not want to pay your taxes, but they're already withheld and paid for you by your employer, (who doesn't care about your issue). By not filing, you're more likely to miss out on a refund than not, and thus actual tax civil disobedience is, as a practical matter, difficult to pull off.

This monstrosity:

Well, you'd have to find a PAC that has money, or build one and get money.
Then you'd have to make a TV ad ($$$) Then you'd have to convince a TV station, (who doesn't care about your issue) to risk their FCC license to run it.


The chess pieces are well arrayed, and maneuvering room is little to none.


Other non violent confrontation methods:

Demonstrations...if you could find enough people who understand how screwed they are (yawn....demonstrations have been shown to be eminently ignorable, 5 seconds on the news and gone)

General Strike: America takes a couple of days off....well, that'd hit everyone n the pocketbook, and I'm sure it'd run afoul of RICO somehow

 

[ravinraven]

revolution??

Someone on one of these threads that came out as a result of the SCOTUS anti-liberty decision a couple of days ago pointed out that open revolution might not solve the problem as we here seem to see it because we would not be running said revolution. That is quite correct. A revolution would be a profound democratic event. The strongest/cleverest army would win and do the ruling. That might not get anything I wanted to ever be a part of America again to actually come about. So. Revolutionary warfare = bad idea.

Going along with SCOTUS and their runaway anti-liberty stance, 5 to 4, is also a VERY bad idea. To follow their putrid ruling is to tell the world that you are anti-liberty and therefore anti-American. Very bad idea.

Why can't a group be formed that examines each activity by government officials and compares these activities to the BoR. Any activity that an official does or participates in that runs counter to the BoR earns him the death penalty as meted out by this "organization."

The idea is that if the people who actually push the anti-liberty acts suddenly start pushing daisies, those still alive might change their attitude toward the rights of the people. The disruption and uncertainty caused by armed revolution would be avoided. Wiping out minor players who act against BoR rights would not cause a national trauma as an assination of some national figure might cause.

Of course, the numbers of abuses are so great that "the organization" wouldn't have the time or resources to punish all perpetrators [traitors] but they could get a few. The message would be that if you frig with the rights of the people you are playing Russian roulette. Violate rights at your own risk. The Nuremburg defence, only doing my job, would not save the perpetraitors.

Such an "organization" might have police, FBI, CIA, Military and elected officials as valuable members since not all people in these ranks are anti-liberty. In fact, most would be sympathetic to "the organization" methinks.

I imagine the pseudo-intellectuals will jump all over this idea that I have brought up with their characteristic tactic known as deliberate misinterpretation. I will entertain serious questions, however, since these questions will help me in my thought processes relative to such an organization. With all due respect to the Loon, a beautiful water bird, anti-liberty loons need not reply.

ravinrantinraven

 

[Il Duce]

Why can't a group be formed that examines each activity by government officials and compares these activities to the BoR. Any activity that an official does or participates in that runs counter to the BoR earns him the death penalty as meted out by this "organization."

Well, that used to be the SCOTUS's job, minus the death part...

Such an "organization" might have police, FBI, CIA, Military and elected officials as valuable members since not all people in these ranks are anti-liberty. In fact, most would be sympathetic to "the organization" methinks.

Not to be a pseudo-intellectual, but doesn't this "organization" sound eerily familiar to "S.S.", "KGB", etc.? Who would be in control of this "organization"? Obviously, it can't be the government; which means we, the people, would control it. But how? Elect the head members of the "organization"? Isn't that what we're already doing with the legislative and executive branches? It's a novel idea, but isn't the job of this "organization" really our job as set forth by the constitution? Just a thought...

 

[ravinraven]

This is what keeps me awake nights.

Il Duce--

The idea of who would control it and how and how would the thing be ended if it did, in fact, correct the situation is haunting and daunting. And it does sound like the KGB, etc that you mention. It may well be that there is no cure and our grandkids will have to correct the situation guess how. Then they will set up, maybe, another gov't based on individual political liberty and in a couple centuries, replay the whole scene. That seems to be the way governments cycle along.

I've been told by political science profs, politicians and, finally, by my own brain cells that once liberty starts sliding down the slope to pure democracy and then tyranny, the slide can't be stopped from within the society. Either the society has to be liberated by an outside force as we did for the German people and are presently doing for the Iraqis, if you believe the conventional wisdom, or it has to collapse into a police state and be resurrected by a civil war that would be a mess, to say the least. "The organization" I have been thinking about might be an alternative. Make the anti-liberty clowns "disappear."

Of course, the difficulties of that approach are tremendous, but if the right number of correctly disciplined, pro-liberty people could quietly work behind the scenes, there would be less social disturbance, etc. But, then we roll back to the first part of this post. Control and "sunset."

I would personnaly hate to see such a thing have to happen. It could be avoided if only people cared enough to pay attention to what's going on and if government schools were forced to actually teach about the gov., the constitution, the BoR and how it applies instead of providing thirteen years of feel-good indoctrination.

thanx for the observations.

rr

 

[BigG]

Sounds like it's a job for Double Oh Seven.

 

[ravinraven]

007??

Ain't that the truth!

I think we are in the same position relative to the people who are selling us out to anti-liberty interests that Chamberlain was when he was declaring "peace in our time." By doing nothing, we are appeasing these #%#@!!**#'s. Either do a little now or be forced to do a hell of a lot later.

What can be done to fire a shot across the bow of our three branch gov't that is collectively selling us into a police state situation?

rr

 

[BigG]

What can be done to fire a shot across the bow of our three branch gov't that is collectively selling us into a police state situation?

This question deserves a thread of its own, Ravin.