Your duty as a Citizen to understand the Constitution

Kal'Stang said:

Actually it was James Madison:

Click to expand...

Thats taken a bit out of context, no?

He was not referring to the optimal methods of composing or interpreting the Constitution. In Federalist 62, he was defending the structure of the Senate; in that particular section of the text, he was defending the longer term length of Senators, and suggesting that their number and longer terms will help ensure the order and stability required by a healthy state. This is evident with the lines of the paragraph omitted in that very quote:

Madison said:

The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Click to expand...

(emphasis added)

He wasn't suggesting that "the Constitution should be written for a 7th grade reader." He was worried about an unstable government.

The Federalist #62

Visbek said:

Meaning what, they don't like jury duty?

Oh, wait, I know. They don't vote, right? You want compulsory voting?

No? Do you mean, pay their taxes? Hmm.



Please, stop with the worship.

Most of what it talks about is how to organize the federal government, and as an afterthought (literally) it protects some of the rights of citizens. While there were some key innovations at the time it was written, there were also disastrous oversights such as an utter failure to end the horrible travesty of slavery. The Framers could not have foreseen how it would turn our nation into a "vetocracy," in which it is all too easy to throw sand in the gears, including later inventions like the filibuster. Many of its authors were concerned about maintaining their own power, as shown by the compromise of a bicameral legislature. It never says "government must be small" or "the federal government is barred from providing safety nets to older citizens" or "the federal government cannot regulate consumer safety," or whatever other libertarian fantasy you are indulging in today.

You are right that it separates us from other nations -- but that's not really in favor of the US. Many other nations have abandoned the American formula, in favor of much better articulations of the rights of citizens and residents; e.g. Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms is now a model around the world.



Yeah... no.

Your belief here is that "no one is abiding by the Constitution!" The reality is that in the vast majority of cases, the government is fulfilling its Constitutional duty; it is merely doing things you personally dislike.



If you truly understood the Constitution and the history surrounding it, you would not try to justify your own authoritarian fantasy of everyone doing what you want, because you are somehow the Perfect Interpreter of the Constitution.

By the way, I have to ask: How many years have you studied Constitutional Law? Do you have a law degree? Did you get it at Harvard or Yale? How many Supreme Court rulings have you studied? How much research have you done into the history of English Common Law, of the various state governments, of the Revolutionary War Period, of the Articles of Confederation? What are your bona fides, such that you claim to have superior knowledge of these topics to all others?

Click to expand...

Canada's Charter of Rights has a " limitations clause '' which gives Govt the discretion to infringe upon Charter rights

This clause has been used in the past to uphold laws against objectionable speech and objectionable conduct.
If other Nations are copying that example its at their own peril.

Yes, our Constitution makes the US exceptional and no its not a slight to our Nation or our its cicitizens.

The existence of natural rights and self governance and powers delegated by the governed helped create a nation that people have risked their lives tlivese in. And we dont need guard towers to keep them here once they arrive.

cabse5 said:

I think it was in 1856 that the dreaded Dred Scot case was resolved. That SCOTUS considered slaves as property. In 1868 slaves were human with the ability to gain citizen status.

Click to expand...

Going by our interpretation of current values you are correct. Going by the values of the day, SCOTUS was correct. Wagging your finger at past decisions that was based on the current POV of what was or wasn't considered human using today's standards doesn't do a thing for the case you're trying to make.

cabse5 said:

Reinterpreting is when SCOTUS extrapolates the 14th amendment meant for former slaves to validate anchor babies.

Click to expand...

On this I agree. But mainly because the main author of the 14th Amendment made the argument that it was not supposed to apply to ambassadors, Indians, and those in the US illegally.

jdog said:

The reason the government can get away with usurping power it does not legally have according to the Constitution is that not one in a thousand people have taken the time to read and understand the document. If it were common knowledge that the government does not have the power to dictate educational standards and to control the school systems, then the people would support political candidates that supported that position, and the problem would be dealt with. Instead they are too busy watching NFL and worrying about whether someone stands up for the National Anthem. The media is able to play the ignorant people like a string instrument.

Click to expand...

It is much more simple - the federal government, unlike the states, can borrow or print money. Thus the federal government can (and does) bribe the states into accepting federal "oversight" of X (senior care, poverty program assistance, utility service assistance, food coupons, crop insurance, education, medical care insurance, UHC?) in exchange for some much needed revenue. Basically, if something is deemed important the voters want X but X is too costly for the states to fund X via direct taxation then X magically and forever more becomes a new federal "constiutional" power with no need to amend the constitution at all.

Visbek said:

Thats taken a bit out of context, no?

He was not referring to the optimal methods of composing or interpreting the Constitution. In Federalist 62, he was defending the structure of the Senate; in that particular section of the text, he was defending the longer term length of Senators, and suggesting that their number and longer terms will help ensure the order and stability required by a healthy state. This is evident with the lines of the paragraph omitted in that very quote:

(emphasis added)

He wasn't suggesting that "the Constitution should be written for a 7th grade reader." He was worried about an unstable government.

The Federalist #62

Click to expand...

You should note that while his main point was about the stability of the government it was also about The People which he refers to several times through out that article. The last part of that quote which we both did not add in is:

"Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?"

All Combined it reads:

The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Click to expand...

So its not really taking out of context as much as its simplifying it.

Indeed the very next paragraph reinforces what he said in that paragraph:

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few, not for the many.

Click to expand...

In other words he recognized that most people would not be (as he put it) "sagacious" enough to understand, as we put it today, "legaleze" and would be taken advantage of by people that did know "legaleze".

ModerateGOP said:

Then your argument is completely pointless. It's like a vegetarian wishing people would eat less meat. Then they acknowledge that there is no chance in hell that they won't and they don't do anything about it. lolz.

Short of forcing people to read said document. There is no chance you will make people who don't care about it, read it.

Click to expand...

"Make" people read it? No. But we can change perception and get people to read it voluntarily. One such way is to post things like the OP did. Get people to realize that they should be doing this. I agree that people more than likely won't. But it sure doesn't hurt to try to get them to actually voluntarily do it. Even if only one or two people change their mind and start doing it that is still two more people than there were previously.

Fenton said:

What makes us " endentured servants " exactly ?

Dont get me wrong, there are millions of uninformed voters that believe the Constitution is just a piece of paper or even a " living document ", amd sure there's a concerted attempt to undermine our Constitution by the Left but endentured servants ?

Does paying taxes make us endentured servants ? Govt surveillance of public areas ? Law enforcement ?

Click to expand...

Excellent question! The Income tax creates indentured servants in that it makes claim to the fruits of your labor. In order to be legally entitled to claim ownership of the fruits of a mans labor, you must lay claim to ownership of his person. The reason any slave-owner is allowed to legally claim the fruit of another mans labor to be his own, is because the man himself is the slave-owners property.

In order for the government to claim the power to take the fruit of your labor, it must claim ownership of you as a person.

Now when Citizens were actually free, the government was given the power to tax under the Constitution, but that power was limited to the jurisdiction of the one area it was given power to regulate and that was trade. That means the government has power under the original Constitution to levy tariffs, duties, or impose taxes on trade. This was the power to tax profits. It is only fitting that the government be able to retrieve costs associated with the services it provides to insure trade is possible and fair.

The major difference between taxing trade and taxing labor is that there is no profit made from your labor. Your labor is always sold to an employer at less than its market value in order to ensure the employer can make a profit and keep his business profitable. In addition, you cannot be said to profit from working for wages as the time and effort you have expended in order to exchange for wages is a loss of a piece of your life which you can never recover. Who is to place a price on the time you lose working to make another man profit?

The 16th amendment and the laws concerning the Income Tax maintain that a worker has “no cost basis” in their own labor, and therefore all money earned in exchange for their labor is profit. Now this on its surface seems unreasonable for the reasons I have stated before, until you take into consideration that the government does not consider your labor to be yours to begin with. The government does not consider your labor to be yours, because it does not consider you to be a free and sovereign person. If you were free and sovereign, then of course you would have ownership of your person and of your labor and it would have value in exchange for labor.

The government considers you to be property of the government, and as property of the government, your labor already belongs to the government which not only disallows your “cost basis” in your labor, but gives the government legal claim to it, as you and your labor are both government property.

Are you beginning to see why it is important to understand the law and the Constitution?

ModerateGOP said:

No it's not. I know Americans who have never even seen the Constitution. That doesn't mean they are breaking the law.

Click to expand...

The movie Idiocracy is no longer a comedy, it is now a documentary.......

ModerateGOP said:

The word duty suggests that you have to do something. AKA a requirement or a obligation to do this. Duty doesn't mean should, it means has to. This is poor wording on yours and the OPs. I'm also not sure of the point here. You can get through life easy enough even without following politics. So this whole premise that there is a duty to understand the constitution is stupid and pointless bickering.

Click to expand...

Not quite, there are plenty of duties that people have that they are derelict in performing. As Citizens, as parents, as responsible drivers, as civilized people.... That is the problem we have as a society today, people want all the benefits of these things, and refuse to perform the duties associated with them.... We have become a society of spoiled children who think we are somehow entitled to break the rules and ignore our duties and responsibilities to our country and our civilization....

Fishking said:

I'd say property taxes comes really close to that definition. It's a tax that literally says you don't own your property because, if you don't pay it, it will be taken away.

Click to expand...

This is true, as you learn more about rights, you find out that all rights are derived from property rights, and that if you do not own something absolutely, then you do not really own it at all. We used to have what was known as the Castle doctrine in which it was assumed every man was King of his Castle, and it was the one place he was truly free to do as he wished without worry of imposing on another. It is really not possible to be King of your Castle when someone else owns it, and when property taxes are placed on your home it is really the government who owns it, you are simply the renter. It is hard to be a free man, when you have no place of your own to be free....

ModerateGOP said:

But you said they had a duty do this and if they don't do it what happens? What's the point of that argument?

Click to expand...

The point is what has happened.... By people not performing their duty's our freedoms and our prosperity have been taken from us. That is what happens, but we have only ourselves to blame...

Kal'Stang said:

"Make" people read it? No. But we can change perception and get people to read it voluntarily. One such way is to post things like the OP did. Get people to realize that they should be doing this. I agree that people more than likely won't. But it sure doesn't hurt to try to get them to actually voluntarily do it. Even if only one or two people change their mind and start doing it that is still two more people than there were previously.

Click to expand...

uh you realize you are posting on a political discussion board, right? Most likely the people here have read it. If you start posting this OP in random forums that don't cover politics you will likely be banned. So got any other bright ideas to move this stupid plan along?

jdog said:

Not quite, there are plenty of duties that people have that they are derelict in performing. As Citizens, as parents, as responsible drivers, as civilized people.... That is the problem we have as a society today, people want all the benefits of these things, and refuse to perform the duties associated with them.... We have become a society of spoiled children who think we are somehow entitled to break the rules and ignore our duties and responsibilities to our country and our civilization....

Click to expand...

No these aren't rules... anywhere.

ttwtt78640 said:

It is much more simple - the federal government, unlike the states, can borrow or print money. Thus the federal government can (and does) bribe the states into accepting federal "oversight" of X (senior care, poverty program assistance, utility service assistance, food coupons, crop insurance, education, medical care insurance, UHC?) in exchange for some much needed revenue. Basically, if something is deemed important the voters want X but X is too costly for the states to fund X via direct taxation then X magically and forever more becomes a new federal "constiutional" power with no need to amend the constitution at all.

Click to expand...

You are correct in that the Federal Government uses revenue to extract "voluntary compliance" from the States, but it needs to be said that it only has that power because it illegally usurps taxes to begin with. Then it uses them to compel the people and the States to comply with the regulations it has placed on areas of our lives it does not have the power under the Constitution to have jurisdiction over in the first place. When you understand the mechanics of it, it is truly insane.

jdog said:

You are correct in that the Federal Government uses revenue to extract "voluntary compliance" from the States, but it needs to be said that it only has that power because it illegally usurps taxes to begin with. Then it uses them to compel the people and the States to comply with the regulations it has placed on areas of our lives it does not have the power under the Constitution to have jurisdiction over in the first place. When you understand the mechanics of it, it is truly insane.

Click to expand...

That was the fault of (fatal flaw in?) the 16A - letting the federal government tax (or borrow in the name of) the people directly. The 16A should be rewritten to square up taxation and representation - divide the (actual prior year) annual federal budget by 535 and each state must pay 1/535th of that amount for each of that state's congress critters (2 Senators plus X House members). Get rid of DC by giving the remainder back to MD in the process.

That way we the people can see exactly how much those congress critters cost us on an annual per critter basis.

ModerateGOP said:

But why would people who don't care about this care about this? That's like asking a hippie to go to law school, or a an engineer to study physical fitness.

Click to expand...

Because they should have enough concern for the country. Instead, we have people who claim to be smarter than the rest of us that have no understanding, nor knowledge of The Constitution. Many of them don't know that the Legislative Branch is the only one of the three branches that can make law.

jdog said:

This is true, as you learn more about rights, you find out that all rights are derived from property rights,

Click to expand...

Right here is what so many don't get. If you don't have property rights then you really have almost no foundation for which any other right can rest upon.

ttwtt78640 said:

That was the fault of (fatal flaw in?) the 16A - letting the federal government tax (or borrow in the name of) the people directly. The 16A should be rewritten to square up taxation and representation - divide the (actual prior year) annual federal budget by 535 and each state must pay 1/535th of that amount for each of that state's congress critters (2 Senators plus X House members). Get rid of DC by giving the remainder back to MD in the process.

That way we the people can see exactly how much those congress critters cost us on an annual per critter basis.

Click to expand...

The 16A needs to be abolished altogether because it was never Constitutional to begin with. If the government wants to impose a National sales tax, then that is within its Constitutional power, but the taxing of a mans labor is illegal unless the government is claiming it owns us all as indentured servants to begin with... Which is exactly what it does, but I would love to see them try to explain that to the masses who still believe they are free people.....

ModerateGOP said:

uh you realize you are posting on a political discussion board, right? Most likely the people here have read it. If you start posting this OP in random forums that don't cover politics you will likely be banned. So got any other bright ideas to move this stupid plan along?

Click to expand...

Bold: I wonder about that.

As for the rest, there are plenty of forums out there that cover a wide range of subjects and would allow such. I know of one particular science forum that would allow it just off the top of my head.

jdog said:

The 16A needs to be abolished altogether because it was never Constitutional to begin with.

Click to expand...

It is your duty as an American citizen to understand that when the 16th Amendment was passed, it explicitly granted Congress the "power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

It is beyond ridiculous to suggest that an amendment to the Constitution is "unconstitutional." That reveals a fundamental lack of understanding of how the Constitution functions.

If the government wants to impose a National sales tax, then that is within its Constitutional power, but the taxing of a mans labor is illegal unless the government is claiming it owns us all as indentured servants to begin with... Which is exactly what it does

Click to expand...

I would love to see them try to explain that to the masses who still believe they are free people.....

Click to expand...

lol... OK then. How about this?

The 16th Amendment explicitly grants Congress the power to levy taxes on income -- which, by the way, is NOT always the same thing as "taxing wages, since there are numerous other sources of income.

Nothing about this makes anyone into an "indentured servant," nor does it curtail the freedoms of any other citizens -- including the right to ask Congress to cease levying taxes on wages and other forms of income.

Anyway, thanks for completely undermining your own claims, since you display such a fundamental lack of understanding of how the Constitution functions, the nature of taxation, the definition of indentured servitude....

Visbek said:

It is your duty as an American citizen to understand that when the 16th Amendment was passed, it explicitly granted Congress the "power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

It is beyond ridiculous to suggest that an amendment to the Constitution is "unconstitutional." That reveals a fundamental lack of understanding of how the Constitution functions.

lol... OK then. How about this?

The 16th Amendment explicitly grants Congress the power to levy taxes on income -- which, by the way, is NOT always the same thing as "taxing wages, since there are numerous other sources of income.

Nothing about this makes anyone into an "indentured servant," nor does it curtail the freedoms of any other citizens -- including the right to ask Congress to cease levying taxes on wages and other forms of income.

Anyway, thanks for completely undermining your own claims, since you display such a fundamental lack of understanding of how the Constitution functions, the nature of taxation, the definition of indentured servitude....

Click to expand...

You cannot pass a amendment to the Constitution that nullifies the very foundation the Constitution is based on. The power to tax income is the power to enslave the people. At the point the 16A was passed, we ceased to be a free country.

joG said:

Though, I would say it's a little more complicated, I also think that we are going through a period of constitutional crisis of a type. There has been a creeping shift in the meaning attributed to the Constitution that a very large percentage of the population does not follow but that is fundamental as it sets a precedent for removing protections of minorities without formal legal constitutional change.

Click to expand...

You know exactly d!ck about how the Constitution works. Stop embarrassing yourself.

Kal'Stang said:

"Make" people read it? No. But we can change perception and get people to read it voluntarily. One such way is to post things like the OP did. Get people to realize that they should be doing this. I agree that people more than likely won't. But it sure doesn't hurt to try to get them to actually voluntarily do it. Even if only one or two people change their mind and start doing it that is still two more people than there were previously.

Click to expand...

What are people going to learn by reading the Constitution?

Article I, Section 8, just by itself sucks up 6-8 weeks in law school and even then you understand that you're still only wading into its depths. But if one really wants to know then this would be a good start:

https://www.amazon.com/Constitution...2&sr=1-1&keywords=constitutional+law+textbook

Then they'll need this:

https://www.amazon.com/First-Amendm...me when you don't absolutely have to know it.

I think it is important to know the laws of the land.

But I only follow the rules/laws that I agree with or the ones that it is too much of a hassle to ignore.


As far as the Constitution is concerned? It's got some good parts. But I also think it is extremely flawed and should not be looked upon as anything more than a work in progress.

IMO, too many people look upon it as some sort of devine inspiration...it ain't.


As for political corruption? Americans have no one to blame but themselves for that.
Look at a this election? Two staggeringly flawed candidates and the ignorant masses will still elect one of them - when they should be voting for neither.
And four years from now, America will be worse off then it is now and the fault will not be Clinton or Trump's...it will be the fault of the people that voted for them.
Crap in - crap out.
The vast majority of Americans are TERRIBLE voters who are staggeringly ignorant about what America needs politically.

jdog said:

You cannot pass a amendment to the Constitution that nullifies the very foundation the Constitution is based on.

Click to expand...

Yes, actually, we can. There is absolutely no limit whatsoever to what can be changed via an amendment. We could abolish the Senate, we could appoint a dictator for life, revoke the entire Bill of Rights. There is not a single word in the Constitution which places any limits on amendments. All that matters is that they are executed properly.

The idea that levying an income tax strikes at the core of the Constitution, or is any sort of "slavery," is flat-out ridiculous to the point of downright offense.

And of course, here we come to the crux of the problem. It is screamingly obvious that you have not followed your own injunction; you have defaulted on your own duty to understand the Constitution. Instead, you are merely imposing your own inaccurate ideas on the document and on US law.

Physician, heal thyself.