(Sorry about the history lesson \u2013 but I was a history teacher!!)<\/em><\/p>\nThe founding of the United States was messy.\u00a0 Thirteen colonies, breaking away from the British Monarchy, were incredibly jealous of their sovereign powers.\u00a0 They came together to fight the British, but they were like a group of squabbling children, unwilling to give authority to a national government.\u00a0 The Articles of Confederation, an agreement that took four years for all thirteen colonies to ratify, did not even give the Nation the power to tax, only to ask the states for money.<\/p>\n
At the end of the Revolutionary War, we were a nation of loosely organized sovereign states.\u00a0 We found that this organizational model did not work; thirteen currencies, thirteen tariffs at the borders, thirteen different codes of law, did not make a nation.\u00a0 It was a recipe for division and disaster.<\/p>\n
The Constitution was written, and while the Preamble stated WE THE PEOPLE writ large, it still was a contractual agreement among the states.\u00a0 Nine were required to agree to make it the foundation of the United States.<\/p>\n
There is a segment of current legal thought that claims the Constitution should only be evaluated through the thinking of those that actually wrote it.\u00a0 They believe the words, carefully chosen, often in compromise, should be examined only in the context of the thoughts of those amazing minds:\u00a0Madison, Hamilton, Sherman, Franklin, and of course, Washington.<\/p>\n
This echoes the earliest debates of our nation, the \u201cstrict interpreters,\u201d who wanted to follow the letter of the document versus the \u201cloose interpreters,\u201d believing that there were implied powers that the National government could exercise.\u00a0\u00a0 The \u201cstrict interpreters\u201d then, and the \u201coriginal meaning\u201d voices now, both saw the only way of expanding the Constitution was through the Amendment process.<\/p>\n
This argument advanced into the mid-19th<\/sup>century, culminating in the attempted dissolution of the contract, and of the Union.\u00a0 The Civil War used military force to enforce a differing view of the Constitution, as a compact among the people, not just the states.\u00a0 When Lincoln stated, in the Gettysburg Address, that this was a \u201c\u2026government of the people, by the people, and for the people,\u201d he was defining a new interpretation of the deal.<\/p>\nThe Fourteenth Amendment further defined the change.\u00a0 It made it clear that there was a single citizenship, of the United States (not just of individual states) and that states, or the nation, could not differentiate or discriminate among those citizens.<\/p>\n
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.<\/em> \u2013 14th\u00a0<\/sup>Amendment \u2013 Section 1<\/em><\/p>\nWhile the writing of the Constitution brought the states together, it was the Fourteenth Amendment, and the war that preceded it, that made us one nation.\u00a0 While the Constitution said WE THE PEOPLE, it was the ALL PERSONS of the Fourteenth that made us Americans, and guaranteed what we now believe and enforce, the equal protection under law.<\/p>\n
We have in our midst today, a powerful legal group that has been given the ultimate authority of selecting our Supreme Court Justices.\u00a0 Unfortunately this group is not the United States Senate, though Constitutionally they still have that power.\u00a0 The President has \u201ccontracted out\u201d the selection process to the Federalist Society, an organization of like-minded lawyers who have dedicated themselves to the concept of \u201coriginal interpretation.\u201d\u00a0 They are re-litigating American history, trying to take our nation back to a time before the experiences that shaped our current law.<\/p>\n
They wish to apply only the thoughts of the founding fathers to the two-hundred thirty years of experience we have lived since.\u00a0They want to believe that the founding fathers, who led a Revolution, organized a government, then re-organized it again; did not write a document that in and of itself could grow and expand with the changing times. They want to judicially determine that change can only be made through amendment, not through changing interpretation to meet changing times.<\/p>\n
Their impact is already being felt.\u00a0 The scourge of money in our political system, already enhancing the formidable powers of the wedge interest groups and the billionaire class, has been protected as \u201cindividual free speech\u201d by the Citizen\u2019s United decision, five justices (four of the Federalist society) to four.\u00a0The door was opened to the NRA and the Koch Brothers, and even more insidiously the Mercer family; to buy our national government.<\/p>\n
This is why the Supreme Court appointment of Brett Kavanaugh is so important.\u00a0 He represents a Federalist Society coup, a full majority of the Court.\u00a0 The bitter struggles that applied the Fourteenth Amendment to our daily lives, rights that protected ALL PERSONS and they way they live, are in jeopardy.\u00a0 \u00a0It is an old argument, one we thought was already resolved.\u00a0 This nomination opens the door to that struggle once again.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Just heard that the President has determined not to fly the flag at half-staff in honor of Senator John McCain.\u00a0 It shouldn\u2019t be a surprise, I guess.\u00a0 The President is a man who does not recognize heroism, or grace, or dedication.\u00a0 His lack of respect for McCain says much more about him, than the Senator.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
He could look East and West, but he always sailed true North.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n– Admiral Stavridis on John McCain<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Constitutional Dilemma (Sorry about the history lesson \u2013 but I was a history teacher!!) The founding of the United States was messy.\u00a0 Thirteen colonies, breaking away from the British Monarchy, were incredibly jealous of their sovereign powers.\u00a0 They came together to fight the British, but they were like a group of squabbling children, unwilling … Continue reading “A Constitutional Dilemma”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Constitutional Dilemma : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2018\/08\/27\/a-constitutional-dilemma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Constitutional Dilemma : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Constitutional Dilemma (Sorry about the history lesson \u2013 but I was a history teacher!!) 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