Saturday, December 25, 2010

If the Constituion Were Drafted Today, What Would Be Americans' Chief Political Value?

If the Constitution were drafted today, I doubt it would look much like the document drafted in  1787.   Back then, the rule of the federal government was limited; just a small tax on whiskey led to an armed revolt in Pennsylvania in 1791; states collected religious taxes; the majority of the elected elite believed in federalism and states' rights; and a large percentage of Americans opposed a central bank.  Today, some of these ideas are being renewed, but Progressivism, socialism and state power have become the dominant values of a nation devoted first and foremost to financial interests and the privileges of Wall Street.

If the Constitution were drafted today, and were it to reflect the average American's beliefs, it would first and foremost require a two party system, with both parties committed to big government and to logrolling of special interests' economic benefiits.  Rights to property would be subjected to the right of the two parties to steal and murder on behalf of the financial and corporate community. All economic transactions would be required to subsidize Americans' greatest goods:  General Motors, Goldman Sachs, George Soros and Paul Pelosi.

Most important among Americans' political values is the prominence of two nearly identical political parties, both strongly committed to theft and violence.  The unlimited rights of eminent domain; government's right to mismanage the nation's wealth; the president's right to wiretap; and the harm that freedom of speech might do to Congress and to corporate interests would be important elements, as would the right of the Supreme Court to compel you to be an atheist and to give your land to inept developers and the two parties.

1 comment:

Doug Plumb said...

With the loss of religion, we have lost the meaning of natural right. With the loss of education and a reading culture, we have lost the meaning of thought itself.

Americans chief political value would therefore be comfort. Everyone would have the right to be comfortable. It would be like this: (1) The right to watch TV, (2) The right not to be insulted (3) The right to a warm bed (4) The right to steal from anyone you are jealous of ....

It would last a few days until some tyrant would come along and guarentee all these things. We would be right back where we are.

A concept of natural right, I believe, is the only way to save ourselves from the materialists. This requires thinking. Marcus Aurelius said in his meditations that materialism is for the commoners. (Imagine a "Kantian" back then - Aurelius was an emperor of Rome back a few hundred years AD)