It's worth noting that the Federal Government claims that the 4th Amendment does not apply within 100 miles of a 'port of entry into the United States' - the 'border search exception.
You will be pleased to note that the BlackRobes have given this 'exception' the all-clear - you see, it's not a *violation* of the prohibition regarding "unreasonable search and seizure"... because ACK-shually, such searches aren't "unreasonable" because We're The BlackRobes So Shut The Fuck Up Peasants.... FFS.
- United States v. Ramsey, 431 US 606 (1977)
The rationale in the jurisprudence on this, is that there is a reduced expectaton of privacy in these border zones. So again - SHUT THE FUCK UP PEASANTS.
- Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925)
This is where it gets squirrelly: what proportion of the population of the US lives within 100 miles of a 'port of entry into the United States'?
To help everyone's heuristic: note that every international airport is a 'port of entry into the United States'. So Denver, CO has a "port of entry into the United States". So does Salt Lake City.
Rinse and repeat for all landlocked major agglomerations.
This is an exercise that I've done before, so I know the answer (as of 2016).
It was about 87% then. EIGHTY SEVEN PERCENT of the US population is subject to warrantless search and a "whimsical" idea as to what constitute probable cause.
I used the population by Congressional District, and a map of international airports with a 100mi ST_Buffer() ... and if the polygon representing the CD was ST_Within() the buffer zone of an airport the whole population was NOT COVERED BY THE 4TH AMENDMENT... because the Exception doesn't require that the thing being searched has transited through a port of entry - it can literally be a car anywhere within 100 miles of the "port of entry", being driven by a citizen who's never left the country.
So, y'know... the 4th Amendment has been a dead letter for a REALLY long time, and nobody is even aware of it.
As Lord Johannes Acton observed: "There are no great leaders, only bad men, and they write the histories". And no nation has thus so suffered as the United States of America. That, above, is the version of history preserved for posterity and the protection of artistocratic power.
Early in the 2000s I interviewed a family in America who were descendents of Thomas Paine. Their claim to fame is that their ancestor wrote the American Constitution, a belief somewhat in conflict with the above analysed history. Actually, Paine wrote the original, which was rejected by the plutocrts.
Here is what really happened.
Paine inspired democratic revolution throughout Europe, including France but was unable to gain traction in his own country, England. So Paine moved to America. His "The Rights of Man, should be read by every American because that is the original constitution, as lauded by Americans desirous of establishing a democracy.
The plutocrats did not want a constitution, nor did they want human rights, but the call for constitution was irrepressible. What they wanted was to create a monarchy and in this they were supported by the central power of England. Madison was allocated the job of rewriting the constitution so that it was a republic in name but a monarchy in terms of distribution of power and wealth.
Several clauses must be eliminated, he was instructed.
"All authority resides in The People", and paraphrased for good measure...
"The People are the source of all authority"
"The People shall decide on the manner and amount of taxation and on how it is to be spent".
"Funds shall be set aside to support the aged and the infirm".
There were many more, but you get the picture. Paine's fatal mistake was his failure to understand that there are two meanings for the word 'representative'. He meant that because of the then tyranny of distance, individuals could be elected to convey community consensus to the Congress. He meant this literally. At: neighbourhood, village, tribe, clan, local, regional or national level, the community is to become fully informed on all issues of contention, discuss these, then when consensus evolves, convey the outcome to Congress vis trusted representatives.
The plutocrats/aristocrats adopted a different meaning: That the people elect representatives who would then do our thinking for us and make new laws accordingly. Thay created impressive theatre to provide substance and tangibility: elections, new political parties, parliaments, majorities, votes, campaigns, election laws, pomp and splendor.
Not everybody was fooled and critics howled their outrage at the aristocrats' lawyers, who responded by describing the new sleight-of-hand as Representative Democracy. There is, of course, no such thing.
Because so many called for the original constitution, the aristocrats created their own campaign for amendments that would include the excluded clauses. They then created the first ten amendements, still excluding the key components.
How to counter this sophistry?
That was the task for pro-democracy activists. It was Abraham Lincoln whose lyrical definition was given oxygen at Gettysburg, that won the day "Government of the people, by the people and for the people".
The aristocrats were furious, and the plutocrats, also were angry because Lincoln's War Bonds prevented the banker's war loans that would have pauperised Americans for centuries. Lincoln's anti-democracy acts of the civil war years were directed aginst the banker elite, who actually considered slavery obsolete due to the economic impact of the cotton gin. Basically, like all wars, a parallel agenda was operative. Because he outmanoeuvred them at every point of conflit, the aristocracy/ plutocratic cabal had him assassinated and his good name has been under attack ever since.
But millions of Americans were not fooled, nor cowered, and the drive to democracy emerged under the name the Polulist Movement. Even that word is still under sustained attack.
In 2003, I discovered that all public library books on genuine democracy had been burned, world-wide. There were many democracies, Greece not being one, and records of these were destroyed, including the volumes by the Irish Monks.
However, I had examined these before the censorship war and so I wrote a novel that explained how corruption evolves in a remote part of Australia, and also how genuine democracy works, using a twelve thousand year example that survives to this day. By chance, pure serendipity, I had documented this over a period of fifty years and, by another coincidence, was employed to document for government just this last year.
The novel is titled "The Lost Track" and is available free on PDF should any body want a copy. Eventually a publisher will convert this to print and it will no longer be free. However, the novel also contains proof the chief globalist propagandist comitted serious criminal offences that merit imprisonment; along with those of his criminal cronies, which is why the publishers are nervous about going to print.
The threat is real. Hours after I attempted to collect prosecution documents pertaining to the crime, my vehicle was sabotaged, I was poisoned two weeks later, and the vehicle was sabotaged yet again last year. Another reason the PDF is free is that the more copies out there the less motivation there is to silence me. So, yes, definitively a bit of self-interest operational here.
That is your hypothesis, based on what you want to be true. Eschewing presumption and instead embracing objectivity I actually tested this out on 3500 people in 1985. Supervising sociologists predicted a 12% response rate yet our raw response measured at 76%, and after weighting (excluding those who spoke no English and others who were away on vacation leave), it was found that 86% engaged in consensus.
Moreover, consensus even on previously contentious issues was 93%.
Your next objection, no doubt, will be "Oh, but perhaps this works in relatively small groups such as neighbourhoods, but it can never work with large cities, such as NY". Yet our research shows size makes no difference. This is because even New York is actually comprised of thousands of neighbourhoods, and people establish entirely different relationships with people who live within "stones throw" of their home. This has been known for thousands of years.
Here is another counter to your next objection, which will be that there is just too much legislation for people to cope with. The truth is in every jurisdiction there are seldom more than two or three actual community issues to deal with per year. The rest of the legislation is about the criminal government class squabling over the spoils in the trough. You have consensus government there is no more corrupt class in power.
Being elitist, you will reject whatever evidence I offer. Do you think I have not encountered thousands like you previously?
Feb 3, 2023·edited Feb 3, 2023Liked by Tree of Woe
> That is your hypothesis, based on what you want to be true.
No, it's my observation based on observing debates on political issues, and reading history. It also agrees with my theoretical predictions based on the game theoretic concept of rational ignorance.
> Eschewing presumption and instead embracing objectivity I actually tested this out on 3500 people in 1985. Supervising sociologists predicted a 12% response rate yet our raw response measured at 76%, and after weighting (excluding those who spoke no English and others who were away on vacation leave), it was found that 86% engaged in consensus.
I'm not sure what you're talking about here, or how it is relevant. At best you're confusing a proposal having consensus with it being a good idea.
> This is because even New York is actually comprised of thousands of neighbourhoods, and people establish entirely different relationships with people who live within "stones throw" of their home. This has been known for thousands of years.
Except a lot of issues, e.g., maintaining water system, the sewer system, the roads and general transportation system and other infrastructure, can't be effectively managed at the neighborhood level.
> The truth is in every jurisdiction there are seldom more than two or three actual community issues to deal with per year. The rest of the legislation is about the criminal government class squabling over the spoils in the trough.
Perhaps if you adopt a minarchist state, but you still have the rational ignorance problem. It takes effort to learn about issues, and one's individual opinion won't make much of a difference; far easier to assume one't neighbors have done the thinking and defer to them. In any case, it's clear from your other comments that you don't support a minarchist state.
Tony, thanks for sharing all of this information. I have not myself closely studied Thomas Paine, because I was (thoroughly, excellently) schooled in the traditional history of the country, and he's just that guy who wrote a leaflet that was popular...
I was aware of Lincoln's war bonds and greenbacks being opposed by the banking powers, and do believe that was the reason for his assassination. It doesn't (IMO) excuse him from some of his actions during the war, but that's another story. No one is perfect.
My pleasure, T of W. I must admit I have not had time to study the actual history behind some of Lincoln's civil war deeds, but to the extent that I did dig down, it seemed to me that the war forced him in directions he would have preferred not to go. I can understand this. For example, I am opposed to the accumulation of power because I have found Acton's portends to be crushingly accurate. Thus, I have never accepted a position of power, although this has been placed in my hands often enough. And yet, because of the collapse of education and the extent of indoctrination and propaganda, I can see the necessity of establishing a dictatorship in order to install a democratic meritocracy in which the fully-informed population formulates all policy. The fact that 70% submitted to a suicide jab makes it clear there is probably no alternative. I suspect Lincoln faced the same choices, with plutocrats breathing down his neck.
> can see the necessity of establishing a dictatorship in order to install a democratic meritocracy in which the fully-informed population formulates all policy.
You might even call in a "dictatorship of the proletariat".
After the Mushroom Clouds, the wails of misery and anguish, the thousand degree suntans and whatnot... Anarchist Communes will probably become commonplace in most parts of the world; save for the former "Global North" which by then will become a Salted, mass Gravesite.
One man's interpretation that "such and such is a bizarre revenge fantasy" is simply another man's "such and such is an extrapolation of human nature taken to its conclusion". The West's Swansong is here; and nothing can be done.
And yet all your extrapolations tend to contain rather implausible events, which are clearly only there since otherwise your fantasy wouldn't satisfy your revenge fantasy.
Addendum: Based on all that was noted above, I would say to claim that such common sense extrapolations are somehow "fantastical'... such claims Ipso Factor are themselves Fantastical and bordering on "False Hope + Delusion".
Perhaps you fear the Yankee Empire being snuffed out like Carthage was because it essentially means "all that you have ever treasured" (i.e. at the Civilizational level) is likewise snuffed out forever; but let's not kid ourselves here: The Numbers are in, and the West is about to be Salted.
Taking out your distress, fears, angers, etc. via incorrectly claiming that I am "mistaken + fantastical" will not change the fact that you (and many others) will be getting a suntan measuring a couple thousand degrees pretty soon.
Either that, or you will be amongst the "survivors" locked in a Vile Hobbesian struggle of a "post-human" paradigm, one which will be unbearable to many. In either case, it is moot/irrelevant to be in denial about these inevitabilities.
Is it implausible (say) to correctly extrapolate that the Team which has higher Industrial capacity, military acumen and greater overall national unity/cohesion will Triumph? It's almost "deterministically True" to say so.
Also, "brutality" is always proportional to "crimes inflicted". If 200+ million Chinese are nuked and vaporized in surprise attacks (Yankee Command MUST do so; otherwise they will be "buried" under Chinese Industry), then cannibalism and necrophilia will be the LEAST inflicted in response as revenge.
Revenge meanwhile is a common denominator of the Human Condition; and "words do not yet exist" to speak of the horrors that the Eurasians will inflict when they pursue their Revenge against the Bellicose Yankee.
Imperial Japan stood no chance against the US because the latter had 2x the population and about 2-4x the overall Industry (if we check the numbers for Steel, Tungsten, Chromium, etc.). A sneak attack on Pearl harbour just meant a 6 month window (max) after which Japan was "buried" by Yankee Industry.
Why on earth would it be different in the present day, given the fact that the Sino-Russian Alliance has a much larger advantage overall? China for instance produces more than half the world's steel, and about more than 10x Murica's volumes. It will not be a "War", rather a Salting, Rape, Pillage and Slaughter.
Not very difficult to extrapolate. Play a few multiplayer games with starting assumptions that closely mirror the present day "Military Blocs" of the world. If said games are 'simulating reality accurately enough', you will NEVER get an outcome which indicates a Yankee Win, not even anywhere close!
It's not at all obvious how it will play out. Your theory of a preemptive nuclear attack against Chinese industry, that somehow fails to take it out is rather dubious. (Both parts of that theory are dubious.)
As is your theory that China will be able to take over the US mainland, at best they'll replace the US as the world's main power. And even then they're still on a demographic clock. I found the time you envisioned China invading across the arctic particularly amusing.
Using the 14th Amendment to extend the complete Bill of Rights to the states is a contradiction. The 9th and 10th amendments were put in to answer Alexander Hamilton's objections to a federal bill of rights. And several of the states which ratified the Bill of Rights had established churches still. That's why many of the articles specify "Congress shall make no law..."
The Second Amendment does not limit itself to Congress. It applied to the states from the beginning.
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Here's a question for you, Mr. Harvard Law: what are "suits at common law"? I'm referring to the 7th Amendment. If that means what we mean by civil law, shouldn't the 7th Amendment require a trial by jury for civil asset forfeiture cases over 20 dollars? OK, maybe we adjust for inflation and apply it to anything over a troy ounce of gold's worth.
Once upon a time, I had the opportunity to grill a federal judge who was running for Congress on the subject of civil asset forfeiture. His answer was incredibly lame: "That's for common law." If "common law" isn't civil law, what is it?
What do the better law schools teach on this subject?
Common law is usually distinguished in one of two ways.
The first is "common law vs equity". Suits at common law were claims for money damages, while suits in equity were claims for "equitable relief," such as injunctions. "You have bulldozed my house and owe me money" vs "I want to prevent the city from bulldozing my house." There used to be separate courts for law and equity, and you had to make separate suits. Now it's all part of the same system.
The second is "common law vs civil law", where common law refers to the judge-made law of the Anglo-American system and civil law is legislative statutes often inherited from the old Roman system. In the 20th century, the US began to codify the common law, and nowadays virtually all of the common law has been replaced with civil law. One might say that we have a common law system without common law at this point.
In the case of the 7th Amendment, it was referring to suits of law as compared to suits of equity. This link has a good explanation:
Based on your explanation, a yacht or pile of money being subject to civil asset forfeiture would still constitute "federal common law", since it is a federal matter and it's about money.
Am I missing something?
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Or, if we REALLY want to get picky. When the federal government is suing money itself in order to take ownership, wouldn't that violate the 13th Amendment?
An even more ominous threat that emerged from the covid era is the government’s ability to declare businesses essential or non essential. I don’t think the framers could even fathom this bizarre idea, so there are not even nominal defenses to protect us.
Um, actually they could fathom it quite readily. Once upon a time, you had to get a legislative charter to start a corporation in this country. Deterministic law to start a corporation is kind of recent, I believe.
I don't know the details. I suspect our host knows way more. I do know that when I was doing so geneology by Google, I found my great grandfather mentioned in the Congressional Record, for a corporation he was setting up to run a railroad from Central America to the US.
At this point in time, Legal precedent matters little given the scale and scope of how far things have progressed. In particular, As the war drums beat ever so louder, a lot of this stuff becomes 'amusing banter that people only can indulge in during peacetime'.
Enumerated "rights" will cease to exist entirely. In Wartime, and more specifically Wartime of the Existential sort... all that will remain will be "Duty/Obligations". In particular, only One's Responsibility to Assist the State in continuing to Survive... that will be the last "Value" remaining.
The US has never experienced such a thing. The wider society (or whatever semblance of it remains) will flee, 'stutter', etc. rather than respond in any manner that is cogent. That includes the BlackRobes. No amount of "Service to the Law" can dampen one's own fears of mortality, the Agonizing Pain of an irradiated Death AND the ensuing Vile post-human struggle.
If you want to BREAK someone; tie them up somewhere and make them watch their children, wives, etc fight each other for food and commit all manner of horror (Rape, Murder, Cannibalism, Necrophilia, etc.) whilst one remains powerless to intervene. Afterward, untie him and he will end himself with his own two hands rather than continue aforementioned miserable existence.
At the micro level, you BREAK people that way. Scaling up, at the macro level what you do is render the "State" impotent and make it WATCH its citizenry defile, vanquish, etc each other. Notwithstanding its own amoral nature; the "State" and its organs (after being restored some limited potency) would likewise "end itself" to spare it from that Vile hellhole of Hobbesian struggle.
The Obligation to the State (and its continued existence) is only as good as the overall social cohesion that the citizenry starts off with. America has no such cohesion left; and it citizenry will tear each other apart limb by limb if given the chance.
After that has happened, the "Law" will only ever be spoken of fondly as a product of a bygone era, in which people had the luxury to sit down and even contemplate the "Good Life" as such. No such luxuries will remain however in post-Mushroom Cloud "Humanity" (if we can even call them that).
Griswold and all the subsequent cases where the Supreme Court has discovered protected sexual rights — supposed rights that would have been abominable to the Founders and most probably incompatible with any theory of rights they advocated — are based in a spurious and ridiculous "right to privacy" (a right that was also "discovered" by Louis Brandeis, first Jewish Justice, from 1890 onwards) and were weaponized against the States in a way the Founders would have been keenly interested in defending against. I'm not aware of any actual Federal law that might have been violating actual rights held (if rights they be) struck down by Griswold, Eisenstadt v. Baird, Roe v. Wade, Carey v. PSI, PP v. Casey, Stenberg v. Carhart, Lawrence v. Texas, US v. Windsor, the notorious Obergefell, WWH v. Hellerstedt, Pavan v. Smith, and others, but plenty of State laws. Those rulings were and are primarily made to force acceptance and other laws on States which did not want them, not to protect rights against Federal overreach.
Of course, most of the Supreme Court decisions of the 20th and 21st centuries made in the name of expanding freedom and protection of rights, a suspect if not outright incoherent framing, would never have passed democratic referendum anyway. One wonders how these supposed rights held by "the people" (if one there be) could be so unwanted and for so long by them, including by the Founders. How do Americans have a right to kill an unborn child but not a right to send a child to an all-white or all-black school? Or the right to contraception but not the right to decide who to sell their houses to? (Or, for that matter, the right to opiates?) That's how the Warren Court and subsequent courts operated.
Such discovered "rights" imposed a tyranny on all the States of constraining their own ability to create laws. The likes of New York and California were never constrained in their ability to allow contraceptives, abortion, or sodomy, but now Texans and Alabamans are forced to permit what they would undoubtedly otherwise make unlawful in their own States. Now people may go nowhere the Federal government rules where they might not live around the promiscuous, abortionists, or sodomites. It's a clear violation of the Tenth Amendment, which is much stronger in this regard than the Ninth, and part of a trend that sees the States and their laws as mere delegated authorities from the ultimate Federal government, what you would call a breach of the Second Wall. The "penumbral" doctrines are a farce.
And if I might say it the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses, and the Fourteenth Amendment in general, have been used to justify more tyranny than almost anything else in US history.
It's worth noting that the Federal Government claims that the 4th Amendment does not apply within 100 miles of a 'port of entry into the United States' - the 'border search exception.
You will be pleased to note that the BlackRobes have given this 'exception' the all-clear - you see, it's not a *violation* of the prohibition regarding "unreasonable search and seizure"... because ACK-shually, such searches aren't "unreasonable" because We're The BlackRobes So Shut The Fuck Up Peasants.... FFS.
- United States v. Ramsey, 431 US 606 (1977)
The rationale in the jurisprudence on this, is that there is a reduced expectaton of privacy in these border zones. So again - SHUT THE FUCK UP PEASANTS.
- Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925)
This is where it gets squirrelly: what proportion of the population of the US lives within 100 miles of a 'port of entry into the United States'?
To help everyone's heuristic: note that every international airport is a 'port of entry into the United States'. So Denver, CO has a "port of entry into the United States". So does Salt Lake City.
Rinse and repeat for all landlocked major agglomerations.
This is an exercise that I've done before, so I know the answer (as of 2016).
It was about 87% then. EIGHTY SEVEN PERCENT of the US population is subject to warrantless search and a "whimsical" idea as to what constitute probable cause.
I used the population by Congressional District, and a map of international airports with a 100mi ST_Buffer() ... and if the polygon representing the CD was ST_Within() the buffer zone of an airport the whole population was NOT COVERED BY THE 4TH AMENDMENT... because the Exception doesn't require that the thing being searched has transited through a port of entry - it can literally be a car anywhere within 100 miles of the "port of entry", being driven by a citizen who's never left the country.
So, y'know... the 4th Amendment has been a dead letter for a REALLY long time, and nobody is even aware of it.
Thanks for bringing that up. It's such a good point. The 4th has been utterly gutted.
As Lord Johannes Acton observed: "There are no great leaders, only bad men, and they write the histories". And no nation has thus so suffered as the United States of America. That, above, is the version of history preserved for posterity and the protection of artistocratic power.
Early in the 2000s I interviewed a family in America who were descendents of Thomas Paine. Their claim to fame is that their ancestor wrote the American Constitution, a belief somewhat in conflict with the above analysed history. Actually, Paine wrote the original, which was rejected by the plutocrts.
Here is what really happened.
Paine inspired democratic revolution throughout Europe, including France but was unable to gain traction in his own country, England. So Paine moved to America. His "The Rights of Man, should be read by every American because that is the original constitution, as lauded by Americans desirous of establishing a democracy.
The plutocrats did not want a constitution, nor did they want human rights, but the call for constitution was irrepressible. What they wanted was to create a monarchy and in this they were supported by the central power of England. Madison was allocated the job of rewriting the constitution so that it was a republic in name but a monarchy in terms of distribution of power and wealth.
Several clauses must be eliminated, he was instructed.
"All authority resides in The People", and paraphrased for good measure...
"The People are the source of all authority"
"The People shall decide on the manner and amount of taxation and on how it is to be spent".
"Funds shall be set aside to support the aged and the infirm".
There were many more, but you get the picture. Paine's fatal mistake was his failure to understand that there are two meanings for the word 'representative'. He meant that because of the then tyranny of distance, individuals could be elected to convey community consensus to the Congress. He meant this literally. At: neighbourhood, village, tribe, clan, local, regional or national level, the community is to become fully informed on all issues of contention, discuss these, then when consensus evolves, convey the outcome to Congress vis trusted representatives.
The plutocrats/aristocrats adopted a different meaning: That the people elect representatives who would then do our thinking for us and make new laws accordingly. Thay created impressive theatre to provide substance and tangibility: elections, new political parties, parliaments, majorities, votes, campaigns, election laws, pomp and splendor.
Not everybody was fooled and critics howled their outrage at the aristocrats' lawyers, who responded by describing the new sleight-of-hand as Representative Democracy. There is, of course, no such thing.
Because so many called for the original constitution, the aristocrats created their own campaign for amendments that would include the excluded clauses. They then created the first ten amendements, still excluding the key components.
How to counter this sophistry?
That was the task for pro-democracy activists. It was Abraham Lincoln whose lyrical definition was given oxygen at Gettysburg, that won the day "Government of the people, by the people and for the people".
The aristocrats were furious, and the plutocrats, also were angry because Lincoln's War Bonds prevented the banker's war loans that would have pauperised Americans for centuries. Lincoln's anti-democracy acts of the civil war years were directed aginst the banker elite, who actually considered slavery obsolete due to the economic impact of the cotton gin. Basically, like all wars, a parallel agenda was operative. Because he outmanoeuvred them at every point of conflit, the aristocracy/ plutocratic cabal had him assassinated and his good name has been under attack ever since.
But millions of Americans were not fooled, nor cowered, and the drive to democracy emerged under the name the Polulist Movement. Even that word is still under sustained attack.
In 2003, I discovered that all public library books on genuine democracy had been burned, world-wide. There were many democracies, Greece not being one, and records of these were destroyed, including the volumes by the Irish Monks.
However, I had examined these before the censorship war and so I wrote a novel that explained how corruption evolves in a remote part of Australia, and also how genuine democracy works, using a twelve thousand year example that survives to this day. By chance, pure serendipity, I had documented this over a period of fifty years and, by another coincidence, was employed to document for government just this last year.
The novel is titled "The Lost Track" and is available free on PDF should any body want a copy. Eventually a publisher will convert this to print and it will no longer be free. However, the novel also contains proof the chief globalist propagandist comitted serious criminal offences that merit imprisonment; along with those of his criminal cronies, which is why the publishers are nervous about going to print.
The threat is real. Hours after I attempted to collect prosecution documents pertaining to the crime, my vehicle was sabotaged, I was poisoned two weeks later, and the vehicle was sabotaged yet again last year. Another reason the PDF is free is that the more copies out there the less motivation there is to silence me. So, yes, definitively a bit of self-interest operational here.
> Paine inspired democratic revolution throughout Europe, including France
Where he ended up nearly getting killed by the very revolution in helped unleash.
> That the people elect representatives who would then do our thinking for us and make new laws accordingly.
Except, many issues are in fact complicated, and most people have neither the time nor the interest to think about them thoroughly.
That is your hypothesis, based on what you want to be true. Eschewing presumption and instead embracing objectivity I actually tested this out on 3500 people in 1985. Supervising sociologists predicted a 12% response rate yet our raw response measured at 76%, and after weighting (excluding those who spoke no English and others who were away on vacation leave), it was found that 86% engaged in consensus.
Moreover, consensus even on previously contentious issues was 93%.
Your next objection, no doubt, will be "Oh, but perhaps this works in relatively small groups such as neighbourhoods, but it can never work with large cities, such as NY". Yet our research shows size makes no difference. This is because even New York is actually comprised of thousands of neighbourhoods, and people establish entirely different relationships with people who live within "stones throw" of their home. This has been known for thousands of years.
Here is another counter to your next objection, which will be that there is just too much legislation for people to cope with. The truth is in every jurisdiction there are seldom more than two or three actual community issues to deal with per year. The rest of the legislation is about the criminal government class squabling over the spoils in the trough. You have consensus government there is no more corrupt class in power.
Being elitist, you will reject whatever evidence I offer. Do you think I have not encountered thousands like you previously?
> That is your hypothesis, based on what you want to be true.
No, it's my observation based on observing debates on political issues, and reading history. It also agrees with my theoretical predictions based on the game theoretic concept of rational ignorance.
> Eschewing presumption and instead embracing objectivity I actually tested this out on 3500 people in 1985. Supervising sociologists predicted a 12% response rate yet our raw response measured at 76%, and after weighting (excluding those who spoke no English and others who were away on vacation leave), it was found that 86% engaged in consensus.
I'm not sure what you're talking about here, or how it is relevant. At best you're confusing a proposal having consensus with it being a good idea.
> This is because even New York is actually comprised of thousands of neighbourhoods, and people establish entirely different relationships with people who live within "stones throw" of their home. This has been known for thousands of years.
Except a lot of issues, e.g., maintaining water system, the sewer system, the roads and general transportation system and other infrastructure, can't be effectively managed at the neighborhood level.
> The truth is in every jurisdiction there are seldom more than two or three actual community issues to deal with per year. The rest of the legislation is about the criminal government class squabling over the spoils in the trough.
Perhaps if you adopt a minarchist state, but you still have the rational ignorance problem. It takes effort to learn about issues, and one's individual opinion won't make much of a difference; far easier to assume one't neighbors have done the thinking and defer to them. In any case, it's clear from your other comments that you don't support a minarchist state.
Tony, thanks for sharing all of this information. I have not myself closely studied Thomas Paine, because I was (thoroughly, excellently) schooled in the traditional history of the country, and he's just that guy who wrote a leaflet that was popular...
I was aware of Lincoln's war bonds and greenbacks being opposed by the banking powers, and do believe that was the reason for his assassination. It doesn't (IMO) excuse him from some of his actions during the war, but that's another story. No one is perfect.
My pleasure, T of W. I must admit I have not had time to study the actual history behind some of Lincoln's civil war deeds, but to the extent that I did dig down, it seemed to me that the war forced him in directions he would have preferred not to go. I can understand this. For example, I am opposed to the accumulation of power because I have found Acton's portends to be crushingly accurate. Thus, I have never accepted a position of power, although this has been placed in my hands often enough. And yet, because of the collapse of education and the extent of indoctrination and propaganda, I can see the necessity of establishing a dictatorship in order to install a democratic meritocracy in which the fully-informed population formulates all policy. The fact that 70% submitted to a suicide jab makes it clear there is probably no alternative. I suspect Lincoln faced the same choices, with plutocrats breathing down his neck.
> can see the necessity of establishing a dictatorship in order to install a democratic meritocracy in which the fully-informed population formulates all policy.
You might even call in a "dictatorship of the proletariat".
If it is any consolation Tony:
After the Mushroom Clouds, the wails of misery and anguish, the thousand degree suntans and whatnot... Anarchist Communes will probably become commonplace in most parts of the world; save for the former "Global North" which by then will become a Salted, mass Gravesite.
He's back!
Back to your bizarre anti-Western revenge fantasies, I see.
One man's interpretation that "such and such is a bizarre revenge fantasy" is simply another man's "such and such is an extrapolation of human nature taken to its conclusion". The West's Swansong is here; and nothing can be done.
And yet all your extrapolations tend to contain rather implausible events, which are clearly only there since otherwise your fantasy wouldn't satisfy your revenge fantasy.
Addendum: Based on all that was noted above, I would say to claim that such common sense extrapolations are somehow "fantastical'... such claims Ipso Factor are themselves Fantastical and bordering on "False Hope + Delusion".
Perhaps you fear the Yankee Empire being snuffed out like Carthage was because it essentially means "all that you have ever treasured" (i.e. at the Civilizational level) is likewise snuffed out forever; but let's not kid ourselves here: The Numbers are in, and the West is about to be Salted.
Taking out your distress, fears, angers, etc. via incorrectly claiming that I am "mistaken + fantastical" will not change the fact that you (and many others) will be getting a suntan measuring a couple thousand degrees pretty soon.
Either that, or you will be amongst the "survivors" locked in a Vile Hobbesian struggle of a "post-human" paradigm, one which will be unbearable to many. In either case, it is moot/irrelevant to be in denial about these inevitabilities.
Implausible in what way?
Is it implausible (say) to correctly extrapolate that the Team which has higher Industrial capacity, military acumen and greater overall national unity/cohesion will Triumph? It's almost "deterministically True" to say so.
Also, "brutality" is always proportional to "crimes inflicted". If 200+ million Chinese are nuked and vaporized in surprise attacks (Yankee Command MUST do so; otherwise they will be "buried" under Chinese Industry), then cannibalism and necrophilia will be the LEAST inflicted in response as revenge.
Revenge meanwhile is a common denominator of the Human Condition; and "words do not yet exist" to speak of the horrors that the Eurasians will inflict when they pursue their Revenge against the Bellicose Yankee.
Imperial Japan stood no chance against the US because the latter had 2x the population and about 2-4x the overall Industry (if we check the numbers for Steel, Tungsten, Chromium, etc.). A sneak attack on Pearl harbour just meant a 6 month window (max) after which Japan was "buried" by Yankee Industry.
Why on earth would it be different in the present day, given the fact that the Sino-Russian Alliance has a much larger advantage overall? China for instance produces more than half the world's steel, and about more than 10x Murica's volumes. It will not be a "War", rather a Salting, Rape, Pillage and Slaughter.
Not very difficult to extrapolate. Play a few multiplayer games with starting assumptions that closely mirror the present day "Military Blocs" of the world. If said games are 'simulating reality accurately enough', you will NEVER get an outcome which indicates a Yankee Win, not even anywhere close!
It's not at all obvious how it will play out. Your theory of a preemptive nuclear attack against Chinese industry, that somehow fails to take it out is rather dubious. (Both parts of that theory are dubious.)
As is your theory that China will be able to take over the US mainland, at best they'll replace the US as the world's main power. And even then they're still on a demographic clock. I found the time you envisioned China invading across the arctic particularly amusing.
Using the 14th Amendment to extend the complete Bill of Rights to the states is a contradiction. The 9th and 10th amendments were put in to answer Alexander Hamilton's objections to a federal bill of rights. And several of the states which ratified the Bill of Rights had established churches still. That's why many of the articles specify "Congress shall make no law..."
The Second Amendment does not limit itself to Congress. It applied to the states from the beginning.
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Here's a question for you, Mr. Harvard Law: what are "suits at common law"? I'm referring to the 7th Amendment. If that means what we mean by civil law, shouldn't the 7th Amendment require a trial by jury for civil asset forfeiture cases over 20 dollars? OK, maybe we adjust for inflation and apply it to anything over a troy ounce of gold's worth.
Once upon a time, I had the opportunity to grill a federal judge who was running for Congress on the subject of civil asset forfeiture. His answer was incredibly lame: "That's for common law." If "common law" isn't civil law, what is it?
What do the better law schools teach on this subject?
Common law is usually distinguished in one of two ways.
The first is "common law vs equity". Suits at common law were claims for money damages, while suits in equity were claims for "equitable relief," such as injunctions. "You have bulldozed my house and owe me money" vs "I want to prevent the city from bulldozing my house." There used to be separate courts for law and equity, and you had to make separate suits. Now it's all part of the same system.
The second is "common law vs civil law", where common law refers to the judge-made law of the Anglo-American system and civil law is legislative statutes often inherited from the old Roman system. In the 20th century, the US began to codify the common law, and nowadays virtually all of the common law has been replaced with civil law. One might say that we have a common law system without common law at this point.
In the case of the 7th Amendment, it was referring to suits of law as compared to suits of equity. This link has a good explanation:
https://system.uslegal.com/u-s-constitution/amendment-vii-common-law-suits-jury-trial-1791/
The 7th Amendment is not incorporated against the states, so it only applies if you sue in federal court. Some members of the bar have tried to change that, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/appellate-practice/articles/2015/fall2015-1215-ripe-incorporation-seventh-amendment-civil-jury-trial/
Based on your explanation, a yacht or pile of money being subject to civil asset forfeiture would still constitute "federal common law", since it is a federal matter and it's about money.
Am I missing something?
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Or, if we REALLY want to get picky. When the federal government is suing money itself in order to take ownership, wouldn't that violate the 13th Amendment?
No, you're not missing anything, we just don't have rule of law in this country and haven't for years.
An even more ominous threat that emerged from the covid era is the government’s ability to declare businesses essential or non essential. I don’t think the framers could even fathom this bizarre idea, so there are not even nominal defenses to protect us.
Um, actually they could fathom it quite readily. Once upon a time, you had to get a legislative charter to start a corporation in this country. Deterministic law to start a corporation is kind of recent, I believe.
I don't know the details. I suspect our host knows way more. I do know that when I was doing so geneology by Google, I found my great grandfather mentioned in the Congressional Record, for a corporation he was setting up to run a railroad from Central America to the US.
At this point in time, Legal precedent matters little given the scale and scope of how far things have progressed. In particular, As the war drums beat ever so louder, a lot of this stuff becomes 'amusing banter that people only can indulge in during peacetime'.
Enumerated "rights" will cease to exist entirely. In Wartime, and more specifically Wartime of the Existential sort... all that will remain will be "Duty/Obligations". In particular, only One's Responsibility to Assist the State in continuing to Survive... that will be the last "Value" remaining.
The US has never experienced such a thing. The wider society (or whatever semblance of it remains) will flee, 'stutter', etc. rather than respond in any manner that is cogent. That includes the BlackRobes. No amount of "Service to the Law" can dampen one's own fears of mortality, the Agonizing Pain of an irradiated Death AND the ensuing Vile post-human struggle.
If you want to BREAK someone; tie them up somewhere and make them watch their children, wives, etc fight each other for food and commit all manner of horror (Rape, Murder, Cannibalism, Necrophilia, etc.) whilst one remains powerless to intervene. Afterward, untie him and he will end himself with his own two hands rather than continue aforementioned miserable existence.
At the micro level, you BREAK people that way. Scaling up, at the macro level what you do is render the "State" impotent and make it WATCH its citizenry defile, vanquish, etc each other. Notwithstanding its own amoral nature; the "State" and its organs (after being restored some limited potency) would likewise "end itself" to spare it from that Vile hellhole of Hobbesian struggle.
The Obligation to the State (and its continued existence) is only as good as the overall social cohesion that the citizenry starts off with. America has no such cohesion left; and it citizenry will tear each other apart limb by limb if given the chance.
After that has happened, the "Law" will only ever be spoken of fondly as a product of a bygone era, in which people had the luxury to sit down and even contemplate the "Good Life" as such. No such luxuries will remain however in post-Mushroom Cloud "Humanity" (if we can even call them that).
Good stuff man! By the way, where did you get that badass art?
Griswold and all the subsequent cases where the Supreme Court has discovered protected sexual rights — supposed rights that would have been abominable to the Founders and most probably incompatible with any theory of rights they advocated — are based in a spurious and ridiculous "right to privacy" (a right that was also "discovered" by Louis Brandeis, first Jewish Justice, from 1890 onwards) and were weaponized against the States in a way the Founders would have been keenly interested in defending against. I'm not aware of any actual Federal law that might have been violating actual rights held (if rights they be) struck down by Griswold, Eisenstadt v. Baird, Roe v. Wade, Carey v. PSI, PP v. Casey, Stenberg v. Carhart, Lawrence v. Texas, US v. Windsor, the notorious Obergefell, WWH v. Hellerstedt, Pavan v. Smith, and others, but plenty of State laws. Those rulings were and are primarily made to force acceptance and other laws on States which did not want them, not to protect rights against Federal overreach.
Of course, most of the Supreme Court decisions of the 20th and 21st centuries made in the name of expanding freedom and protection of rights, a suspect if not outright incoherent framing, would never have passed democratic referendum anyway. One wonders how these supposed rights held by "the people" (if one there be) could be so unwanted and for so long by them, including by the Founders. How do Americans have a right to kill an unborn child but not a right to send a child to an all-white or all-black school? Or the right to contraception but not the right to decide who to sell their houses to? (Or, for that matter, the right to opiates?) That's how the Warren Court and subsequent courts operated.
Such discovered "rights" imposed a tyranny on all the States of constraining their own ability to create laws. The likes of New York and California were never constrained in their ability to allow contraceptives, abortion, or sodomy, but now Texans and Alabamans are forced to permit what they would undoubtedly otherwise make unlawful in their own States. Now people may go nowhere the Federal government rules where they might not live around the promiscuous, abortionists, or sodomites. It's a clear violation of the Tenth Amendment, which is much stronger in this regard than the Ninth, and part of a trend that sees the States and their laws as mere delegated authorities from the ultimate Federal government, what you would call a breach of the Second Wall. The "penumbral" doctrines are a farce.
And if I might say it the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses, and the Fourteenth Amendment in general, have been used to justify more tyranny than almost anything else in US history.