Now the truly bold will argue that the Republic died in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787; an unrequited love for the Articles of Confederation is leading astray those who would make this argument, as Franklin was pronouncing on the newly proposed government, not the unlamented and ineffectual Congress of the Confederation that preceded it and necessitated the convention just concluded. Nor was Franklin an unabashed supporter – he was indeed, quite equivocal about the merits of the proposed charter.
In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?
Given that last sentence, I challenge anyone to argue that a better form of government is ever likely to be conceived. For if you deem it possible, then you must assume a conference of angels and not men will write it and carry it into operation. Franklin’s entire speech is at the above link and is well worth your consideration.
The Federalist contention might be something like the Democrats current conceit about democracy, that the Republic was over either with Jefferson’s ascension to the presidency or with the territorial expansion – under questionable Constitutional legitimacy – of the Louisiana Purchase; in short, concurrent with the decline and fall of the Federalist party. It was after all the Federalist Northeast that first openly talked of secession, most seriously in opposition to “Mr. Madison’s war.” The petition they had prepared to send to Congress was mooted by the end of the War of 1812. The defenders of the Lost Cause would do well to remember that though the South did secede, they didn’t originate the idea; it wouldn’t be bad for unrepentant Unionists to ponder that as well. All that said, there is a case that can be made that westward expansion broke the original concept of the republic, but that’s a pretty narrow argument. After all, the Roman Republic was not limited to the original territory of the Latin league, but expanded during it’s entire existence.
Which of course leads us to the unpleasantness between those states that wished to leave the union and those who wished to preserve the status quo. There are those, fairly numerous in these precincts it seems, who have the enmity for Lincoln to match (in total intensity) the praises sung in his name by the greater number of folks in the country. We have of course the ebb and flow of historical opinion, from the days when he was held in low regard to the days he tops the charts of presidential greatness (whatever that is supposed to represent). I will note here that the Articles of Confederation (sometimes held in veneration to offset the loathing of Lincoln by the same set of people) declared the confederation to exist in perpetuity. There was no escape clause written in, so the lack of one in the Constitution shouldn’t really be deemed a defect, even if it seems to introduce some ambiguity in the matter. I am of the opinion that the republic did not die in the conflict, nor in the amendments adopted in the aftermath. The untenable conflict built into the union in the compromises of the Constitution on slavery, and the expansion of the country, was resolved once and for all – as a Constitutional matter. The flaw of democratic government would allow legal discrimination to flourish for many more years, but no person would ever again be the property of another. If something was lost, something equal or greater was gained.
The limits on our federal government were loosened greatly in the Progressive Era. It is Progressivism that introduces conflicts only slightly less intractable than the 3/5ths compromise. It was Progressive belief in expertise that started the transformation to policy making within the bureaucracies of the Executive and delegation of that aspect of law-making from Congress. The civil service reforms that preceded the Progressives established the permanent bureaucracy (as opposed to the spoils to the victor that had it’s flaws, but did offer a clean slate every few years). The return to the Hamiltonian belief in a central bank is a curious twist in American partisan history. The two great reforms (in terms of amending the Constitution) were both regrettable – popular election of senators and the income tax. Unfortunately, only the folly of Prohibition was obvious enough to people over time to reverse the error. The two presidential handmaidens of Progressivism, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, pushed the arrogation of power to the federal level at the expense of the states and the presidency at the expense of Congress. You can’t say the Republic was near death, but the deterioration in its health is obvious enough.
Two world wars and a pocketful of dreams. How the world changes, for we plunged into a European war on the basis that one combatant should dare to interrupt our sales to the other. Lest we forget, the people were stirred into a war frenzy by the mass media of the day – and the titans of newsprint were all quite proud of that. Modern mass and social media works the same, just a little faster. The Espionage Act may have been tolerable as a wartime measure, but you’ll note that it was never repealed (and it very quietly asserted the seed of a general police power). Though conscription was not technically novel, it had been a state issue, not a federal one, during the Civil War. There is no Constitutional connection upholding conscription to be found, instead, it was upheld based on a set of PA Supreme Court decisions (which could at least lean on the police power) and the fact that other countries do it, as set against the text of the 13th Amendment. Just when you think our current court is a disaster, you need only dig through some mind-boggling decisions of earlier versions of the institution to see that it is the same as it ever was. Really, every aspect of American involvement in WWI is a study in decisions taken in leisure, not of a nation in extremis. Normalcy, to a degree, did return after the war, and with the transition of Wilson to Harding and then to Coolidge. The country refused the Wilsonian League of Nations, reverting to the non-entanglement that was our historical norm. But Wilsonianism had captured the elite imagination and would not be so easily eradicated, taking root in both academia and State bureaucracy.
The first World War set the stage for the re-involvement of America in the global drama, and we wouldn’t get lucky twice.
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”
— Lysander Spooner
Spooner did not avail himself of Franklin’s wit.
I should also add that the AoC would’ve been just as flawed in Spooner’s eye, if not worse.
I read that as AOC being flawed and it really confused me for a minute.
I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Nice rack, though.
Indeed.
(possibly nsfw)
Nice
I happened to catch this post from her feed. I didn’t realize I had quite so much in common with Vlad.
https://twitter.com/JessicaVaugn/status/1511156690405707776
I mean, what does that ditz have to do with anything?
Donkey Teeth
Lizzie’s personality seems to have been a tad bit severe.
Do you think he might have been pissed off about a few things? ;^)
This is true, but when I read his book, I kept thinking “He’s not wrong”.
OK, and where did he propose a govt that would remedy every defect?
I think what Franklin (and other Founders) were referring to was essentially reversion to the mean. They knew they had a grand experiment, a real departure from the historical norm. And they were canny enough to see that the pressures of human and institutional nature would erode that experiment. Juris charts the particulars of that erosion and reversion.
In some ways, I can now see my last post was charting the current particulars of the final erosion/reversion. I was laying out the contradictions that make a real break with current developments inevitable, that I believe there will be a real replacement of current institutions (and the current overculture, at least) at some point fairly soon, at least in historical terms. We are seeing the last thrashings of the ancien regime, and Franklin and others foresaw that the Republic they founded would devolve, would become the ancien regime.
For two people that don’t coordinate our writing, we tread very similar ground.
RC and JI confirmed as Tulpa.
So pretty much very time hubris, greed and power came up against the Constitution, they won.
Maybe the Constitution was necessary, but it was effectively dead the first time states weren’t allowed to bail out.
LOL.
Timely.
My wife used to watch Glenn Beck.
One thing I 100% agreed with him on is his absolute hatred of Wilson.
The government can ignore the Constitution because the people want the politicians to ignore it when it gets in the way of what they want.
Or as Franklin put it “…when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.“
when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government…
That’s us!
The expansion of the Roman Republic, particularly the granting of citizenship to most of Italy was the beginning of the end for the Republic.
But it wasn’t, or at least it took a hell of a lot of time, because that republic lasted some 5 centuries.
Not looking forward to our Sulla and Marius.
Trump might have been our watered-down Sulla. He tried to restore the Reagan “morning in America” thing. He wasn’t as smart or as brutal as Sulla so he got sabotaged for 4 years then expelled him with a rigged election. The real Sulla killed every deep state swamp creature he laid his hands on, instituted constitutional reforms, then retired.
Because Sulla cleaned house, the Republic stumbled along a few more decades. Because Trump didn’t clean house, I think this Republic will be officially done before this decade is over.
Oh, I might get a few chuckles out of a modern Sulla.
We have Spartacus.
Citizenship was granted to all Italians in 87 BC at the end of the Social War. After a few more decades of strife and civil war, Julius Caesar was appointed Dictator for an indefinite term in 48 BC.
Those last few decades of the Republic were really unstable. The Romans seem to have lost the ability to govern themselves. Too many ambitious men without moral restraint, too much money in the system, and everyone stopped following the rules. Like our last decade.
All the major players then had armies personally loyal to them.
At least we don’t have that.
Although with the increasingly politicized armed forces, we could be heading that way, but unfortunately only in one direction.
They do have a Praetorian Guard in the FBI and lots of other agencies armed like soldiers. The political and covid purges of the military are making them more reliable to the left even as it erodes combat capabilities.
The Army was granted citizenship under the Marian reforms, two decades earlier – and as Ron mentioned, loyalty to the commanding general, not the Senate.
But I stand corrected, I had thought citizenship had been expanded as the Republic expanded, and it actually only came late in the game.
Another day, another solid Jesse troll.
So, so good.
Some good news down the page
Fake news. The author posts satirical material.
Pretty damn hard to tell the difference these days.
Who vomits in horror at watching Will Smith slap someone?
Also good.
Spicy Substack.
*looks at job list, contemplates sending in application anyway despite no match*
I wonder if they need a movie column…
Oh that got a legit LOL.
The Republic ended when an unconstitutional bill could be written by Congress, signed into law by the President, and blessed by the Supreme Court making it the third hidden way to amend the constitution.
The draft in 1917 then?
What do you mean? Congress can call out the militia* “I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, Therefore the Congress can call out the whole of the people. Therefore the draft is constitutional. ?
*(Clause 15 – The Militia)
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
(Clause 16 – The Militia)
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
Amendment 13 – Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
And seriously, SCotUS did not base the decision to uphold the law on a Constitutional clause, not even FYTW, but on the precedent of cases before the PA State SC (during the Civil War)* and international law.
*consider the literal naming of regiments.
Of course this was the very same court that upheld the convictions Schenk, et al. It’s a real toss up; if I had the opportunity to go back in time and kill only one man, would it be Wilson, or Holmes.
Holmes is bad, but he sometimes got something right. Did Wilson ever?
And of course, Clause 15, does NOT say – employ the militia in an expeditionary force.
Details, details. We’re fighting them* over there so we don’t fight them here. So by employing the militia in an expeditionary force we’re pre-repelling an invasion.
*Whoever the them du jour happens to be.
Vaguely remembers that Congress used to write bills…
TPTB: Watershed Part 2 has been submitted for scheduling. As promised, I am sticking to my monthly schedule!
Parts 3 and 4 are in the works, so it is promising that I will stay on schedule. How the weekly release authors do it, I have no idea.
Sleep is overrated.
Yesterday I got an email indicating that they’d scheduled part 1 of a story I haven’t finished writing yet.
I’m not sure if my response should be the get the story finished, or plea for it to not go up until I’m done.
Post what you have, if in ends mid sentence, more the better. That will learn them.
Well, the framing device is that of videos the main character has posted online, so they can just cut
Great article, there were thousands of paper cuts that killed the Republic.
One of the big turning points was the Spanish American war. Seems like that was a war waged mostly to create an American Empire by taking the Spanish territories.
The return to the Hamiltonian belief in a central bank is a curious twist in American partisan history.
There have been 3, the first killed by Jefferson, the 2nd by Jackson.
It didn’t seem something that Trump was interested in, but I think it takes a kind of populist president to do it. Short of a Ron Paul presidency, it is unlikely to happen. The first two had charters that weren’t extended, so it was easier. Sunset provisions on EVERYTHING would be super-helpful.
Or just a meteor strike.
Right, Democrats killed the first two, and supported the third – that’s the twist.
Could you imagine?
That would be a phenomenal rewrite.
However, I have no doubt the lawyers would figure out a work-around and the USSC would approve it.
“This Bill Hereby Incorporates all Laws with sunset provisions expiring before today’s date.”
The wishing for more wishes method of legislation.
“Sunset provisions on EVERYTHING would be super-helpful.”
“Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.—It may be said that the succeeding generation exercising in fact the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the constitution or law had been expressly limited to 19 years only.”
Jefferson to Madison, 1789
I may have to change my proposal limiting deed restrictions to 19 years instead of 25.
Same concept.
Tinder for cats
https://tinder4cats.com/
I swipe right for all of them. THERE ARE NO UGLY CATS!
Man, there’s so much pussy on that site.
Which one of you was it?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/southwest-passenger-antonio-sherrodd-mcgarity-arrested-for-masturbating-during-flight-from-seattle-to-phoenix?fbclid=IwAR1bDhPTHcffWe_oqKfLYrmWS7TAzHScUdHO8KPCOPG_83LE5vqEj0u04Cc
FOUR times? Maybe 17 year-old me.
Now? that flight better take 2 weeks.
I was about to say the same. Must be a really young guy. If he’s over 50 he needs to share his secret.
While he was referring to having drunk too much, I remember a platoon sgt saying “Ive fucked so much with a limp-dick I could shoot pool with a rope.”
Hahaha
Tell a woman “you know the best way to give a hand-job? Use your mouth.”
Sit next to a hot girl on a plane?
Four times? She’d have to be actively participating.
wut?
So she also was arrested right?
I don’t ask first.
Republica.
OT: Trashy cusses at MSFT edition
I wrote a program for a team of lawyers, and it was working fine (for an alpha release) on my computer. However, (after fixing their OneDrive issues ?) they all got the same error. “File not found” for files on their SharePoint drive. I checked a dozen times. I made sure our setups were the same. I changed file path separators not once, but twice (glares at Bill Gates). I was chasing down error codes and getting nowhere until I glimpsed a title in one of those “might be related” sections of stack overflow. “Path length issue with [blah blah blah]”. All of a sudden it came flooding back to me. A few years ago, I was working on a different project and ran into an issue with long file paths in Windows. Windows doesn’t like file paths that are more than 255 characters long. There’s a registry tweak I had done to fix the problem.
If not for that chance encounter, I’d still be trying to figure out why the heck I’m getting “file not found” errors when trying to copy a file I know exists. All because MSFT has some legacy limit on file path length that doesn’t fail properly. What a waste of 8 hours of my life.
I’ve been working with my infrastructure lead to get a scheduled task going (it runs a PowerShell script daily). I kept getting “File Not Found” errors, in spite of the path to the file being 100% correct in the Task Scheduler window. Just for grins, I cut and paste that path into a cmd window, and got an error that “the file name doesn’t have a .ps1 extension”. Even though it clearly did. Replacing the (cut and pasted) double quotes with single quotes got me an error that “file path format isn’t correct”. I then put *back* the double quotes, and voila! it worked. Apparently the cut and paste operation did something weird (but invisible) to the double quotes. Yay Windows!
Smart quotes?
Probably. Went through our (browser based) helpdesk software. I’m sure Unicode to ASCII was to blame somewhere.
What is that registry tweak? I was handed a bunch of files in OneDrive as a part of the handover of responsibilities, but the pathnames are rediculously long and I can’t launch any of them natively from the desktop.
I don’t remember off the top of my head, and I’m at the tire shop, so my computer isnt in front of me. However, if you search “long path fix windows” or the like, there’s a MSFT article with the script. I copypasta’d into a .reg file.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maximum-file-path-limitation?tabs=cmd
This happened to me when I had to delete a directory with thousands of nested files – it will simply refuse to delete anything with a path that is “too long”.
I found the tweak pretty easily online – as you can imagine any MS problem faced by millions of users would be. This was ages ago – I don’t remember if the tweak actually allowed me to delete files that were already present, or just to create new files.
Relevant
Yeah, of all the brain-dead things about Windows this one is right up there.
I think the decline of federalism is what ultimately killed the republic. Massive empires don’t really survive as republics or democracies. Even if you have the means of communication to make it work, the populace of the empire is always going to be too diverse for a common set of laws to rationally manage. What is good for one element will spell disaster for another, even absent malice on anyone’s part. And the resulting factions will boil over into a kill or be killed competition. That’s why federalism was a blessing. It shifted the governance of the polity from the imperial (a nation which spans an entire continent is pretty definitionally, an empire) federal level to something at approaching a common, or at least familiar, set of values and circumstances. And the centralization of power at that federal level gives rise to a new class of citizens adept at the exercise of power at the federal level with their own set of values and circumstances divorced from those of the individual regions and peoples of the empire itself.
The 17th Amendment has been a disaster.
A lot of amendments have been a disaster. In fact, the bulk of the 20th century amendments have been net negative affairs.
Well we can be thankful for the 21st Amdt (and the 22nd).
Even the 21st is flawed as it didn’t return to status quo ante.
It’s interesting to ponder what might have happened had Texas not been annexed.
I swipe right for all of them. THERE ARE NO UGLY CATS!
Since Franklin is the star of this show…
“In the dark, all cats are grey.”
I think the decline of federalism is what ultimately killed the republic.
“Too many chiefs, and not enough indians” is a powerful curse.
Truth.
OMFG yes. My failed holster experiment box is one of those 18-gallon Rubbermaid storage tubs.
I really need to shovel out my gun room.
My one experiment that didn’t make it into the holster box is from back when I tried to make an old-fashioned flap holster for a ’51 Colt Navy revolver. It didn’t work out.
Probably should have used something other than a skunk pelt for the flap.
“That’s for my stank gun.”
My current quandary is finding a holster for a PX4 Storm with an RMR sight.
No problem, just be prepared to wait a bit: https://www.jmcustomkydex.com/
I do really like the Kore belts I bought. More than a regular belt even without a holster,
Love mine as well. The ratchet is money.
I just bought the Alien Gear ShapeShift package because I needed an OWB holster for class and the range and wanted the ability to go IWB. It’s okay, I have it set up for OWB with a paddle right now because I have CWP class this weekend. I do not like the paddle and it will come off when I change over to concealed carry.
Anyone use a chest holster? I have a large frame .357 that is pretty fucking heavy, so I’d rather not carry it on my belt.
https://twitter.com/MiamiHerald/status/1511364259812360192
Guess what “fake news site” they are referring to.
I had to click through to find out.
That’s stupider than I had imagined.
It’s exactly what I imagined. The left pretends to be unable to tell the difference between “satire” and “fake news” for just this reason.
The fake news you can trust of course!
OK, so I suppose I should mention today happens to be my birthday.
Happy year older!
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday!
Woot!
Happy Birthday, ji!
Happy Jack Benny 39th.
Happy Birthday!
Take all you can, give nothing back.
Ohoh, JI’s gaining on me.
/Looks over shoulder
Happy Birthday.
I’ve pondered your article in my mind over the years. Could never come to a conclusion that wasn’t a dictatorship. Even as we see what we call a democracy failing the end result in my mind requires a strongman.
Daily Quordle 71
7️⃣3️⃣
4️⃣6️⃣
quordle.com
6️⃣ 4️⃣
5️⃣ ?
Brain is mush at 4pm on a weekday
I’ve never had a strong opinion about Russia’s Alexei Navalny. But if John Brennan wants him to be the Russian President…
I’m sorry. I truly am. I wrestle with the conflict that is my higher brain reconciling with my baser instincts.
But totally would.
That’s quite the come hither look. But I don’t have that kind of hate-fuck in me.
Stuff her drawers in her mouth.
And the proper term would be “grudge fuck”
Not even with your dick.
I’m right there with ya’, man.
Thanks for this article. I look forward to the rest of the series.
Also,
Just when you think our current court is a disaster, you need only dig through some mind-boggling decisions of earlier versions of the institution to see that it is the same as it ever was.
Sad, but true. Good to be reminded that we do not live in exceptionally stupid times. The form of stupidity may change, but the magnitude remains the same.