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Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. And that it is doing God service when it is violating all His laws.
--John Adams
MisterVeritis (06-06-2021)
That's why I make a conscious effort never to refer to our rights and freedoms as Americans as having been "given" or "granted" by the Constitution - but as being recognized in that document.
My question pertains to "some folks" appearing to give local and state governments a pass on violating or infringing the rights of Americans who happen to live within their boundaries. I have in mind a member or two who have - at least it seemed to me - expressed that tendency.
More on point with regard to your OP, I'd be interested in your take on what I wrote in Post #18. The more I think about it, the more I agree with myself that Americans have become far more cynical about government authority and generally readier to question and even defy it. The public's reaction to the Covid-related mandates - business closings, mask wearing, social distancing - is not typical of the trend because people don't want to die and most are prepared to go along with the State-imposed restrictions as a result.
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
Thus proving my point.
You simply repeat the conventional wisdom, which comes straight from the government and from corrupt media outlets, as if it were handed down to us by some deity.
Those "directives" are outrageous affronts to the most basic liberties.Are people more willing to follow a directive like mask-wearing or social distancing than they would have been thirty, fifty, seventy years ago? Hard to say.
FDR was a tyrant. And modern politicians are taking a page out of his book.I do recall, however, the "duck and cover" drills in the public schools during the Cold War era. And I'm not old enough to remember when 120,000 U.S. residents, more than 74,000 of them citizens, were sent to internment camps because of their racial ancestry - with very little in the way of public criticism arising - but I've read about it.
Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. And that it is doing God service when it is violating all His laws.
--John Adams
MisterVeritis (06-06-2021)
The united States is not a nation, it is federation of sovereign States who ceded limited, enumerated powers to a federal government. All powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the States, per the tenth amendment. One can argue in favor of the principle of federalism without endorsing everything that happens under the auspices of State and local government.
Some Americans are more skeptical. Some are less. My problem is with those who have become less skeptical. Either they have turned their backs on their heritage or they had no real connection to America's heritage in the first place.More on point with regard to your OP, I'd be interested in your take on what I wrote in Post #18. The more I think about it, the more I agree with myself that Americans have become far more cynical about government authority and generally readier to question and even defy it.
Every bastard tyrant in history claimed to be acting in the interests of safety or public health or national defense or some combination thereof. Americans are supposed to know better. Americans are not supposed to just blindly accept whatever rationale they're given by those in power.The public's reaction to the Covid-related mandates - business closings, mask wearing, social distancing - is not typical of the trend because people don't want to die and most are prepared to go along with the State-imposed restrictions as a result.
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.
--Patrick Henry
Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. And that it is doing God service when it is violating all His laws.
--John Adams
MisterVeritis (06-06-2021)
It is amazing to me that central government loving ultra libs used states rights to lock us down ( unconstitutionally so) and further their agenda. Can these really be the same people that then want the states to cow tow to the feds on literally every other issue from which bathroom we use to gun laws, voting regulations and God knows what else?
Ethereal (02-28-2021)
MisterVeritis (06-06-2021)
Yes those are all governements which are bound by the Constitution and they often violate rights. Sometimes Municipalities can be even more intrusive than the feds. For example telling people where, on their own property , they can park their cars or how high they can allow their own grass to grow. So I am not one who reserves my outrage for the feds and neither are organizations like the Institute for Justice.
Wolf as you know the state's do have more rights than the feds although they should not be violating the Constitution. The feds have enumerated powers outside of which they are not supposed to operate. So that ground between the enumerated powers and the Constitutionality falls to the states and are what people are referring to as State's rights and to smaller governments by extension. It's a constant power grab/struggle even at the local level. Imagine rules, projects, grants or other things that involve federal, state , county and or local government . Imagine the inherent disfunction? For example welfare and the inefficiencies so many cooks build into it.