Election 2018: thinking about impeachment
And the Democrats are indeed thinking about it.
If the blue wave materializes in the House—and it definitely might—the repercussions would be great. All the investigations the Republicans have launched into Democratic machinations in 2016 would end, and the full court press would be on to destroy the Trump presidency. Impeachment would almost certainly be on the table, as well, with the power to accomplish it without a single Republican vote.
Impeachment was never meant to be a party-line event. In fact, the Founders were very wary of its becoming a mere political tool of the legislature to destroy a president:
An early draft of the Constitution gave Congress the power to impeach and remove officers for “maladministration.” James Madison objected to this because the term was so vague that it would allow impeachment for any reason at all. As he put it, “so vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during the pleasure of the Senate.” The term “maladministration” was then deleted from the draft and replaced by the phrase “other high crimes and misdemeanors.” This shows that the Framers meant for the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” to signify only conduct that seriously harms the public and seriously compromises the officer’s ability to continue. If the phrase is given a less rigorous interpretation, it could allow Congress to influence and control the President and the courts.
A great many of the arguments about impeachment involve the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and what the Founders may have meant by that. But the phrase has come to mean pretty much anything a majority of the House members say it does, and therefore desisting from the use of impeachment for political reasons depends on their integrity.
Yes, integrity, which seems to be in short supply these days.
Back when Clinton was impeached, there was minimal crossing of party lines on two of the counts which succeeded, and a lot of crossing for the Republicans on two more counts which failed. The Republicans controlled Congress at the time:
Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the House of Representatives on grounds of perjury to a grand jury (by a 228–206 vote) and obstruction of justice (by a 221–212 vote). Two other articles of impeachment failed – a second count of perjury in the Jones case (by a 205–229 vote) and one accusing Clinton of abuse of power (by a 148–285 vote)…
Five Democrats (Virgil Goode of Virginia, Ralph Hall of Texas, Paul McHale of Pennsylvania, Charles Stenholm of Texas and Gene Taylor of Mississippi) voted in favor of three of the four articles of impeachment, but only Taylor voted for the abuse of power charge. Five Republicans (Amo Houghton of New York, Peter King of New York, Connie Morella of Maryland, Chris Shays of Connecticut and Mark Souder of Indiana) voted against the first perjury charge. Eight more Republicans (Sherwood Boehlert of New York, Michael Castle of Delaware, Phil English of Pennsylvania, Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, Jay Kim of California, Jim Leach of Iowa, John McHugh of New York and Ralph Regula of Ohio), but not Souder, voted against the obstruction charge. Twenty-eight Republicans voted against the second perjury charge, sending it to defeat, and eighty-one voted against the abuse of power charge.
I did some research to discover why the Founders had set the bar so low—a simple majority in the House—for impeachment proceedings to begin. I was unable to find the answer. But that low bar makes the impeachment process highly susceptible to political motives. The fact that it’s relatively easy to impeach and quite hard to convict—the latter requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate—does act as somewhat of a check, but only if the House is practical enough and patriotic enough to realize that hampering a duly elected president with impeachment proceedings that will never go anywhere is not in the best interests of the country. That’s one of the many reasons I was not in favor of Clinton’s impeachment, and my opinion on that has not changed over time (I’ve written about all the reasons I think the Clinton impeachment was a bad idea, and I’m not going to take it up again right now).
Impeachments that cannot possibly end in conviction are (among other things) attempts at hurting a president, and the temptation to do so is great in our very bitter political climate. The Republicans could have done the same to Obama when they controlled the House during the latter part of his administration, but they did not, although a lot of people on the right were clamoring for them to do so. I was not one of those people.
The midterm elections are in approximately two and a half weeks. I’ve said before that I’m anxious about them, and I continue to be worried.
It is clear that a Democrat victory would be a disaster for the country. The Democrats are able to pour $millions into any race but the Republicans depend on small donors like us. Breitbart has a list of 20 close races that may decide control of the House. Choose one or more and send them some $$. They can still use money for get out the vote efforts.
link to Breitbart article
I would support a Constitutional amendment raising the thresh hold for impeachment to a 2/3 majority, so that there has to be a bipartisan revulsion at actual high crimes & misdemeanors (which apparently can be felonies in some codes), whether statutorily criminal or not, rather than just outrage that the President (or other official) “is not governing the way we wanted” — which is not yet a criminal act.
AesopFan, I know you are not implying that an amendment would solve our problems but they run too deep to be solved by tinkering with the Constitution.
John Adams was prophetic when he said:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
There is some hope because we have in our past gone through religious revivals. I remember reading in Laura Hillenbrand’s book Unbroken that attending a revival meeting with Billy Graham saved Louis Zamperini’s life. We need many modern day Billy Grahams to get us out of our present disastrous course.
I’m not sure that blue wave is as imminent as the MSM want’s to portray. And hopefully I’m not wishing and hoping with that statement. But with the economy doing good, unemployment being at historic lows in almost every demographic, foreign affairs being straightened out and the leftist democrats antics in the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings and I think the independents will vote and vote Republican.
The House was the only branch of government directly accountable to the people, which is why I think it’s likely that the bar was set so low. After the passionate whims of the day were satisfied by a vote in the House (if it got that far), the Senate could then take up the matter. The founding fathers understood human nature on a deep level.
#Metoo thinks the ‘blue wave’ is over hyped. That said, the party in power often loses seats in the legislature. Enough to put Pelosi back at the gavel? I think not. And if the gop does not gain 4 or more seats in the senate I will be surprised.
There is a silent majority that stopped being silent in 2016. The economy is growing and it’s the economy stupid will be a factor in the 2018 midterms.
It is most of all the Constitution itself to which the hard core Left objects and it is that which is their true target.
A conviction of Trump in the Senate whether now or during a second term will be a wound from which the country will not recover because it would demonstrate that we are now effectively a one party State. And the realization on the right of that to be undeniable will inescapably lead to another Civil War.
I keep waiting for someone to challenge those shouting, “We will impeach him,” to explain the specific claims of “high crimes and misdemeanors” that they expect to lodge against him.
Anyone here got a clue? So far, it seems to be just a lot of “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
…sort of like the Dem committee members at the Ford v Kavanaugh hearing….
@ColoComment – I despair of reasoning. Violence is rising. It is not at the level it was in my youth, when radical leftists killed some people, but it is rising, and I am worried. History shows that it does not take many to start a revolution, and decent people who have only partial sympathy with it sit on the sidelines, unwilling to condemn.
Agree. Clinton should not have been impeached, and the Senate agreed. Requiring a simple majority in the House does, as you so nicely point out, make impeachment an easy political act.
I wonder, were the Democrats to take the House and proceed with impeachment proceedings. would the general public see it for its purely partisan political purpose and lose even more faith in the Democrats supposed good will? Also, the more it is talked about in advance of the midterms the more it may impact the so called “blue wave”.
If Trump and the Republicans simply accept any impeachment and demand it go to a Senate vote as quickly as possible, the harm will be minimal. There’s zero chance it will succeed, and everyone knows that.
It’s the debate and “investigation” which causes the poltical pain. So have none.
The Republicans won the Kavanaugh process by accepting quite a lot of the Democrats demands and getting to the vote quickly.
bob says republicans depend on small donors like us. if you mean by us koch brothers, sheldon adelson u.s. chamber of commerce. democrat party is bankrupt and donor class is drowning the republican party in money. you think jeb bush got a 100 million dollars from small donors?
If Trump and the Republicans simply accept any impeachment and demand it go to a Senate vote as quickly as possible,
Something akin to summary judgment. A pro forma proceeding presided over by the Chief Justice that lasts a minute or two, then onto the vote.
The founding fathers understood human nature on a deep level.
No, that crew of 18th century politicians had an understanding derived from the social positions they held and the liberal education they’d had, including self-education. The constitution was drawn up over a period of about 19 weeks, derived from extant institutional models, and incorporated a great deal of ad hoc adjustment and compromise. The notion it was some elegant watch works produced by 18th century Hari Seldons is something we can and should put to bed.
Does anyone else think ‘wammo’ might be spam generated by Correct the Record?
Heard Glen Beck on The Rubin Report and he predicted that they would subpoena Trump’s tax records and the like and then demand Kavanaugh recuse himself when the case got to the supreme court and if he refused impeach him too. Sounds like a plan to me! I think the Democrats are bent on completely destroying themselves as a party. I think they are a degenerate and weak elite but still it is difficult with very incomplete information to know how it will work out either way – GOP losing or retaining the house. Like Neo I was among those who thought Clinton should not have been impeached and that the Senate’s refusal to convict a victory for jury nullification. What looks like is going to happen if the Democrats take the house is closer to a lynching in spirit. But there are two weeks to go and we cant see what the President and Mueller and the IG and all the other players have up their sleeves. One thing I’ve learned is that Trump has a great sense of political timing and an eye for the main chance. I’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t manage a good October surprise. Of course the Dems will too if they have the ammo.
if you mean by us koch brothers,
The Koch brothers have made it quite clear they oppose Trump.
I am just finishing another biography of William T Sherman and there is a section about the impeachment of Johnson. That was very partisan and involved Johnson being a “war Democrat” and, sadly, a bit of a drunk. Stanton was an ideologue and “Radical Republican” enraged by Lincoln’s assassination. He slandered Sherman in newspapers because Sherman tried to arrange surrender of Joe Johnston’s army on terms of liberal accommodation, as suggested by Lincoln a few days before he was killed. Abolition was not the issue. It was treatment of the seceded states and their population. President Johnson and Sherman were agreed on merciful treatment even after the assassination. Sherman was meeting with Joe Johnston when he received a secret telegram informing him of the assassination. Sweat popped out on Johnston’s forehead when Sherman informed him of the telegram.
The “Tenure in Office Act’ was pure partisanship. It violated the Constitution. Sherman was able to avoid getting caught up in it because his dislike of all politicians, except for his brother, was well known. Johnson was not removed from office by one vote but the radical Republicans ran “Reconstruction” and a case can be made that the effect was to cause the enduring hatred of the North and the freed slaves that endured for 100 years,
the radical Republicans ran “Reconstruction” and a case can be made that the effect was to cause the enduring hatred of the North and the freed slaves that endured for 100 years,
A case can also be made that asymmetric federalism should have been the order of the day for around about 60 years, with important Southern political institutions under federal trusteeship. The federal government should have assumed and honored the Southern war debt. Not inclined to make excuses for the Black Codes, the ferocious political and social violence in the South (at its peak around 1892 / 93), Southern court systems and law enforcement; the use of legal and administrative chicanery, local police, and mob violence to prevent blacks from exercising their civil rights; the caste attitudes built into Southern commercial law; the shortchanging of Negro school systems, along with the mandating of unwieldy parallel school systems in upland jurisdictions with few blacks; debarring blacks from state flagship campuses; debt peonage; and paying employees in scrip useful only at company stores.
Art Deco @8:56 AM:
You cheapen the Constitution and its authors.
Are you suggesting it is a shabby document, quickly hatched (in “nineteen weeks”) by semi-ignorant men?
Do you ignore the prior Articles of Confederation, effective in 1781? Replaced by the Constitution eight (8) years later, during which time the same authors had reasons and experiences galore to modify and improve, nay, replace the Articles with the Constitution.
The Constitution, despite its relatively few and some serious flaws, generated the best, most humane governing system ever developed on the entire planet.
It is of course being corrupted by humans as we sit much too passively and watch the Left. Human corruptibility and laziness is in our nature, and we are ever vulnerable to our own destruction from within. So assiduous humility is needed. Always.
The federal government should have assumed and honored the Southern war debt. Not inclined to make excuses for the Black Codes, the ferocious political and social violence in the South (at its peak around 1892 / 93)
My point was that Reconstruction, as practiced, may have aggravated the southerners anger at having lost. Lincoln had planned to allow a simple oath of allegiance to restore rights. The treatment as a defeated enemy, rather than as misguided citizens, did not help.
Cicero:
Likewise, I have been impressed by the combination of brilliance and realism present in the Founding Fathers, particularly in some of their correspondence.
The treatment as a defeated enemy, rather than as misguided citizens, did not help.
Yes it did. You could treat them as a defeated enemy, or you could let them beat up on the blacks at their leisure. There was no 3d option. The policy eventually adopted was in two steps: they treated them as a defeated enemy, then allowed them to beat up on the blacks at their leisure. Bad business. The one courtesy they might have offered was the one they would not give: to honor the Southern war debts, including the payment of bonuses and pensions to Confederate soldiers.
What’s interesting when you examine Census statistics is the rapidity with which the freed blacks moved out of the agricultural sector. By 1880, about 60% of the heads of households in the black population listed a service or industrial occupation or were employed as general labor. Remarkable churn in settlement patterns and sectoral mix was possible. Now compare the agrarian reforms enacted in the 19th century in France, Prussia, Russia, and the Hapsburg domains to the end of slavery in the American South. In France, Russia, and the Hapsburg domains, allodial rights to the rustical lands were transferred to the emancipated peasantry (who had some redemption obligations later cancelled), with the seigneurs receiving only the desmesnes. In Prussia and the American South, the seigneurial class got it all, and the liberated peasants were just labor. OTOH, the United States had masses of unoccupied land. It might have assisted recovery from the Civil War if freed slaves had been given priority in the Homestead program.
And no. Courts, police, penal systems, and voting registries should have been under federal trusteeship in the South for a great long time.
You cheapen the Constitution and its authors.
No, I’m treating the Constitution as an organic law with strengths and weaknesses, like any human artifact. They took the time they took to produce the document. They had the models they had at the time.
I’m treating its authors as what they were: men drawn from the gentry, the merchant class, and the professions who were liberally educated in ways that are unusual today. I think they had an integrity and an authentic patriotism that you don’t see much of anymore among our elites, at least outside the military. They weren’t some harmonic convergence of Socrates, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Max Weber, Will James, and Yoda. Get a grip.
Art Deco:
No one here has indicated that they believe the Founders were “some harmonic convergence of the St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Max Weber, Will James, and Yoda. ” Isn’t it enough that they were brilliant and had integrity, and were dedicated to trying to devise the best government possible, taking into account human nature? Quite an accomplishment, and I wish we had more of their like today.
generated the best, most humane governing system ever developed on the entire planet.
Quality of life pretty good in Canada, the Antipodes, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Israel making use of different political forms.
No one here has indicated that they believe the Founders were “some harmonic convergence of the St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Max Weber, Will James, and Yoda.
He’s pretty agitated at my description of them, even though that description wasn’t disparaging at all. Semiworshipful remarks about them are common enough to be almost banal, more common than reserved remarks. It’s cant, of which we should clear our minds.
“semi-worship” of the Founding Fathers is entirely appropriate, despite your sorry attempt to inject an element of Marxist class warfare into the equation with your complaint of “men drawn from the gentry, the merchant class, and the professions”. They were learned. They sought to found and did found what became the planet’s bastion of the bourgeoisie, the middle class, the holders of morality.
Some, like Jefferson, believed in “Nature’s God”, not in a Christian or Muslim (Sorry, Barack Hussein) God. Most of them believed in the values of independent small farms owned by single farmers, and small businesses run by their owners, unlike the British model. Yes, some were plantation owners with slaves, but slavery was also allowed in the UK at the time, the empire on which the sun never set.
They were a caring, non-arrogant gentry because education was rare in the Colonies, with some humility toward their fellow man, not like the gentry of British ilk. For example, did you know that even today the UK aristocracy owns the fishing rights in most rivers, and Brit commoners are left to catch only “trash” fish in the undesirable waters? cf. America!
“semi-worship” of the Founding Fathers is entirely appropriate,
No it isn’t. It’s creepy. Thomas Jefferson wasn’t St. Francis.
despite your sorry attempt to inject an element of Marxist class warfare
I did no such thing. I gave you a description of these people. A description which is accurate. The rest is your imagination. (It’s pretty amusing that the moderator mistakes my figurative language for literal language (and slaps me across the mouth for it) but howlers like this from you go unremarked).
Most of them believed in the values of independent small farms owned by single farmers, and small businesses run by their owners, unlike the British model.
Merchants and artisans in Britain were self-employed, worked as journeymen in small establishments, or worked as apprentices in small establishments. It wasn’t qualitatively different across the pond. Slave labor was characteristic of colonial agriculture, not agriculture in the British isles. Hereditary subjection in Britain evaporated during the Renaissance. The agrarian system in Britain was a descendant of Medieval practice, though in the process of reconstitution during the 18th century. In the United States, fully 1/2 the population in 1790 lived in slave states, and slaves made up 1/3 of the population in those states. You weren’t lacking for yeoman farming in the Southern United States, but plantation agriculture wasn’t an ancillary feature of the landscape.
For example, did you know that even today the UK aristocracy owns the fishing rights in most rivers, and Brit commoners are left to catch only “trash” fish in the undesirable waters? cf. America!
That’s of interest to sport fisherman. The British peerage and gentry employ few people nowadays and rent out their estates to tours because that’s what they have to do to stay afloat economically. Well that’s what that portion of them who still own their estates are doing. They’ve been largely stripped of their institutional position and those who haven’t have to keep company with trade union meatheads and guild denizens on Labour Party patronage.
Sorta tangential, but interesting.
According to a report out yesterday, Princess Spreading Bull’s ex-husband was one of the co-founders of DNA/genealogical research company Family Tree DNA, and one of the chief scientists working with him was the Dr. Bustamonte who performed Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test.
I don’t know about you, but this information–conveniently not included in MSM stories about Warren’s whole DNA test debacle– certainly calls these supposed test “results” into question.
If I were Trump or anyone else interested in this issue, I’d call for Warren to be tested by some neutral party, not by people with such close connections to her who, I’d imagine, would have all the reason in the world to put a thumb on the scale to benefit her and her presidential aspirations.
Art D:
My imagination’s job is to decipher your intent, your meaning(s). You are typifying the politics of identity by insulting me, our host, and Jefferson.
I am inclined to doubt you have read much Thomas Aquinas, much less Francis of Assisi.
You are typifying the politics of identity by insulting me, our host, and Jefferson.
I haven’t insulted our host and haven’t insulted Jefferson. At all. I’ve offered sour descriptions of things you’ve said, which you may find insulting. My suggestion is that you say better things, that way you’ll feel better when they’re read back to you.
They’re wishin’, an’ hopin’, an’ dreamin’… Gonna be QUITE a let-down…
Art Deco,
Others have sufficiently pointed out the foolishness of your assertions. Of course, we’ve all dealt with people who carry themselves as you, so these arguments will continue as long as both sides desire to ride the merry-go-round. I don’t care to do that, but I thought it was important to point something out.
As far as refuting my statement that the founding fathers understood human nature on a deep level, you neither addressed nor refuted that simple concept. Instead, you chose to divert and attack. Why is that? Regardless of your reason(s), time has demonstrated over and over that my statement is true. You offer no evidence to the contrary.
Despite their ignorance of the technological advances we’ve witnessed over the past 200+ years, the document they left in place continues to this day to be relevant in governing the human nature that utilizes those technologies. Superficial and simple-minded thinking would have led those wise men to leave behind a document whose relevance faded before the ink was dry. Your argument strongly suggests that they were products of their times, and that their legacy was limited to the 18th century.
There were fourteen Presidents prior to George Washington, if you choose to begin with Peyton Randolph’s position as President of the First Continental Congress and his successors. Reading up on them and their prescient views of human nature and the future of our country–from their 18th century perspective–might enlighten an open-minded individual as to just how deep their experience and understanding of human nature was.
Snow on Pine:
If Dr. Bustamonte was faking the results, he certainly could have done a more convincing job in terms of Warren’s Native American background. My guess is that the test is on the up and up. But it is interesting that chose someone who wouldn’t be expected to be objective.
neo on October 21, 2018 at 8:21 pm at 8:21 pm said:
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IMO, Warren is an experienced lawyer who is or should be well cognizant of the merits of full disclosure of any real, or what might be perceived as, conflict of interest, or any relationship(s) for which later discovery could prove to weaken her Indian-claim-rehabilitation project.
I, too, find it hard to believe that Dr. Bustamonte would jeopardize his seemingly good reputation by indulging in fakery, but Warren’s connection, however tenuous, should have been revealed by her at the onset.
Not only does she have p*ss-poor political instincts (e.g., publicizing such a mockery of a DNA test, but her failure to address her ex’s company’s involvement in it suggests that she’s deceptive when it suits her purposes.
I’ll suggest that she’s not even a good politician — and would be a disaster as president.
Others have sufficiently pointed out the foolishness of your assertions.
They haven’t, but if fantasy helps you feel better.
Of course, we’ve all dealt with people who carry themselves as you, so these arguments will continue as long as both sides desire to ride the merry-go-round. I don’t care to do that, but I thought it was important to point something out.
I’m not carrying myself. I’m sitting on a couch.
As far as refuting my statement that the founding fathers understood human nature on a deep level, you neither addressed nor refuted that simple concept. Instead, you chose to divert and attack.
You have a talent for projection.
Why is that?
I haven’t any explanation for your reading comprehension issues or any other problems between your ears.
Regardless of your reason(s), time has demonstrated over and over that my statement is true. You offer no evidence to the contrary.
How would time ‘demonstrate’ that? They crafted a political architecture with a certain utility. Not a unique achievement.
Some among them imbibed a great deal of classical literature and some indubitably knew their Church Fathers. That’s certainly unusual as we speak. Those aren’t the only sources you’d consult if you wanted to understand human nature on a deep level, a shallow level, or a mezzanine level. You’ve got several score people. Who has mastered their correspondence and public writings? Who among them is a renaissance man in the realm of classical literature, Patristics, psychology, and social research? What would you have to know to say Gourverneur Morris and 60 others ‘understood human nature on a ‘deep level’? Or, rather to say that without talking out of your a**?
Despite their ignorance of the technological advances we’ve witnessed over the past 200+ years, the document they left in place continues to this day to be relevant in governing the human nature that utilizes those technologies.
It doesn’t ‘govern human nature’. It delineates a set of institutional conventions (some of which have been ignored for 80-odd years and some of which are dysfunctional).
Superficial and simple-minded thinking would have led those wise men to leave behind a document whose relevance faded before the ink was dry. Your argument strongly suggests that they were products of their times, and that their legacy was limited to the 18th century.
No, I pointed out the obvious. They were men with practical aims. So were the men who drafted colonial charters and state constitutions. So were the men who drafted the constitutions of the Low Countries, which have been in place for 160 years or more. So were the men who crafted in increments the British constitution, elements of which date to the 13th century.
There were fourteen Presidents prior to George Washington, if you choose to begin with Peyton Randolph’s position as President of the First Continental Congress and his successors.
Well, I don’t. Presiding over a conciliar body with a minimal staff is not an executive function. When John Adams left office, he had 3,000 people working under him.
Reading up on them and their prescient views of human nature and the future of our country–from their 18th century perspective–might enlighten an open-minded individual as to just how deep their experience and understanding of human nature was.
Or it might tell you how some 18th century gentlemen looked at the world around them. Interesting, yes. Up to a point.
@ColoComment
they will charge him with being Trump when they don’t like it.
@Mary, a “high crime” for sure [in their minds]!
🙂
Neo–As I understand it, such a low percentage of “Indian** DNA as Warren has could well be what in DNA testing is termed “noise,” small random combinations of A-T-G-C that don’t actually signal that you are related to someone or to some group.
**The other issue here is that Bustamonte didn’t actually test Warren’s DNA against examples of American Indian DNA.
Reportedly, that is because suspicious tribal leaders have told their tribesmen not to donate such samples out of fear of their misuse–these tribes have been screwed so many times they figure that collecting DNA samples from them will just turn out to be a new way to screw them.
Thus, there are no collections of American Indian DNA samples sufficient to do a valid comparison against them.
So, what Bustmante actually did was to test Warren’s DNA against DNA samples from Mexicans, Peruvians, and Colombians, on the theory that, tens of thousands of years ago, the ancient ancestors of today’s American Indians crossed over the Bearing Strait land bridge, traveled down through North America—shedding people who settled here and there to become today’s American Indians—and ended up in Mexico and South America.
This theory may be true, it may be false but, in any case, if Warren is related to any groups of people, it is actually to Mexicans, Peruvians, and Colombians.
Quality of life pretty good in Canada, the Antipodes, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Israel making use of different political forms.
Without the presence of the United States of America … and the economic and military strength fostered by its political form, which works to “establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing” as Milton Friedman put it … those nations (particularly the last three) would have been overrun by tyranny before now.
Our founders were quite human (wonder how Ben Franklin would have handled a #MeToo movement confronting him), but their work is the work of genius … and the Constitution is only the second tier of that work.
The top tier, is this:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
Government that focuses upon the above – the ONE moral code that government MUST concern itself with – is within the capacity of humans to safely administer, because:
> The tasks involved are one-size-fits-all, and do not require tweaking to fit individual situations that might run afoul of equal protection under the law.
> The operatives of that government have that respect for liberty in their face at all times, encouraging its implementation instead of encouraging the imposition of today’s popular definition of the “common good” and/or filling rice bowls, disbursing rents, and peddling influence.
> The level of complexity of such governance is within the capability of the governed to exercise effective oversight to keep the operatives honest, as opposed to letting them run amok in a Byzantine maze where even a ham sandwich can be indicted.
> Maintained respect for individual liberty allows the flow of the secret sauce of all human advancement … the responsible exercise of individual initiative … from which American economic and military strength is derived. That effectively maximizes the application of this nation’s distributed intellect upon the millions of problems to be solved, as opposed to reliance upon an elite few Smart People™ to make all the decisions. I refer to that as the D-Day difference … the guys on the beach at Normandy took the initiative to adapt and overcome, while their enemies waited for Der Furher to wake up and tell them what to do.
Our governmental dysfunctions can be found, where we have departed from the focus upon liberty I describe. Mitigating those dysfunctions starts, with restoring the respect for those self-evident truths that our founding citizens had the wisdom to recognize.
Without the presence of the United States of America … and the economic and military strength fostered by its political form, which works to “establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing” as Milton Friedman put it … those nations (particularly the last three) would have been overrun by tyranny before now.
Except for Israel, these countries prospered before the United States displaced Britain as the world’s premier power. And you’re neglecting his argument, which is that the United States Constitution is a precondition for quality of life. He made no reference whatsoever to the presence of a security umbrella, much less the political constitution of the provider of that umbrella.
Our governmental dysfunctions can be found, where we have departed from the focus upon liberty I describe.
No, the dysfunctions can be found (1) where structure and institutional culture permits and promotes illegitimate freebooting and (2) where institutions are vested with responsibility but cannot make decisions or are populated with people who will not make them.
I was glad that Nixon was impeached, despite his personal wrongdoing being less than Clinton’s perjury, and I was glad Clinton was impeached.
He should have been found guilty of perjury — he was lying about not having sex with Monica.
I think perjury is a high crime.
So far, I don’t see anything in Trump’s files that are high crimes, altho if they want to go after his tax returns I’d expect they could find something.
It’s good that the Senate needs to decide, with a high bar. I actually think
a) the Kavanaugh circus will get more independents voting Rep; and more Reps voting (Rep! of course), so there won’t be much blue wave.
b) if there is a blue wave, the Reps will understand they really are being persecuted; but the Dems will talk about impeachment without doing much.
I now think there is a HUGE problem, which our (fantastic) Founders failed to anticipate, in the Deep State, and the deranged partisanship of so many top bureaucrats. Reforming the devil service, er, civil service, is important but not talked about enough.
Also, there needs to be more Reps as professors and especially as administrators in colleges — don’t know who to get there from here.
Altho the Reps seem to be doing ok now, the culture is sick. Socialism, and the addiction to OPM (other people’s money), but the “moral superiority” horse manure from the PC-devotees is terrible.
Only many elections with Dems losing and losing will change the Dems to be more tolerant — it would help if there were more cultural TV, magazines, newspapers with a Rep, small gov’t bias. But investors don’t seem to be funding such.
AD is entitled to his fairly anti-American opinion, but it’s certainly not worth arguing with him about it. America is great, has been great, but has never been perfect — those who push the imperfections may not be factually wrong, but their analysis is suspect.
Europe, with proportional representation more than the US geo-district representations, has been faster to push socialism, and support corruption, and sometimes good things, too — but still can’t defend itself.
It’s not impeachment or not as a weakness of the Constitution, it’s the Dem bias inside the Deep State which is the cancer weakening the USA and the rule of law.
As neo said, if the DNA testing company with direct connections to Warren through her ex-husband were faking the results, they did a really poor job of it. Unless they thought that, through the machinations of the press, giving her a 1/1024th chance of having native genes (rather than a zero chance) would be enough to placate independent voters.
Otherwise, they should have said that she had whatever minimum shared genetic levels the tribes require for membership. That would have shut everyone up (save for us extreme right-wing conspiracy theorists doubting the results based on the connections of the testers to her and common sense). That’s at least what I expected the claims to be when I clicked on the first of the “Warren has strong evidence” articles.
Nixon was not impeached. The House Judiciary Committee considered five resolutions, and sent 3 to the floor of the House. Nixon resigned before the House voted.
AD is entitled to his fairly anti-American opinion,
Geez Louise. Can’t you people get anything right?
Europe, with proportional representation more than the US geo-district representations, has been faster to push socialism, and support corruption, and sometimes good things, too — but still can’t defend itself
I don’t think there’s much of a correlation between the use of PR and public consumption or the use of PR and the share of industrial output in state-owned firms or the use of PR and the share of the population living in public housing. Britain had an extensive portfolio of state assets (which included the entire medical sector) in addition to social insurance and doles and France has as we speak just about the highest ratio of central government expenditure to domestic product to be found in Europe. Britain has always used single-member districts conjoined to first-past-the-post tallies and France over the last 150 years has used single-member districts about 90% of the time . Germany during the Wilhelmine period had single-member districts, malapportionment, tax classes for suffrage &c. It was also the first of the Great Powers to enact cash social insurance programs (an initiative of Bismarck).
While we’re at it, nothing I had to say in this discussion ever addressed the electoral system, so no clue what Tom G fancies is the referent of his remarks.
Tom G:
On the question of whether Clinton committed perjury or not.
I think the argument that he did not is stronger than the argument that he did.
Most people know next to nothing about what perjury is. It is a legal term and it is not synonymous with the common understanding of lying.
Tom G — I don’t want to get into a long tax discussion here, but nothing in Trump’s income tax returns will reveal anything that his hundred-page financial statement, filed every six months or so with the Federal Election Commission, doesn’t show. If you wanted to find out more, you’d have to look through the returns of the 300 or so partnerships in which he is a partner, and even then, many of those partnerships have partnership or corporate partners, so you’d have to look through their returns as well. They are not exclusively his returns, and there is no existing law which compels or even permits him to release them, even the ones in which he is the general partner. Congress would have to pass a law which states that any partnership and corporate return in which the President is a member or shareholder has to be disclosed, regardless of whether the other members agree, and that ain’t gonna happen!
Neo, thanksabunch for the link to the Tiersma article. Issues concerning language, usages and misusages, and interpretations of writings and speakings , such as the ones discussed there, interest me a lot.
Such as the issue of “What the meaning of ‘is’ is.” *grin*
Entirely O/T, in my opinion none of the dictionaries currently available through onelook.com is worth the pixels used to display its lack of helpfulness. Grumble.
I did some research to discover why the Founders had set the bar so low—a simple majority in the House
Keep in mind, Neo, that the FFs did not have political parties, particularly exactly TWO political parties, in mind when they created the Constitution. Though they developed quickly, being fully in-place by Jefferson’s election, they did not foresee the duality of the political climate.
But even there, it required the binary insanity of PostModern Liberalism to really make things work wrong. For all their claims to “nuance”, seriously — 99% of them can only see in binary forms. You are either Good or Evil, and Good people think exactly as they do, so you must must must clearly be evil. And so forth.
Although it’s been decades since I read snippets of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, it’s obvious to me that our Constitution was a brilliant accomplishment, and the FFs had a synergy unmatched since.
Do I worship them? No, but they were the right men at the right time. I’ve read McCullough’s book on John Adams, and while I disagreed with his political stances, I’ve found him to be a man I could relate to on a personal level. But while all men are fallible people, I’m dismayed by the constant attacks to tear them down. They’re certainly a better lot than the current crop of fools.
it’s obvious to me that our Constitution was a brilliant accomplishment, and the FFs had a synergy unmatched since.
How does it compare with the Constitutions of New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia then in effect?
Art Deco:
Who do you think authored those state constitutions? The non-founding non-fathers?
For Massachusetts, John Adams:
For Virginia, James Madison :
Jefferson wrote a contribution too, but the mail arrived too late and it wasn’t incorporated.
As for New York, the most familiar name is John Jay:
Who do you think authored those state constitutions?
A broader population of colonial-era politicians, who, in turn, were inspired by colonial charters. The colonial charters had the charters of Britain’s municipal corporations among their antecedents.
When you say ‘brilliant’ that suggests invention, an inspired design with scant precedent. I’m suggesting the organic laws of the time were innovations, incremental amendments to an existing legal form. One thing that was without precedent was attempting to construct such a corporation over a continental land mass. Republican instituitons in Europe tended to be found in stand-alone cities and coastal seafaring states. I look on that as more of a gamble than an invention. YMMV.
Art Deco:
“Brilliant” does not require “an inspired design with scant precedent.” Sometimes it does, I suppose, but rarely—even in the arts, where you would think that definition would apply most.
Ever hear of Newton, who said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”? And yet Newton was a giant himself, and brilliant by any definition of the word.
It is brilliant to be able to take the best from the past (to recognize it in the first place, too), to organize it, implement it, fight for it, and add to it. The Founders did all of that, and more. That they didn’t bring some rare element from planet Xenon to the mix is irrelevant and hardly detracts from their genius.
I also suggest you read T.S. Eliot’s (a man who was also brilliant) essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent”:
Ever hear of Newton, who said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”? And yet Newton was a giant himself, and brilliant by any definition of the word.
Yes. He discovered calculus. That actually is brilliant. The Founders didn’t discover calculus or construct de novo devices which could harness electric power. They adapted some extant institutional forms to a novel task.
Societies benefit from time to time from great leaders (de Gaulle, Churchill, Eisenhower). What’s really beneficial is not great leaders, but a measure of disinteredness and conscientiousness woven into public life year in and year out. Switzerland is a handsome place. Don’t think you could find many great men in Switzerland’s 700-odd years as a political entity. What you can find is people who respect what C.S. Lewis called ‘the Tao’ and who attend to their business with meticulous care.
Art Deco:
Newton proves my point, not just because he made that statement about the shoulders of giants (which you are conveniently ignoring), but also because calculus was simultaneously and independently invented by Liebniz. That was because they were both standing on the shoulders of giants, and calculus was apparently ripe to be discovered by the geniuses (plural) of the day.
Also:
And so forth….
Brilliant giants all, but not in a vacuum. All built heavily on predecessors, as did the brilliant giants known as the Founders. And no, not all of them are equal in brilliance. Nevertheless all are brilliant.
Newton proves my point,
You’ve invoked a quite inspired figure from another discipline to defend your terminological usage. That there was more than one inspired figure to not make their task analogous to conciliar bodies of provincial grandees accomplishing something in public view.
Art Deco:
That it (Newton’s calculus) is not exactly the same as the achievement of the Founders does not mean it’s not relevant. I never said nor did I indicate that the achievements are exactly analogous, and I specifically added that not all are equally brilliant.
My point is that they (such geniuses) are not singularly innovative and their achievements don’t come out of nowhere. They all build very strongly on precedent and the previous brilliance of others, and extend and synthesize and add to them. Newton did it (as he himself acknowledged), and Liebniz’s simultaneous invention is further evidence of that principle.
The Founders’ achievement is also brilliant and yet builds on achievements of the past.
The Constitution, despite its relatively few and some serious flaws, generated the best, most humane governing system ever developed on the entire planet.
Two notes:
1) The biggest flaw in the Constitution is that it was not perceived that the rights the BOR protected were required for the Fed to protect at the state and local levels. Without that, slavery could not exist. Without that, the problems that led to the Civil War fade at worst, or happen far earlier, before the severe rancor had time to develop, with one Senator beating another Senator senseless with a cane IN CONGRESS and receiving no real censure. The victim was bodily broken, and never really returned to Congress.
This is important. The Fed MUST project those protections down to the local level, or else there is nothing to stop a State from establishing chattel slavery upon a group, and denying those chattel freedom to leave. And if the Fed can do nothing to stop that, what good are the protections?
Remember, the Civil War itself was not fought over the legality of slavery, it was fought over the right of States to secede. Even in 1860, no one actually challenged this tremendous flaw in the application of the BoR to the Federal Government, charged with protecting those Natural Rights.
2) One other thing, not taught in schools, is that, despite other nations crowing about how old they are compared to the USA, few “really” are, and no major nation’s government survives largely unchanged since 1789 (the closest is the UK). Seriously. The USA is the oldest surviving government of any major nation on Earth. Most modern nations — Italy, Germany, Brazil — did not even exist in their current form in 1800. Many others — France, Russia, China — have been through one or more major revolutions in that time. The UK is the only major nation relatively intact, and even it went from a pure monarchy with parliamentary oversight in 1790 to a parliamentary government with a figurehead monarchy by 1830.
The FFs created one of the most stable governments in World history. We endured and reformed after the Civil War. And, in 2000, we had a major Constitutional Crisis — the signal was drowned out by the “noise” (hanging chads). In other places and times, the winner gets chosen by a Test of Arms. Not the USA. The politicians knew that the American public would not tolerate that as a means of choosing who leads (not so sure about that these days… *sigh*), and so resorted to countermove vs legal countermove, until one side went… “I got nothin’…” and ceded the win.
I fear there will be another test before long. Whether the nation succeeds in surviving it will be a large part of whether we manage to remain one of the oldest largely unchanged governments in current world history…
NOTE: I exclude places like Lichtenstein, etc., as they have virtually no significance on the world’s political stage…
2) One other thing, not taught in schools, is that, despite other nations crowing about how old they are compared to the USA, few “really” are, and no major nation’s government survives largely unchanged since 1789 (the closest is the UK). Seriously. The USA is the oldest surviving government of any major nation on Earth.
No, the United States has the oldest surviving discrete charter. Britain, New Zealand, and Israel have a body of constitutional law rather than a discrete charter. The salient features of the British constitution were all in place prior to 1789, with the most consequential architectural changes being the Reform Bill of 1832, the extension of the suffrage in 1867, and the revision to the powers of the House of Lords in 1911.
The discrete charter delineates features of the political order with precision, but the political order is not properly identified with the charter. Switzerland has had several constitutions, but essential features of Swiss government are antique. The same is true of some of the European microstates.
And, of course, a nation does have an existence separate from it’s political order. Ours does not antedate 1607. Sweden’s does, even though the essential features of Sweden’s political order appeared much later.
The FFs created one of the most stable governments in World history.
It has had institutional continuity. However, we had a gruesome Civil War, wretched political and social violence during the last quarter of the 19th century (in the South), and a great deal of chicanery in political practice (e.g. Negro disfranchisement) that you didn’t see elsewhere. Britain’s been largely free of intramural violence since the suppression of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s revolt in 1745. I think Switzerland had a couple of intramural insurrections between 1789 and 1849, but nothing on the scale of the American Civil War.
Remember, the Civil War itself was not fought over the legality of slavery, it was fought over the right of States to secede.
The Secession documents from various Southern States declaring that it was about trade and The Fugitive Slave Acts, does not agree with this “modern” re interpretation of Civil War 1.
Before the day and age of the internet where this stuff could be looked up on primary source documentation and read by commoners, the “narrative” told by certain pro slave factions was that it was about secession, a derivative of white separatist power.
No, it wasn’t about secession either. If it was about secession than the Southerners and Democrats wouldn’t have tried to exterminate the mormons in Utah by President Buchanan and other factions.
A lot of people’s internal monologue about their story in his(tory), is full of contradictions by the facts and primary sources.
Art Deco has done his research. While I don’t necessarily agree with all his characterizations and conclusions, he at least is not basing it on biased tradition and Red vs Blue dynamics.
Newton’s creation of Calculus was so that he could resolve fundamentally unresolvable issues in his Theory of Gravity. Art Deco did not bring it up most likely because this was another one of those things that people would only know if they read original source documents.
Newton never solved the equation for Gravity involving 3 bodies or more, like the Sun Moon Earth system.
Newton’s laws of gravity only work for two bodies: a bullet and the Earth. The sun and the Earth. The moon and the Earth. It does not work at all. The equations do not exist that describe the solar system.
This is what Einstein patched up.