I'm looking for some people to participate in the blog comments at
http://www.lastfreevoice.com/2007/06/28/henry-takes-on-chertoff
It may be a little hard to tell who said what in this email (it just
quotes the text, not the blockquotes) or yahoogroups post (depending
on your preferred mode of delivery) so please if you answer do so
+++in the comments at LFV+++ not on yahoo groups/email!
The Anti-Federalist Epiphany
Posted June 28th, 2007 by TitaniumGirl
Here's an actual conversation/epiphany I had with my husband not very
long ago while driving in the car.
Titaniumgirl: I've always heard that the Federalist Society was good,
but wouldn't the Anti-Federalists be the true good guys?
Titaniumboy: Federalists are the good ones, the anti-Federalists are not.
Titaniumgirl: That's what we are told, but the War of Northern
Agression was most certainly supported by the federalists.
Titaniumboy: But, we are told that the Federalists are good.
Titaniumgirl: We are also told that Abe Lincoln was among the best
presidents ever, and he was actually an authoritarian dictator who
suspended habeaus corpus and killed approximately two hundred thousand
people. Every other country on earth ended slavery peacefully, but he
was hell bent on wielding power and destruction to anyone who did not
support "federalism".
Titaniumboy: Hmmm
Titaniumgirl: Maybe the problem is that all of these law schools have
elite "Federalist Societies" and they act like it's just and
honorable. The Anti-Federalist's are overlooked, not even spoken of.
The Articles of Confederation were a great thing yet we are told/were
told in history class that they needed to be discarded because the
government needed MORE POWER. You can call me an Anti-Federalist
because I would like a very limited government. I'm an
Anti-Federalist because I don't like death, destruction and dictators.
Titaniumboy: (looking very confused) Okay, whatever.
1. Old Guard Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 6:31 am e
Yeah, we are told how great FDR was too. The winners get to
write the (main stream) history. The losers are sometimes permitted,
as in the case of the Lost Causers, to obfuscate the truth about their
activities - e.g. pirates are glamorous, Confederate soldiers were
fighting for an honorable cause.
2. Chuck Moulton Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 8:27 am e
The Anti-Federalists had a lot of good ideas.
Interestingly, politicians have been naming things the opposite
of what they are for marketing purposes since the country was founded
this is the earliest case in American history that I am aware of. The
Federalists claimed the name "Federalists" to preempt their
opposition. In reality it was the Anti-Federalists that advocated for
federalism and the Federalists that advocated for a strong central
government.
So George W. Bush is in good company with his USA PATRIOT Act,
No Child Left Behind, etc.
3. pauliecannoli Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 11:44 am e
The Whiskey Rebellion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_rebellion
Shay's rebellion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion
Fascinating stuff!
4. G.E. Smith Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 4:38 pm e
The Articles of Confedration were sufficient if think the
central government is the only entity capable of violating individual
rights. They were not sufficient for African slaves, women, etc., to
be free from the initiation state-sanctioned force. The Articles had
no Bill of Rights. I'll take the Constitution, and I think Kunta Kinte
would agree with me.
5. pauliecannoli Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 4:48 pm e
The central government was certainly NOT the only entity capable
of violating individual rights.
However, on balance, the federal government - particularly the
much later implemented incorporation doctrine you imply by mentioning
the BoR, otherwise with the BoR only applied to the feds themselves -
is more destructive than protective of rights.
Likewise, a strong UN might indeed play some positive role in
liberating some countries from dictators or genocide or preventing
conflicts, but it isn't worth the risk of a totalitarian world government.
Decentralization is not perfect by any means, but it's generally
a step in the right direction, with individual sovereignty being the
end goal.
6. G.E. Smith Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 5:06 pm e
Governments exist to defend individual rights. If the Bill of
Rights applied only to the federal government, and the federal
government had no real power, then the Bill of Rights would be useless
which it essentially was prior to the 14th amendment.
When you advocate the type of "anti-federalism" you are
advocating, you are essentially granting each of the fifty states the
authority to be a little tyranny all to itself. Governments exist to
defend individual rights, and if they do not do this, they are
illegitimate. There is no purpose for a national government if it does
not exist to defend our rights, including against the "state's right"
(sic) of racist, sexist, and otherwise collectivist tyrants.
I know, I know
You can cite me a huge long list of government
abuses. Well, I have one that the national government helped end:
Slavery. You can't top that. Another female disenfranchisement, and
later, minority disenfranchisement. All of the abuses by the feds
against the states cannot begin to remotely compare.
7. pauliecannoli Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 5:38 pm e
Governments exist to defend individual rights.
Nice theory. I contend that it is merely the latest window
dressing used to justify their existence, though.
If the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal
government, and the federal government had no real power, then the
Bill of Rights would be useless which it essentially was prior to
the 14th amendment.
The price is having a federal government big enough to enforce
it against local tyrants. I say it isn't worth it, although it may not
be readily apparent.
When you advocate the type of "anti-federalism" you are
advocating, you are essentially granting each of the fifty states the
authority to be a little tyranny all to itself. Governments exist to
defend individual rights, and if they do not do this, they are
illegitimate. There is no purpose for a national government if it does
not exist to defend our rights, including against the "state's right"
(sic) of racist, sexist, and otherwise collectivist tyrants.
But what happens when the federal government becomes tyrannical?
Unlike the local tyranny, which a smaller number of people may be more
readily able to defeat, or - failing that - to emigrate from, a
federal tyranny is harder to mobilize against, and takes more effort
to move out of. It also adds layers of extra bureaucracy and
unaccountability; hardly a good thing.
I know, I know
You can cite me a huge long list of
government abuses. Well, I have one that the national government
helped end: Slavery. You can't top that. Another female
disenfranchisement, and later, minority disenfranchisement. All of the
abuses by the feds against the states cannot begin to remotely compare.
I wouldn't say the feds' imperialism, the domestic tyranny
imposed in the name of foreign wars, the federal war against the
American indigenous peoples, the trillions of dollars of stolen tax
money, the many trillions more kept from being created by regulations,
the injustices perpetrated by corporations protected by limited
liability and corporate personhood, the corporate welfare and wars on
behalf of corporate interests, the war on drugs, etc, etc, are so
readily dismissed.
It's true that the feds ended chattel slavery and Jim Crow in
the South. Could it have been done otherwise? Had the south been
allowed to secede and the north stopped enforcing its fugitive slave
laws, slavery could not have lasted long. More importantly, the US
imperialist state of the late 19th century on may well have never
emerged, WWI could have ended in the negotiated neutral end it was
headed toward without US involvement before 1917, and fascism, nazism
and Marxism may very well have never come to power.
Every nation in the Americas except Haiti and the US ended
slavery without a war around that time, Brazil being the last in 1888
or so, if I recall my reading correctly.
Or, let's take a more contemporary example:
Black and Latino communities suffer disproportionately from
police brutality. It's local cops, but the weapons and paramilitary
tactics come from the feds. The "wars" leading to the militarization
of local police departments - against drugs and terrorism - come from
the top. The equipment is the leftovers of the military-industrial
complex sold at military fire sales or given away in fire sales by the
feds to police gangs. The members of those gangs in many cases got
their training brutalizing people in the federal regime's foreign wars.
So, is it worth it to have a strong federal government? It may
seem that way at first, but I think that is a case of what Bastiat
called "that which is seen and that which is not seen".
8. G.E. Smith Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 6:51 pm e
It's not my "theory" it's from the Declaration of Independence.
The absence of government is tribalism. I'll take our current
state of affairs over pre-historic barbarism, and I'll work to make
the government conform to the unknown ideal of a truly limited
government that exists solely for the protection of individual rights.
Perhaps the South should have been allowed to secede and the
North should have offered asylum to escaped slaves. But whatever
"injustices" perpetrated by the North in the Civil War ("War of
Northern Aggression" is racist code, must like "states' rights") do
not justify disgusting neo-confederate revisionism, nor do they
preclude the morality of a national government wielding its monopoly
of force against those who violate individual rights. All the nasty
stuff you can cite and I'm not "dismissing" it or contesting it
still doesn't invalidate the virtue of the 14th amendment applying all
other amendments to the states as well as the federal government. You
will argue that the government should not exist. My point is, if it
cannot defend my rights, then no, it shouldn't.
9. pauliecannoli Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 7:11 pm e
It's not my "theory" it's from the Declaration of
Independence.
That's a theory. The results are somewhat different.
The absence of government is tribalism.
Monopoly government itself is tribalism, only elevated to a more
deadly level. Or is it technological progress that you think is made
possible by government?
I'll take our current state of affairs over pre-historic
barbarism, and I'll work to make the government conform to the unknown
ideal of a truly limited government that exists solely for the
protection of individual rights.
It's a false choice. Prehistoric barbarism is a function of
technology. Monopoly government does not advance the progress of
civilization, it retards it. As for limited government, that's like
limited cancer.
But whatever "injustices" perpetrated by the North in the
Civil War ("War of Northern Aggression" is racist code, must like
"states' rights") do not justify disgusting neo-confederate
revisionism, nor do they preclude the morality of a national
government wielding its monopoly of force against those who violate
individual rights.
Injustices perpetrated by the north were quite real.
Neo-confederate revisionism goes too far in many cases, but it also
exposes commonly held misconceptions about the war; both sides go too
far in looking at complex historical events selectively to whitewash
one side and overvilify the other.
As for monopoly force, I'm against it. It may protect some
individual rights but ultimately it destroys them far more.
You will argue that the government should not exist. My
point is, if it cannot defend my rights, then no, it shouldn't.
Glad we agree :-)
10. pauliecannoli Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 7:17 pm e
Hey, other people, feel free to chime in
any time
11. G.E. Smith Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 8:05 pm e
Neither of us is going to convince the other, but this can still
be productive (I guess): Yes, I do believe that limited-government
capitalism is the only moral or rational method of societal
organization, and that the absence thereof ("anarchy") is inherently
tribalist and collectivist, as history (pre-history) demonstrates.
Tribes do not respect individual rights; they respect force both
internally and externally. And yes, I do believe technology is a
function of capitalism, which requires the existence of government to
enforce individual (and property) rights. Again, I think the empirical
data is on my side. The progress of humanity under various tribal,
feudal, mercantilist regimes was largely stagnant, whereas America's
form of limited-government capitalism is where most innovations took
place. If you quantified technological accomplishments throughout
man's history a good 99.9999999%+ have taken place in the past 200
years; most of them in America, and virtually all others inspired by
the American system.
Truly legitimate government which exists solely to defend
individual rights is an unknown ideal. But it is more realistic an
ideal than utopian anarchism, wherein the very nature of man must be
recalibrated in order for the fantasy of "anarcho-capitalism" to work.
In truth, the destruction of the state leads to tribalism, feudalism,
or the rise of a new (not necessarily more benevolent) state. The
government envisioned in the Constitution is ultimately desirable, and
we have more ability to re-engineer the nature of government than we
do to re-engineer the nature of man.
12. pauliecannoli Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 8:22 pm e
GE - I could answer, but I want to give some other people a
crack at this. I'll try to do some recruiting for the thread comments
elsewhere.
=paul
