August 14, 2011

A Congress of freaks.

The view from 1925:
Truth to tell, Washington has become the universal Mecca of human freaks. To that city protagonists of vagaries gravitate by all known routes, some by election, some by appointment, and some by "divine command." The great majority, however, merely follow noses that itch for the business of others. There they bed and breed. They haunt the corridors of the public buildings, crowd into the offices of congressmen, and insist upon displaying their fantastic and sometimes loathsome wares. Consumed by passion for experimentation, they regard the public corpus as a legitimate subject for ceaseless exploratory operations and clinical vivisection.

To this array of freaks, the Constitution is not a bulwark of liberty but a shackle upon progress which they hold in contemptuous disregard. Congress itself is full of men who do not think of the Constitution save as an obstacle to their desires. They study it only to devise some plan for its circumvention. There is no subterfuge they will not employ, no deceit to which they will not resort, if peradventure the limitations imposed by the Constitution may be cheated.

A favorite device is, by a false recital of the real objects of a bill, to bring it apparently under some specific power granted to the federal government.

Witness:

The Mann Act which, pretending to be an exercise of authority to regulate commerce between the States, in fact sought to regulate commerce between the sexes.
"The Pestilence of Fanaticism." By United States Senator James A. Reed, The American Mercury, May, 1925.

3 comments:

Zenster said...

To this array of freaks, the Constitution is not a bulwark of liberty but a shackle upon progress which they hold in contemptuous disregard. Congress itself is full of men who do not think of the Constitution save as an obstacle to their desires. They study it only to devise some plan for its circumvention. There is no subterfuge they will not employ, no deceit to which they will not resort, if peradventure the limitations imposed by the Constitution may be cheated.

The most straightforward evidence of this is the Constitution itself. Even a cursory examination of the Bill of Rights reveals that the first ten amendments were specifically designed to constrain government's power over the people.

From that original and noble orientation, the Constitution has morphed into a document larded with increasing restraints placed upon the populace. This is the shadow cast by Big Government and it exemplifies the tremendous conflict of interest whereby career politicians of all stripes continue to grow the Federal apparatus at spiraling cost and diminishing efficacy with respect to serving the taxpayers themselves.

Col. B. Bunny said...

The damage done by Lincoln, the two Roosevelts, and the Progressives has been enormous. The people willingly voted for the income tax and the 17th Amendment and have not the slightest prickliness respecting the perversion of the Commerce Clause and the 14th Amendment. The Constitution hasn't so much changed as the perverse doctrines of "constitutional law" have made it almost an empty shell.

I can make a case for the actions of the people. They were immersed in the decency, regularity, and productivity of what the original Constitution had permitted them to create. They are still responsible, of course, as they should not, as Americans, have been willing to countenance the subversion of the original scheme to casually. I am particularly angry that they have not seized on Obama's ineligibility for the presidency as not being a NBC. Even at this late hour, they show that they don't give a damn. Not to mention their horrific indifference to the fact that Obama is closely associated with two communist terrorists.

As the teeth behind the lips of the federal government become more obvious, I hope that more people will rediscover the merits of the old scheme. This rule by freaks and twerps has to end.

Zenster said...

Col. B. Bunny: I can make a case for the actions of the people. They were immersed in the decency, regularity, and productivity of what the original Constitution had permitted them to create.

So we see a recurring pattern of people ― be they subversive Muslims or flagrant Communists like Obama ― using once-cherished tools of freedom to forge chains of tyranny. It must be some deeply embedded characteristic of the simian brain to continually tinker with things that are operating just fine to begin with.

America's Constitution is a sterling example of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!". The political freak show in Washington DC have most certainly "fixed" it, but only in the veterinary sense of that word.