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No treason: The constitution of no authority!!!!

Citizen

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SNIP That's exactly the sort of mindset we're up against. Some people think the constitution is just some sort of essay to written up to look good & has no bearing on modern America...

Different animal. Spooner is dissassembling the constitution's underpinings because some claiming constitutional authority wanted to go after Jeff Davis and others for treason after the Civil War. You can argue all day whether the Jeff Davis and Co. fit the definition of treason, maybe win, maybe lose.

But, if you cut the legitimatacy right out from under the Constitution, you also cut out their authority to try Jeff Davis for treason. Much harder argument for your opponent to win intellectually. Much harder.

Spooner rests on Locke and Jefferson.

Today, those who want to undermine the constitution are seeking to install their own socio-economic utopia. Liberal this and that. At everyone else's expense. Any who use Spooner's ideas will, I bet, carefully omit everything he said about consent to be governed and government being robbery and extortion, since the only way they can achieve their utopia is if the rest of us are forced to accept their ideas, flowing as they do from "superior" and "enlightened" intelligence.

The trick is to distinguish between the two animals. This is why one would want to read the essay. The distinction becomes apparent fairly quickly in the essay.
 
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HandyHamlet

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As contrasted to, say, blind supporters of the Constitution who are not even willing to read the essay to see if there is anything valid in it? Meaning people with fixed ideas? Which is what these arguments are really about--fixed ideas. Unwillingness to learn, read, or hear something that might or does threaten the fixed ideas.

So, lets focus on Spooner's words. That is what the thread was about, anyway.

Your words not mine.
I did read the essay.
If the thread in about Spooner then why does to OP continue to post?
 

HandyHamlet

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Are you going to discuss the essay?


No. What for? It ( the Constitution ) might not be perfect but it is the only one we have. It's the only one like it. EVER. If it was good enough for the geniuses who birthed it, you know, the guys who were actually there and did all the work, then it's good enough for me.

I told you I have a problem with the OPs comment regarding supporters of the Constitution.

Admittedly I may have misread his tone. It is an easy thing to do on a forum. But he has yet to comment on his statement so...
 
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Citizen

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No. What for? It might not be perfect but it is the only one we have. It's the only one like it. EVER. If it was good enough for the geniuses who birthed it, you know, the guys who were actually there and did all the work, then it's good enough for me...

OK, so we should be stuck with it forever. Warts and all. Even if it gave us the fedgov we have or was powerless to prevent it. Even if Ben Franklin himself (as I quoted above) had deep reservations about it.

So perfect that no progress forward could or should be attempted. Even though Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that people have a right to throw off old safeguards and establish new ones when the old becomes despotic.

I understand.

Wish you would join the discussion. But, would understand if you don't.
 

HandyHamlet

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It is disingenuous to continually put words in my mouth and then bemoan my reluctance to engage you in a discussion.
 

wolfeinstein

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I have posted Spooner's essay to all you Statist, who have fixed ideas to get a little insight of a different point of view on the Constitution.

I agree it might be the best written instrument in the free world, but,it is still just paper and ink that should bind nobody.

Citizen quoted it right "Interestingly, our third President, Thomas Jefferson, thought along the same lines. In a letter to James Madison dated Sep 6, 1789 he wrote:

The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection in which we are immersed here on the elementary principles of society has presented this question to my mind; and that no such obligation can be so transmitted I think very capable of proof.--I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct[*] to the living": that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it...

On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct."
 

wolfeinstein

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Humans are a creature of habit they don't like change, i guess we are stuck with the Constitution forever!

I love this quote, it's the best "The rules are the Constitution. And, it has either given us the government we have, or was powerless to prevent it."

Which is it???????? I do not like either.
 

Citizen

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It is disingenuous to continually put words in my mouth and then bemoan my reluctance to engage you in a discussion.

You are right, it would be disingenuous to do that. I, however, am deriving conclusions based on your own words. I did not have to twist anything. I did not have to pile inference on top of inference.

You were the one who called the ConCon delegates genuises and said if it was good enough for them, then it was good enough for you. Everything else flowed from that, with some history and analysis thrown in to expand on and support my position.

Now, you either have something insightful to contribute or you don't.
 

Citizen

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Humans are a creature of habit they don't like change, i guess we are stuck with the Constitution forever!

I love this quote, it's the best "The rules are the Constitution. And, it has either given us the government we have, or was powerless to prevent it."

Which is it???????? I do not like either.

I've seen that attributed to Spooner as a quote from that very essay. I've hunted all through No Treason looking for it with no luck. The quote I saw had "..." (ellipsis) in it in a couple places, making me think it was part of a longer sentence, but I couldn't find it. I kinda think it may be taken from two different paragraphs.

In any event, I think it is a valid observation.

If you liked No Treason, hunt up a small paperback book: Hologram of Liberty by Boston T. Party which is a pen name for author Kenneth Royce. Just google the title. In this case, the author is using the word "hologram" to mean a substanceless likeness of something that is not the actual thing.

ETA: I just googled it and found there are downloadable .pdf's. However, I'm pretty sure the author would be annoyed at he and the publisher having their copyrights subverted. If you believe in rights and freedom, buy or borrow the book.
 
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HandyHamlet

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Now, you either have something insightful to contribute or you don't.

Like you did when you donned your powdered wig, filled your ink bottle, and fired up your time machine?

Pics or GTFO!

I Kid. And No, I don't have anything to add.
To the Constitution at this time.

:D
 
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CenTex

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Citizen states:"The constitution cannot be binding because it has no consent."


Article VII - Ratification Documents


The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same. Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.


Citizen states: "The constitution cannot be binding because it does not have the signatures of the consenters."


In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names.

Virginia - Geo Washington, President and deputy
New Hampshire - John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman
Massachusetts - Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King
Connecticut - Wm Saml Johnson, Roger Sherman
New York - Alexander Hamilton
New Jersey - Wil Livingston, David Brearley, Wm Paterson, Jona. Dayton
Pennsylvania- B Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robt Morris, Geo. Clymer, Thos FitzSimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouv Morris
Delaware - Geo. Read, Gunning Bedford jun, John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jaco. Broom
Maryland - James McHenry, Dan of St Tho Jenifer, Danl Carroll
Virginia - John Blair, James Madison Jr.
North Carolina - Wm Blount, Richd Dobbs Spaight, Hu Williamson
South Carolina - J. Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler
Georgia - William Few, Abr Baldwin
Attest: William Jackson, Secretary
 
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wolfeinstein

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It is not signed anywhere on the document itself... And Spooner goes into great detail about consent. And if anyone did consent to it they are all dead now!
 
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