Let’s review the stakes again …
Toward the end of this 2010 video, Chapman and Chemerinsky take up the issue of if Congress can “require you to eat your vegetables.” Chermerinsky, after spending the time upholding Congress’ power to regulate any and all economic activity and inactivity, can’t quite dismiss the notion. The best that he can do is vaguely wave it off with “what people choose to eat might be regarded as a personal liberty” and “in reality it’s a ridiculous hypothetical.”
Yet, we’ve seen the push to start regulating individual diets.
Yesterday’s ridiculous hypothetical is today’s CRISIS that Government must immediately address!
Sometime next week we’ll find out if we still have a Constitutional Republic or not.
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“Sometime next week we’ll find out if we still have a Constitutional Republic or not.”
I don’t fault this formulation a whit, but want to recognize the complexity of the underlying propositions by pointing to the formulation in order to ask (myself, and anyone who wishes to join in) what we’ve actually been experiencing in our politics (over my own measly lifetime, for instance) as over against what we idealize with regard to our understanding of the theoretical bases upon which we merely think our politics.
Let me take up another, similar formulation I saw in a headline this am which initiated my wonder. Thus — Michele Bachmann: Obamacare ‘Will Be the End Of Our Constitution’ And ‘Republic As We Know It’
So I’m wondering, am I committed to the preservation of the status quo ante ObamaCare? And I believe I’m answering myself, “No fucking way pal, not a chance.” But then I simply extend the question as to point in time. Would I be philosophically satisfied (in the loosest of senses possible) with the preservation of the political status quo ante to the passage of Medicare part D? And etc., working my way back as far as I like, even to the year of my birth. Are these the political conditions, any of them, of a Constitutional Republic, I ask? And I think the honest answer has to be “Never, over the bounds of this time.”
Just a thought.
sdferr
Granted, the Republic won’t be dead, put how many bleeding cuts until we just can’t patch it up anymore?
We’d have to roll back at least to before Wickard v Filburn to assert that we have a constitutional republic without my laughing at the statement, and that decision is likely based on other unconstitutional decisions made previously. So stopping Obamacare is merely the start of a process which I doubt will ever be played out, namely restoring what once was. Huge swaths of government would need to be removed, and if you think those jackasses who ostensibly represent us will give up the power that comes with all that government, I have a bridge to sell you.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want to see Obamacare kicked to the curb, because I do. Doing that will still make things significantly better than they would be otherwise, at least in the short term, and given my mood these days over where this country is headed, any good news would be welcome and celebrated.
I should have watched the vid before I wrote the damned comment, but then, I’m an idiot without excuse! ach.
Anyhow, I believe the Republic (taken or apprehended in any serious sense) has been long gone, gone before I was born, so any possibility of patching it up (while maintaining the regime of principles, laws, edicts and the like which destroyed it) isn’t available to us. Beyond that though I wouldn’t confidently venture to place a definitive instant of extinction on the poor ol’ critter.
On the other hand, I think we do have available all the tools and elements we need to build a Republic, should we have a strong enough desire to proceed in that direction. This isn’t to say much, however, beyond vouching an opinion pointing toward our power to change our circumstances, without guarantee of success.
I should have watched the video first as well. Apparently Wickard is tied to an 1824 decision. So, the country was barely off the ground before they started tying weights to it.
Lovely.
cranky-d, do you think between the two of us, you and me, we could work out a simple statement of the — I don’t know quite what to call it? — path on which, or proposition dependent upon which Wickard leans or depends in going totally off in the wrong direction (from the point of view of a republican spirit)? I’m not sure, but I’d bet we could come pretty close.
If you give me weed, whites, and wine. And you show me a sign, I’ll be willin’.
As we await this verdict, can I just reiterate that Darleen has the coolest last name in existence?
Because she does, and I will.