29: What is The Institute on the Constitution?

[TheGeneral]

Our 29th nationally-syndicated, one-hour radio show, "The American View," is a discussion about "Institute On The Constitution" which I co-founded with my brother Stephen Peroutka. My guest is Pastor David Whitney, a senior instructor at our "Institute."


Link to full article:
http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=442

[Nathan Grooms]

I appreciate all that the Institute On The Constitution has done through its classes and its Liberty Forum publication. I think there is a great need for men who have a true understanding of our history and our law. Institute on the Constitution dose an outstanding job educating the people, many of whom have had to unlearn what their history teacher in school taught them.
Nathan Grooms
Nathan Grooms
The Madison Journal (madisonjournalonline.blogspot.com/)

[Areopagus]

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” -http://quotes.prolix.nu/Authors/?Thoreau

How often does Faux News, Hannity, Limbaugh, and all the other members of the nationally known political chattering class quote the Constitution?

The opinions of federal judges have replaced the written Constitution, and the pseudo-conservative talking heads find it far more profitable to discuss the Iraqi Constitution than the American. The ‘conservative’ mass media would rather discuss anything ad nauseam, but the U.S. Constitution! Aimlessly, they hack at a multitude of liberal curses issuing from federal courts, never striking the root of Constitutional ignorance.

David McCullough....said "we are raising a generation of people who are historically illiterate" and ignorant of the basic philosophical foundations of America's constitutional free society.

....McCullough, who is a past president of the Society of American Historians, [said] American citizens cannot function in a society if they do not know who they are and from where they came. He said only three colleges in the United States require a course on the Constitution in order to graduate…. http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/4/112003f.asp

The GOP cheerleading media are constitutionally blind jesters leading their constitutionally blind audience into the bottomless liberal pit of the GOP endorsed Democrat agenda.

Why does the ‘conservative’ media ignore the Impeachment Clauses http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/tocs/a1_2_5.html
of the Constitution? Have federal judges been added to the long list of protected species? What about the Supremacy Clause http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/tocs/a6_2.html ? Does Hannity, or Hume know of it’s existence? Do they understand that the majority opinion of a federal court isn’t mentioned as being equivalent, or superior to “the supreme Law of the Land?”
The most offensive clause must be the Loyalty Clause http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/tocs/a6_3.html ! Has the FCC forbidden political pundits from reminding their listeners that their preferred politician “shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution?”

Might the voting public get the wrong impression, and start to wonder what the President and Congress should do when federal courts deviate from the Constitution. It could lead to investigating the most dreaded Exceptions Clause http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/tocs/a3_2_2.html .

Clause by clause, the great perceived difference between the GOP and Democrats would become imperceptible. The symbiotic relationship between Faux, and Friends http://www.foxnews.com/foxfan/index.html would be in jeopardy, and the pathetic codependency of the GOP, and party faithful exposed.

Mr. Sandler and Mr. Schoenbrod offer measures that they believe would restore politically accountable law, but American democracy might be too far gone. The will to fight has departed from legislative bodies, and the American people are distracted and uninformed. Legislators, mayors and governors have learned they can avoid making political enemies by letting judges decide divisive issues. http://www.democracybydecree.com/

In Fed#51 Madison emphasized two means to “oblige [the government]to control itself." The voters were the primary means, and the “auxiliary precautions” were the Constitutional processes politicians would use to maintain a constitutional republic with horizontal and vertical separation of powers. The text & internal consistency of the Constitution confirms Madison’s statement in #51: “But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates….”and Hamilton’s claim in Fed#78: “.…It proves incontestably, that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power.”

In the articles, sections, clauses and amendments of revenue - the predominating socialist legislature has become obsessed with redistributing wealth - while abdicating their responsibility to check, and balance an unconstitutionally predominating judicial oligarchy that is obsessed with removing States’ rights http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods33.html , and even the right to life itself! For all practical purposes the United States has become a United State – ignoring Lord Acton’s http://www.acton.org/about/ : “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely!” http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html In the minds of those who think like Bush, maintenance of the union http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,98111,00.html is paramount, even at the expense of the republic upon which it stands.


Michael Greve, John G. Searle Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, made this very important comment in “Federalism: Reconciling National Values with States' Rights and Local Control in the 21st Century” http://www.abanet.org/publiced/focus/spring_01.pdf : "A constitutional principle without an actual constituency to back it up will soon crumble."

Read that quote again, and omit the word ‘principle,’ and the last two letters of constitutional. The Constitution has no auto-pilot, or cruise control to maintain itself. It requires intensive manual labor. It is a labor that the effeminate, faux-conservative press refuses to do. The ‘fair & balanced’ conservative media uses the lowest common denominator (Kerry, Kennedy, KKK) as the highest standard for the GOP, and not the United States Constitution. The GOP politician only has to appear marginally different from the worst of the worst to receive their endless effusive praise. Ditto that for any preacher. Bush is better than the Devil – all hail Saint Bush! (James 2:19)

Greve isn’t the first to make that observation about the responsibilities of a constituency.

"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." -- John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.)

Modern translation: An extra, or unconstitutional principal can be incorporated [amended by fiat, penumbra, emanation] into the Constitution by an active [black robed magician, (hint: federal judge) ] constituency in the absence of eternal vigilance by the populace, press, and preferred politician.

Citizens hoping to retain their rights must assume their responsibilities.

"A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives". James Madison Letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822.

[exmarine]

Good to see you back. I missed seeing your posts for this past week :)

[Areopagus]

Good to ‘see’ you again.

If the definition of insanity is trying the same thing, in exactly the same way over, and over, and over again while expecting a different outcome, then I had some close encounters of the psychotic kind while away. Folk just kept repeating that more Republicans in office would make things better. Just keep voting Republican like all the other zombie Bushbots from Nite Of The Living Dead.

So, it is nice to return to the forum of sanity.