1. The central principle of Americas founding was that the rule of law would be the prime equalizing force; the founders considered vast inequality in every other realm to be inevitable and even desirable
. A small number would of individuals would be naturally endowed with unique and extraordinary talents while most people, by definition, would be ordinary. So the American concept of liberty would be premised on the inevitability of outcome inequality- success of some, failure of others.
a. Law was the one exception; no inequality was tolerable. It was the sine qua non ensuring fairness.
Glenn Greenwald, With Liberty and Justice for Some; How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful
Greenwald is way Left, but, as you can see above, conservatives have much in common with ethical and educated Liberals....
2. But when uneducated and self-absorbed Liberals assume power, the result is often catastrophic for this great nation. Wilson, FDR and Obama...all anti-constitutionalists.
a. The Great Depression was a perfect opportunity for American socialists, interventionists, and advocates of omnipotent government to prevail in their long struggle against the advocates of economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited, constitutional government. FDR led the statists in using the economic crisis to level massive assaults on freedom and the Constitution. A good example of the kind of battles that were taking place at the state level is the 1935 U.S. Supreme Court case Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, in which the Four Horsemen Supreme Court Justices George Sutherland, James C. McReynolds, Willis Van Devanter, and Pierce Butler banded together in an unsuccessful attempt to hold back the forces of statism and collectivism.
b. The Blaisdells, like so many other Americans in the early 1930s, lacked the money to make their mortgage payments. They defaulted and the bank foreclosed, selling the home at the foreclosure sale. The Minnesota legislature had enacted a law that provided that a debtor could go to court and seek a further extension of time in which to redeem the property. The Supreme Court of Minnesota upheld the constitutionality of the new redemption law, and the bank appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
c. The Constitution: No State shall . . . pass any . . . Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts. . ..
Did the Minnesota redemption law impair the loan contract between the building and loan association and the Blaisdells? It would seem rather obvious that it did. But in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held otherwise. American statists and collectivists won the Blaisdell case, which helped to open the floodgates on laws, rules, and regulations at the state level governing economic activity in America. And their leader, Franklin Roosevelt, was leading their charge on a national level.
d. But, what happens when an exercise of the police powers contradicts an express prohibition in the Constitution, which is supposed to be the supreme law of the land, trumping both state legislatures and state courts?
That was the issue that confronted the U.S. Supreme Court in Blaisdell. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes set forth the applicable principles: Emergency does not create power. Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the Federal Government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency and they are not altered by emergency. What power was thus granted and what limitations were thus imposed are questions which have always been, and always will be, the subject of close examination under our constitutional system.
While emergency does not create power, emergency may furnish the occasion for the exercise of power. . .. The constitutional question presented in the light of an emergency is whether the power possessed embraces the particular exercise of it in response to particular conditions. . ..The economic interests of the State may justify the exercise of its continuing and dominant protective power notwithstanding interference with contracts.
e. So there you have it. In the old horse-and-buggy era, the individual and his freedom were supreme but now in the new modern era, the collective interests of society would have to prevail. And society could no longer be bound by such quaint notions of constitutional limitations on state power, especially not during emergencies and especially not when the good of all depends on state action.
From Economic Liberty and the Constitution, Part 9
So you see, our friend, Liberal constitutional lawyer Greenwald, who offers "The central principle of Americas founding was that the rule of law would be the prime equalizing force..." does what so many Liberal Progressives do....
...they support the law, and the Law of the Land, the Constitution, when it supports their wishes...
...otherwise 'economic interests of the State may justify rending the Constitution.'
There is an axiom, "Reality is defined by actions, not by words."
Either one supports the Constitution, or one does not.
So, in November, the choice is one of substance.
The Left or the Constitution.
a. Law was the one exception; no inequality was tolerable. It was the sine qua non ensuring fairness.
Glenn Greenwald, With Liberty and Justice for Some; How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful
Greenwald is way Left, but, as you can see above, conservatives have much in common with ethical and educated Liberals....
2. But when uneducated and self-absorbed Liberals assume power, the result is often catastrophic for this great nation. Wilson, FDR and Obama...all anti-constitutionalists.
a. The Great Depression was a perfect opportunity for American socialists, interventionists, and advocates of omnipotent government to prevail in their long struggle against the advocates of economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited, constitutional government. FDR led the statists in using the economic crisis to level massive assaults on freedom and the Constitution. A good example of the kind of battles that were taking place at the state level is the 1935 U.S. Supreme Court case Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, in which the Four Horsemen Supreme Court Justices George Sutherland, James C. McReynolds, Willis Van Devanter, and Pierce Butler banded together in an unsuccessful attempt to hold back the forces of statism and collectivism.
b. The Blaisdells, like so many other Americans in the early 1930s, lacked the money to make their mortgage payments. They defaulted and the bank foreclosed, selling the home at the foreclosure sale. The Minnesota legislature had enacted a law that provided that a debtor could go to court and seek a further extension of time in which to redeem the property. The Supreme Court of Minnesota upheld the constitutionality of the new redemption law, and the bank appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
c. The Constitution: No State shall . . . pass any . . . Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts. . ..
Did the Minnesota redemption law impair the loan contract between the building and loan association and the Blaisdells? It would seem rather obvious that it did. But in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held otherwise. American statists and collectivists won the Blaisdell case, which helped to open the floodgates on laws, rules, and regulations at the state level governing economic activity in America. And their leader, Franklin Roosevelt, was leading their charge on a national level.
d. But, what happens when an exercise of the police powers contradicts an express prohibition in the Constitution, which is supposed to be the supreme law of the land, trumping both state legislatures and state courts?
That was the issue that confronted the U.S. Supreme Court in Blaisdell. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes set forth the applicable principles: Emergency does not create power. Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the Federal Government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency and they are not altered by emergency. What power was thus granted and what limitations were thus imposed are questions which have always been, and always will be, the subject of close examination under our constitutional system.
While emergency does not create power, emergency may furnish the occasion for the exercise of power. . .. The constitutional question presented in the light of an emergency is whether the power possessed embraces the particular exercise of it in response to particular conditions. . ..The economic interests of the State may justify the exercise of its continuing and dominant protective power notwithstanding interference with contracts.
e. So there you have it. In the old horse-and-buggy era, the individual and his freedom were supreme but now in the new modern era, the collective interests of society would have to prevail. And society could no longer be bound by such quaint notions of constitutional limitations on state power, especially not during emergencies and especially not when the good of all depends on state action.
From Economic Liberty and the Constitution, Part 9
So you see, our friend, Liberal constitutional lawyer Greenwald, who offers "The central principle of Americas founding was that the rule of law would be the prime equalizing force..." does what so many Liberal Progressives do....
...they support the law, and the Law of the Land, the Constitution, when it supports their wishes...
...otherwise 'economic interests of the State may justify rending the Constitution.'
There is an axiom, "Reality is defined by actions, not by words."
Either one supports the Constitution, or one does not.
So, in November, the choice is one of substance.
The Left or the Constitution.