Dear Friends,
It seems to me, we should go back to the US Constitution as it was in 1900, its correct interpretation, and take a mullet on the 20th Century. Virtually every “innovation” of the Twentieth century has been to further the cause of an unlimited totalitarian administrative state. Instead of advancing philosophically, the human race has regressed, to an ethic that predates the Iron Age. Things recorded in Herodotus, used to be considered absurd, creepy and immoral, now they could happen at a mall, playground or school near you. This has been made possible by the recent innovations to the US culture, education and Constitution by the elite. These innovations have lowered not only the lot of the average US citizen in relative terms, but lowered the lot of mankind itself.
The US Constitutional amendments of the 20th Century have been universally bad. From the 16th Amendment’s perversion of an income tax to the laughing stock 27th Amendment, they are theater that has served to empower the elite, while disemboweling the people’s power. Direct election of senators simply removed the reigns that the State legislatures kept on them. The 18th amendment had to be rescinded by another amendment, yet the door it cracked open has resulted in the failed war on drugs. Giving women the right to vote gave the propagandists the keys to the kingdom. The 20th is mere housekeeping. The 22nd to protect the nation from another FDR. Then there are the voting expansion amendments. All of them the result of the elite’s perversions needing to be reigned in.
There have been innovations in the Twentieth Century that were not horrible, Pragmatism for example. William James theory of Pragmatism has been called the quintessential American philosophy. Pragmatism allows the person who practices it, the ability to cut losses, jump on opportunity and succeed though the bureaucracy has tied us down. Pragmatism has been a godsend to the human race. Which makes it all the more strange, that government is the only institution on the planet, that eschews pragmatism for idealism. If a program fails, or worse, results in the opposite of its stated goal, it is never stopped but expanded, increasing the harm, with the intent to lower it. Government cuts no losses… it doubles down. Pragmatism is an innovation the administrative state obviously despises.
Not just the Constitutional amendments of the Twentieth Century, need to be deleted, but many of the absurd rulings of the Supreme Court as well. This is where the US government has most gone off the rails. In Buck v Bell the Supreme court gave the US government totalitarian power over the individual’s health choices. It has never been rescinded, and was cited as proof of innocence by the Nazis, in the Nuremberg trials. In Kormatsu, the Supreme Court deemed the Government can arbitrarily detain people, by Presidential fiat, for political disfavor. Then, in the famous Wickard v Filburn, the Supreme court granted the government the authority to starve a family to death, by ordering them not to grow food on their own land. That perversion resulted in the administrative state we suffer under today.
You have to wonder, why did the US run along great, until the Civil war, then it enacted a few Constitutional Amendments to address issues that arose during that existential crisis. The Twentieth Century however has seen a flurry of Constitutional innovations. More than the text of the original Constitution. Clearly the people of the Twentieth century had the hubris to consider themselves to be much smarter, wiser, and dog gone it, just better people than the Framers. Now that we have some time to digest the results of the Twentieth Century’s innovations, we can pragmatically cut our losses, and jump on opportunities. One opportunity is to behead the Administrative state, by rescinding Wickard v Filburn, and reestablish individual sovereignty, by erasing Buck and Korematsu.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
