I No Longer Want To “Restore The Constitution”

February 9, 2012
By

It used to be that I was all fired up in support of “restoring the Constitution.”  It wasn’t until I considered the philosophical arguments against constitutions in general that I came to realize that support for the US Constitution is like supporting your own enslavement.

Consider that constitutions are pieces of paper that purport to give some arbitrary body of men the legitimacy to rob people at the point of a gun in order to supposedly secure “their liberties.”  I don’t know about you, but armed robbery seems like a ridiculous way to secure someone’s “liberty”.

The Constitution codifies and legitimizes mass theft, war and the imposition of regulations upon commercial enterprise that ought not to exist in the first place.   Constitutions, no matter how they are written, ALWAYS reduce individual liberty because they always seek to legitimize coercively funded State power and centralize it within some governing body.

Constitutions are not voluntary contracts that people agree to.  If you happen to disagree with being robbed at the point of a gun, you have no recourse other than to die at the hands of an army of costumed men defending your property from them.  Either you pay or you can resist and die.  Why anyone would want to support a document that legitimizes this situation is beyond me.

Governments do not need constitutions if they are voluntarily funded in the first place.  People will not voluntarily pay for the enforcement of laws that violate their ability to act freely as long as they aren’t harming others.  How many people do you know would voluntarily pay to fund the drug war out of their own pockets if they had a choice of keeping the money for themselves?  - May be a handful of holy rollers and soccer moms, but that’s about it.  On the flip side, how many people would pay a subscription fee to a private security agency in order to protect their person and property in the absence of State run police forces?  - Just about everyone I imagine.

If you have a belief that the US Constitution can somehow magically protect you from the excesses of government, at this late stage in the game, I have to question your sanity.  Who interprets the US Constitution?  - You?  - Your family? – Your friends? – Your community?   Of course not.  The US Federal Government interprets the US Constitution for itself.  Unsurprisingly, it consistently interprets the US Constitution to say that it can do any god damn thing it likes.  It is a ridiculous leap of logic to conclude that somehow such a system can be salvaged to “protect individual liberties.”

Constitutions are documents created by powerful people who seek to acquire and legitimize more power unto themselves.  Constitutions legitimize mass theft, extortion, war and other heinous crimes against humanity.  Constitutions centralize power.  Constitutions violate the non-aggression principle as they are imposed upon everyone regardless of their consent.

Listen to Professor Hans Herman Hoppe discuss the dangers of centralized State power:

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This entry was posted on February 9, 2012 at 10:18 am and is filed under Anti-Fascist Agitprop, Fascism, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

  • Emily Preston

    You are in good company:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/we-the-people-loses-appeal-with-people-around-the-world.html?_r=1

    You just might get what you are asking for. It will not be what you want however.

    • http://www.libertariannews.org/ Michael Suede

      Those people love constitutions, they just don’t like the American Constitution.  I dislike all constitutions period. 

      Obviously they want to use constitutions to legitimize many various forms of coercion, which makes my point for me.

      • George Taylor

        Please read my comments: Let’s get the government back inside the constitutional box first. —- GT

        • http://www.libertariannews.org/ Michael Suede

          That’s not going to happen.  The State will not go back into its box.  Ever.  It will consume and destroy itself (along with you) like a cancer.

          We must look at what we are going to do after the State destroys itself.

          • http://unSpy.info/ Mark Matthews

            When our Federal Government collapses like the former Soviet Union did, what do we do? 

            One word: decentralization 

            Thanks to the 9th and 10th amendment that process can start right now, and indeed it is… back in May of 2011, Utah became the first state in the country to legalize gold and silver coins as currency. This is a step in the right direction. The next step would be to repeal all statutory law so that human beings are only subject to common law.

            http://goo.gl/5u8Gf

            “The United States is entirely a creature of the Federal Constitution, its power and authority has no other source and it can only act in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution.” Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 1 L. Ed. 2nd. 1148 (1957).

            “Where there is absence of proof of jurisdiction, all administrative and judicial proceedings are a nullity, and confer no right, offer no protection, and afford no justification, and may be rejected upon direct collateral attack.” Thompson v Tolmie, 2 Pet. 157, 7 L. Ed. 381; and Griffith v. Frazier, 8 Cr. 9, 3 L. Ed. 471.

          • http://www.libertariannews.org/ Michael Suede

            We use bitcoins and refuse to comply with any new or existing coercively funded State entity.

            That is what we do.

          • Kellimus

            Statute Law gets its power from the consent of the governed…If you don’t consent through 14th Amendment Citizenship, Statute Law doesn’t apply to you…

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Don-Duncan/100000087760836 Don Duncan

          It NEVER was “inside the constitutional box”. That experiment failed from the start. Nice try, but no protection. Really, most of the founders had good intentions. The Articles… left the fed powerless, and the states sovereign. So we had 13 violators of rights. It was still better than one centralized, all powerful monster. It’s time to dump them all. 

  • http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/ John

    I’m surprised you had not reached this position sooner.

    I found this comment in your post interesting: “Governments do not need constitutions if they are voluntarily funded in the first place.” This statement is a bit of an oxymoron (maybe that’s not the best word description, but I digress) because a government that rests on voluntary subjugation is no government at all. It’s simply a (private) entity that people subscribe or don’t subscribe to.

    This all reminds me of a quote from Firefly: A government is a body of people usually, notably, ungoverned.

    • http://www.libertariannews.org/ Michael Suede

      I did reach it sooner.  I’m just reiterating my conclusions.

      I’m sure a check of my archives will reveal similar past articles. People need to be reminded from time to time about what the US Constitution is really all about.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Christian-McMahon/100001059763051 Christian McMahon

    The declaration of independence is a much better document. It’s also relevant to our plight today. Just take out King George and insert whatever government you happen to live under.

  • dracula

    restore the constitution  as the founding fathers internded and eliminate from the 14th to the last  make them null void and then we have it the way it was intended with treasonous inputs from the president and the congress and the senatre and judical inputs but limit the govt as intended and get of the criminals there in washington dc try them all for treason and have many hangings on tv for the world to see how traitors are dealt with

    • George Taylor

      I could not agree with you more!!  And scrap the 13th also (not for its aboliton of slavery, which we all oppose, but for its expansion of Federal power) and scrap the (lawfully ratified) 12th as well.  It is best if the President and Vice President are from opposite factions.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Carrie-Taranova/1142207564 Carrie Taranova

        Check the Constituton on elections and you will find that we have NOT had a legal or Constitutional election in over a century !  Electors today are puppets of who has the most money to court them; yet Constitutionally THEY are the ones who are to count the votes and announce the results, and the Prez and VP are NOT to run on a single unit ticket – and Politial Parties are all UN-Constitutional and are NOT to even be mentioned in elections ! Today the Political Party two-party system THEY created, is what rules all elections and makes all the rules !  They CONTROL all elections !  This is how Communist countries do things.  All the districting they do for elections is also not allowed in the Constitution.  The voters are to say who is the Prez and the second highest vote is for the VP and parties are not to be a part of it at all.  Political Parties have NO Constitutional permission to exist !  And the way they now have it most of us in 3rd parties are denied our right to vote in primaries – another forbidden thing in the Cosntitution – there are to be no primaries.   Money is not to buy the office like it does today.  Also  ALL  the steps a candidate is forced to go through with much expense attached is also UN-Constitutional.  NOTHING about our elections is Constitutional !

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Carrie-Taranova/1142207564 Carrie Taranova

      Actually, most of those Amendments were never ratified and the 13th that we see is NOT the Founders original Amendment – Lincoln replaced it with his own that you see. The rest following are all added (not ratified) and if you notice they all go AGAINST the Constitutoin itself, whcih makes them all null and void !  This is how the Constitution got to be the Communist mess it is today. A change here and a  word change there, and an addition here and there and whalla, you have the so-called “US Constitution” we see today !  And then you TELL the public it was done all “constitutionally” !  We have been lied to about EVERYTHING for the past 150 years !  DC will never tell us any truth – they just force us to pay for it !

    • Kellimus

      The Constitution is a tool for enslavement; why would you want to restore a document of slavery?

  • jean allen

    We should’a stuck with the Articles of Confederation.  Ever heard “I’m a Good Ol Rebel” (song)?
    I used to be perplexed by the following words:  “I hates the Constitution….this ‘great republic’ too”: Now I kinda’ understand the sentiments of this bitter old Confederate.
       We didn’t need anything beyond the Articles of Confederation.  ABJURE the REALM of
     Yankee Babylon!  Do your duty and do it now!

      Jean Creamer Allen

  • AZRanger

    This guy is an idiot! The whole point of the US Constitution was to reign in the power of the federal gov’t. The reason the gov’t is out of control now, is that..”WE THE PEOPLE” have allowed the criminal bastards in DC to get away with ignoring that document, or “re-interpreting” it to mean whatever they want it to say!

    What we need in this country is to restore the document to its original prominence and to throw out the bastards in DC, and elsewhere, who resist that restoration. If force is needed, AND IT WILL BE, then the people need to decide if they are willing to lay down their lives for the restoration of freedom, or remain slaves to a federal oligarchy that IS NOT what this country was supposed to be about in the first place!

    If any reader here is not willing to fight for this privilage, then that person deserves the slavery he or she will get! Get ready, get out, get going, and lets take back our freedoms. When cops in Houston jack a round in a shotgun and make a comment about our freedoms, they should be punished..by the people, not some court system that has been perverted to support the very same “jackboots!” What would that fat pos have said if 500 armed militia would have shown up, and said for them to leave, and go back to the domut shop??? They all would have left with their tails between their legs! This is the TRUE purpose of the 2nd Amendment!

    VIVA the RESTORATION!
    In the Spirit of AMERICAN Liberty,
    AZRanger
    MOLON LABE

    • George Taylor

      No need for name calling here.  We should all be allies in the struggle to kill the Federal leviathan.  Then we can argue about constitutionalism vs. libertarianism.

    • Sc

      The CONstitution has really done a great job “reigning in the power of the federal gov’t” – really? That was it’s original purpose, as you say.

      The reason it’s (gov’t) is out of control is because the CON was an instrument of slavery and it is doing exactly what it was designed to do. You really should read Patrick Henry’s speech of 1788 to see the fatal flaws in the CON as pointed out by someone a whole lot smarter than any of us. http://www.wfu.edu/~zulick/340/henry.html

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=719836944 Mark Matthews

      “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” ~ James MadisonHistory has shown this statement to be either wishful thinking or a deliberate falsehood. Regardless of which opinion you hold, the Anti-Federalists were right. They correctly predicted the unlimited power of a consolidated government under the Constitution. Not only were the Anti-Federalists right to a degree that they could never have imagined; I seriously doubt that the so-called “Federalists” could have envisioned or would have approved of their new government becoming the monstrosity that it now is. It should be pointed out that before we had Democrates and Republicans there were two schools of thought that argued about how power should flow in this new government. Hamilton and Madison were “old school” and wanted TOP-DOWN government, while Patrick Henry was more “liberal” and forward thinking. He argued for a BOTTOM-UP government where sovereignty resided with the people and the states. Henry’s great concern was that a TOP-DOWN government would centralize power to the point our President would become a King and in time we would lose our liberties and the revolution would have been for not. Therefore Patrick Henry argued for a bill of rights to protect the individual from TOP DOWN government. 
      Just as an old bill that would take away our liberties was rebranded “The Patriot Act” after 9/11 so the term “Federalist” is a misnomer. Like the quote above it seem to have been a deliberate attempt to deceive people. A federal government is by definition a decentralized government. Yet, those who called themselves “Federalists” wanted a stronger central government. This was abuse of language was an intentional corruption, its purpose was to confuse people–and it has to this day. Today, only one person on the political scene represents the true federalist (BOTTOM-UP) point of view. That man is as we all know is Ron Paul, and like Patrick Henry before him brand of “Anti-Federalist” conservationism is just to “liberal” for most people.

  • George Taylor

    Good points.  But lets get the government back in its constitutional box before we talk about shrinking government further.  Let us all be Patrick Henrys and Robert Yates’s AFTER we restore constitutional government.  Let us not be Newt Ginriches, Mitt Romneys or Rick Santorums who would scrap the Constittuion for the united States in favor of establishing a police state.

  • Sc

    Everyone should read Patrick Henry’s of 1788 where he pleaded with the people of Virginia NOT to ratify the US CONstitution. You can read the speech here: http://www.wfu.edu/~zulick/340/henry.html

    What he said would happen if the CON was accepted has happened. It’s as if the speech occurred yesterday.

  • http://www.libertariannews.org/ Michael Suede

    By the comments, I can see the entire point of the article is lost on half the people reading it.

    What a shame.

    How do I break through to those people?

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=719836944 Mark Matthews

      To answer your question, read my post. 

  • James Clark

    “If Congress can apply money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may establish teachers in every State, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public Treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post roads. In short, every thing, from the highest object of State legislation, down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.” – James Madison, 1792

    Don’t say they didn’t see it coming!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=719836944 Mark Matthews

    I just saw a headline that reads: “Bill Clears Path For 30,000 Surveillance Drones Over US In Next Ten Years” I think we should definately be questioning why someone would want 30,000 drones flying over a non-hostile country. Are we really to the point of having the military police the American citizens as if we were the terrorist? The answer to that question, sadly, is yes. These drones are for enforcement of present and future unconstitutional laws. Just like the outrage which was the NDAA act, what we are seeing now is the police state infrastructure is being put in place and congress is doing it in broad daylight. New Year’s Eve December 31, 2011 will indelibly go down in history as the date that marked the end of the American Republic. It it was on this date that the “National Defense Authorization Act ” (H.R. 1540) was signed into law by the setting President and effectively repealed the fundamental liberties formerly protected by the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.Someone posted: “Let’s get the government back inside the constitutional box” and then the reply to that statement was, “It’s not going to happen.” Perhaps not, but the only think holding back this tyranny is the Constitution–it may not get government back “in the box”, but at least it has the effect of slowing our descent into fascism. Still, I think we should admit that Constitution has failed to protect our liberty, but then even Jefferson (who drafted the document) expected it to fail in time. Fortunately for us it lasted longer then even he expected it would, but at long last the end as come. For me the end was marked by the signing of the NDAA.

    The Founding Fathers of our great nation drafted the Constitution with the express purpose of limiting the size and scope of government; they did this order to chain down the mischief of man. They sought to establish a Republic (and not a democracy) in which the rights of the individual were protected by the rule of law. They recognized that legitimate authority resides in the individual; therefore legitimate government must protect individual rights. This means any power granted the government must be bottom-up, from the people to the States, and in turn, from the States to the Federal. Today this power structure is upside-down and laws are written to enforce Federal government authority over the people from the top down, thus the original intent of the Constitution has become inverted and as such the Highest Law of the Land ceases to have merit and has become null and void.   Governments are legitimate only so long as they rest on the consent of the governed and protect the basic human rights of their citizens. If governments fail to protect these rights to life, liberty and estate, then, such governments are no longer legitimate, and citizens are duty bound to withdraw their consent and allegiance to such false authority.  In my view, this government can no longer claim to exercise its powers as a legitimate civil authority and must be opposed. According to the Declaration of Independence, when such conditions become intolerable for the people, “it is their right; it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” Until such time as a “legitimate government” (that meets the conditions as stated in the above paragraph) is again recognized in this land, I withdraw all allegiance to the centralized authority. In place of the corrupt Federal government, I now look to the office of the county sheriff as the only remaining legitimate law enforcement. That doesn’t mean I trust others to protect my liberty or property, I don’t. My confidence in my own good reason and common sense. I no longer trust in any external authority, local sheriff or otherwise, but rather look to my own individual autonomy and willingly take on the responsibility of self-government as God intended.
    Below is my idea of what a personal declaration would look like. I encourage others to make this same declaration and add or subtract any statements you deem relevant. Or write your own. Make copies and distribute to friends and relatives, encouraging them to do likewise.

    • http://www.libertariannews.org/ Michael Suede

      “Governments are legitimate only so long as they rest on the consent of the governed”

      Sure.  So if I refuse my consent then I don’t have to pay.

      If I refuse to consent to Microsoft’s privacy policy, then I am free to not buy the crap they are selling.

      This concept is called VOLUNTARISM or LIBERTARIANISM or ANARCHO-CAPITALISM or AGORISM.

      Consent can only be defined by the ability to purchase or reject services rendered.  Any form of government that expropriates property at the point of a gun from innocent people is non-consensual in nature.

      I would also argue that the only thing keeping this government from turning into an East German police state is the fact that most of the adult population is armed. The Constitution has nothing to do with it.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=719836944 Mark Matthews

        You wrote: “I would also argue that the only thing keeping this government from turning into an East German police state is the fact that most of the adult population is armed. The Constitution has nothing to do with it.”And why is the adult population well armed as you say? Is it not a direct result of the preservation of the 2nd Amendment? If so, then you must admit that your are wrong in saying the Constition has nothing to do with it. 

        “The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago.” The quote is from an essay by Lysander Spooner written in 1869 as I’m sure you know. 

        Regarding the Constitution, Spooner goes on to say: “The language does not assert nor at all imply, any right, power, or disposition, on the part of the original parties to the agreement, to compel their ‘posterity’ to live under it. If they had intended to bind their posterity to live under it, they should have said that their objective was, not “to secure to them the blessings of liberty,” but to make slaves of them; for if their “posterity” are bound to live under it, they are nothing less than the slaves of their foolish, tyrannical, and dead grandfathers.”

        I must say, Spooner states his case in no uncertain terms. Those who have not read Spooner would be well advised to do so. He makes a strong case against the Constitution and it is a joy to read. The man had a brilliant mind. Like the arguments present here it is perfectly logical, however logic often fails in the real world. I’m not saying I disagree with your opinion (or with Spooner), I am merely point out the fact the major of people DO give there consent. You may argue that consent it manufactured and under duress or threat of violence from the State, and again that would be true but it doesn’t change the fact that a majority of Americans willing submit to this false authority. So the problem we have is not the Constitution, but rather a tyranny by the majority who give their consent to a false authority and thereby empower what would otherwise be a illegitimate and criminal government.

        So long as this is the case our current plight is not like to change regardless of your opinion (or my opinion) on the subject. There are only two path ahead, revolution or reformation, you may choose the former and I the latter but neither one is likely to happen.

        • http://www.libertariannews.org/ Michael Suede

          DC and NYC gun violence rates prior to Heller are all the proof I need about how effective the Constitution is at:

          1.  Preventing guns from being banned.

          and 

          2. Should guns actually be banned, just how effective a ban would be from keeping citizens from getting their hands on them.

          The pols aren’t stupid, they are are simply looters who want to steal as much as they can while in office without causing a revolt.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Robin-Thomas/1797454054 Robin Thomas

    Everybody more or less enjoyed life under the articles of confederation and it was those slick Illuminati lawyers and political figures that pushed and gnawed at the people to adopt their ‘constitution’ and all they were asked to do was to shore up the articles of confederation. All the rest is history. Lies, deceit and betrayal.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Carrie-Taranova/1142207564 Carrie Taranova

    This man needs to READ the Constitution because it does NOT say what he says it does.  But I do agree that the US Constitution that we see today is not the ORIGINAL Constitution of the Founders – which was the Articles of Confederation.  The US Constitution that stands, was created by the controlling  Elites of the day which is why some of the Founders refused to sign it. They saw the deliberate loop holes in it that would in time give powers to DC NOT intended in the document.  Thomas Jefferson, one of the most noted Founders refused to sign it and didn’t. Others as well refused to sign it.  I say we need to restore the ORIGINAL constitution of the FOUNDERS.  Not this US Constitution that we have had forced on us all.  The CSA Confederate Constitution is closer to the ORIGINAL.  The CSA is still its own legal nation with its own Constitution.

    • http://www.libertariannews.org/ Michael Suede

      Where do you get the idea that it does not say the things I mention?

      Article 1 section 8 is quite clear about legitimizing violent theft, coercion, violent control of commerce, and other criminal acts.

      Perhaps you should take a moment to read it.

  • Anonymous

    The UK has a living Constitution in the Queen. She is the embodiment of 1000 years of monarchy, parliament and common law. Constitutional monarchy is the best form of democratic government in the world today bar none. The Constitution is living, you can speak to Her. She never gives Her opinions in public but you had better believe the prime minister knows them. The government at all times must have Her confidence which simply means, it has to be reasonable, within its Constitutional limits and dedicated to the best interests of the UK. Believe it or not, sometimes it isn’t, in fact more than some times. Best of all She cannot be ignored!

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  • Vincent Fincher

    Thanks for the article, it really hits the constitution in the head. (Pun intended.)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000955712910 Ryan Day Thompson

    “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”  - Lysander Spooner

    http://jim.com/treason.htm

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