Lemme try to start a fight here. Have you thought about what it would take to be a domestic enemy of the Constitution? I’ve written about it here and there. As the Obama administration draws to a close, it becomes easier (let us say) to speak about this in the abstract, or at least without worrying overmuch.
What do you think?
Domestic enemy of the Constitution: some one who works to change it outside of the mechanism w/in it to do so. That might qualify 1/2 of the Supreme Court, the current president, many heads of Executive departments. . . should I go on?
I think MLH has given it a good start, but is not really defining it as much as naming some of those who fit this category.
I would define it as anyone who willfully disregards the constitution, as it was originally intended. That, then begins to include pretty much all current federal politicians, and all those working in the bureaucracy with only a few exceptions (federal mint might be one – MIGHT).
The law cannot have any meaning unless one views the philosophy and sentiment behind its creation. Else it morphs into pretty much anything over time. But then it is no standard and no one can know what it is or means.
The Supreme Court of the mid and later 30’s completely gutted the constitution of any restrictive sense on the federal government. We have seen the results of this over the subsequent years. Today the constitution has become pretty meaningless.
One of my favorite examples is proponents of the NPV. This, the National Popular Vote (compact) is a perfectly Constitutional method to defeat the Constitution. States are free to enter pacts betweem themselves. They are free to allocate their Electors as they see fit, if I recall correctly. But by entering a pact to allocate electors according to a simple majority, they abrogate whole layers of the Constitutional system — and that is their goal.
I brought this up on a Ricochet AMU recently, and somebody suggested that the Feds may be able to invalidate a compact with this effect. Any thoughts?
So somewhere in here there must be some form of domestic enemy of the Constitution, right? But it’s not simple citizens who just want their state to change the way they allocate electors.
Don’t quite understand your example. Please elucidate a bit more.
Popular vote is a great way to instill democracy, which the Founders went to significant lengths to avoid. Tyranny by the majority is already visible in the Senate, where a state has little to no influence on the Federal government. The amendment that changed that was passed because it was claimed the Senate was just a gold ole boys club. It still is; it’s just that now it’s almost impossible to unseat a senator, and the state STILL has no say-so.
Agree re: the Thirties; what of the whole Federal, state-administered welfare system (Great Society), etc.? Enemy would seem to have more of a corporate-singular dimension, lately…