Where have we gone wrong?

[Rancher Will]

I am writing here, and not in the Political section, for the reason that this is not political. It is, I believe, basic to our Liberty.

As I have written here before, I am a registered, in Colorado, as a member of the Constitution Party. Even so, I understand that others, members of any other party, or no party at all, probably agree that events in the news over the past decades indicate that we are in trouble. Please permit me to comment of what I believe our Founders anticipated and what they did to try to prevent what we see today. Are we losing our way?

Our Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787. It was debated, modified, studied, and written over a decade to provide the basis for protection of a Free People. The Founders anticipated the problems that would arise and deliberately wrote the Constitution to provide protection from those who would use Human nature to circumvent liberty in the future. Their fears were justified. The future is now. Why have we not followed their remedy?

Comments of the Founders at the time of convening of the First Congress in 1789:

"I am committed AGAINST every thing which may weaken, endanger, or destroy the Constitution...especially against all extension of Executive Power , and I am committed against any attempt to rule the free people of this country by the power and the patronage of the Government itself." - Daniel Webster

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." - Thomas Jefferson

"I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let or rulers load us with perpetual debt: -Thomas Jefferson

"A well instructed people alone can be permanently a free people." -James Madison

"A primary object ...should be the education of our youth in the science of government... What knowledge can be more important and duty more pressing, than commuting it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties on the country." -George Washington.

Recognizing the trends in our Country, after bi-partisan debate in Congress, Congress in 2004 passed and the President signed Public Law 108-447, including section 111 requiring the following:

"Each educational institution that receives Federal Funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17 if each year"

How many of the schools, elementary, secondary and college level, have followed the law based on your family and friends' experience.Do you think this law should be enforced? Why hasn't it been?

 

[rimmer]

We put our Trust in our government and with their greed and the greed of Wall Street and others we, the American People, have been let down and have been robbed.
For the last 25 years we have lost our a significant amount of Our Rights, and it doesn't stop.
So, what do we do next?
We need to stop this Rouge President and this worthless Congress and Senate.
So, let GOD help us and do what's right for the American People.
Let's uphold what the writers of our great Constitution wanted us to do.
They put their lives on the line for Freedom, and now that's what we have to do.

 

[TRanger]

We get the government we deserve. When we, as a nation, continually elect representatives, including a president, who have no respect or even understanding of the constitution, there is no one to blame but ourselves.
There is no question we are in trouble. We have been for a long time.

 

[DGW1949]

I am writing here, and not in the Political section, for the reason that this is not political. It is, I believe, basic to our Liberty.

As I have written here before, I am a registered, in Colorado, as a member of the Constitution Party. Even so, I understand that others, members of any other party, or no party at all, probably agree that events in the news over the past decades indicate that we are in trouble. Please permit me to comment of what I believe our Founders anticipated and what they did to try to prevent what we see today. Are we losing our way?

Our Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787. It was debated, modified, studied, and written over a decade to provide the basis for protection of a Free People. The Founders anticipated the problems that would arise and deliberately wrote the Constitution to provide protection from those who would use Human nature to circumvent liberty in the future. Their fears were justified. The future is now. Why have we not followed their remedy?

Comments of the Founders at the time of convening of the First Congress in 1789:

"I am committed AGAINST every thing which may weaken, endanger, or destroy the Constitution...especially against all extension of Executive Power , and I am committed against any attempt to rule the free people of this country by the power and the patronage of the Government itself." - Daniel Webster

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." - Thomas Jefferson

"I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let or rulers load us with perpetual debt: -Thomas Jefferson

"A well instructed people alone can be permanently a free people." -James Madison

"A primary object ...should be the education of our youth in the science of government... What knowledge can be more important and duty more pressing, than commuting it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties on the country." -George Washington.

Recognizing the trends in our Country, after bi-partisan debate in Congress, Congress in 2004 passed and the President signed Public Law 108-447, including section 111 requiring the following:

"Each educational institution that receives Federal Funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17 if each year"

How many of the schools, elementary, secondary and college level, have followed the law based on your family and friends' experience.Do you think this law should be enforced? Why hasn't it been?

I can't answer your questions because at the moment because I simply do not know the answers.
However.....my gut say's that even IF that particular law was to be enforced, it would be done with the same liberal/progressive slant that has been used during the past few decades to interpit the Constitution itself.

Nope. I'm sure of it.....If We the People want our kids to be taught right, we're gonna have to get them out of public school and teach them ourselves.
After all, the foxes are still running the hen houses, are they not?

DGW

 

[stevemb]

We went wrong when the clintons entered office. They sold us out. At that point the dems were no longer the voice of working Americans. Working Americans did not take heed and kept voting dumb/dem.. Sorry, there is no way way to avoid politics with this thread. Deals were made with the devil. Enough voters believed we needed "change". Myself, not liking the change so much. You ?

 

[noquarter]

Where have we gone wrong? I think you can trace it to the early 1900s and a conscious decision by what became the Progressive wing of the democratic party to move past the US constitution, which they considered outdated, to a new world where an class of educated specialists (the experts) would run things and a lower class would provide the sweat. This stratification began in Germany under Bismark in the late 1800s, and was brought to the US by intellectuals like Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Croly. Most don't know that Mussolini modeled the Fascist philosophy on the way Wilson ran the US during WW I, and that FDR consciously moved the New Deal in a progressive direction using what he learned while serving in the Wilson admin.
Anyway, to understand it better, I recommend 4 books. 2 cover the politics and philosophy of the progressive movement in the 20th century and 2 cover the psychology of those who buy into the movement (not so much the leaders, who are generally motivated by power, but the followers).

Politics:
Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg
The Revolt Against The Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined The Middle Class by Fred Siegel

Psychology:
The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness by Lyle Rossiter, M.D.

 

[powder smoke]

We get the government we deserve. When we, as a nation, continually elect representatives, including a president, who have no respect or even understanding of the constitution, there is no one to blame but ourselves.
There is no question we are in trouble. We have been for a long time.

Quoted the truth^^^^^^

We have runamuck we as citizens NEED to hold politicians accountable. Bad politician
run over and over and get re elected. Unions and other special interest run the show.
Americans are asleep think Government is the answer, our national debt will be our downfall.
I will refrain from ranting Just vote these SOB's out. ps

 

[Snake45]

We went wrong when the clintons entered office.

It started long before that. At least back in the '60s when we surrendered the entire educational system, from public grade schools to the universities, to the communists so they could indoctrinate the kids with their leftist filth. We see the results of this all around us today--even right here on this very board. The so-called "news media" has now also been completely subverted by the left, to the point where we no longer have a mass free press anymore, just a Ministry of Propaganda.

 

[noquarter]

Short term, get your kids, and grandkids OUT of the public schools. Just do it. You have no idea of the kind of
absolute horse manure which is shoveled down the kids' throats every day. It doesn't matter where you live, it
is going on across the country. And yes, noquarter was right too. This business of indoctrinating the kids in
school, and of a president who believed that our Constitution was fundamentally flawed (Woodrow Wilson)
began a century ago. It's taken them some time, but so-called progressivism has infected the entire USA.
How many people know that Woodrow Wilson believed (and was not shy about his beliefs) that the job of
"education" in America was to make a child as UNLIKE his or her parents as possible. These people like Wilson
did not make a secret of their ideas. Do some research, and you'll realize this monster we're fighting today
has been around a long, long time. It took some time to become dominant, but by the late 1960s and early
1970s our schools were headed right down the bowl. They've only entrenched themselves deeper now. It's
going to take a good while to fix things, if we ever do.

As long as good and decent people continue to dutifully feed their children to the indoctrination centers year
after year, you can expect to have your own kids grow into clueless progressives themselves. The values you
think you are instilling at home are usually not enough to withstand 7-8 hours per day of non-stop indoctrination
in the public schools. Get involved in your children's education; it's one of the most important things you can do.
Or, you can just shrug it all off, and one day, you'll be talking with your kid and realize that he's
been taught to hate everything you've held dear. He'll be taught to be ashamed of his country, and he'll
certainly never find anything worth defending about it. Leaving your kids to the public schools today is darn near
child abuse, as those of us who see the new crop of high school "graduates" every year have come to learn.

- DixieBoy

I could not agree more. Save your kids and get them out of the public system. Especially if you are in a major urban / suburban system which has been fully taken over by the progressives.
It's no accident that the 'elites' send their kids to private schools. The public school system is where serfdom is taught. Their elite system is where kids of the elites make the connections they need to be rulers and learn that they are special, and therefore fit to rule.

 

[Xsales]

While there are many reasons why, I believe the deep grained fundemental problem is this country has taken God Almighty out of everything it can & continues to do so with reckless abandon

When man puts their ultimate trust in failed entities (man, country, government etc.) you are on a down hill slide as these entities will ALWAYS fail you, mislead you, sell you out, chew you up & spit you out with no concern

The USA will continue its slide right out of history UNLESS it reconfirms what & who it was built on

Prepare for far worse before it ever gets better, IF it ever does in our lifetimes
I do not live doom & gloom BUT I do live in reality & watch the signs

That is my .02 and if anyone does not like it, that is fine, that is your .02
Go along your way

 

[clbshooter]

Until as a country we believe and stand by "from my cold dead hands" we will be doomed. This will not stop with who is in office now but who will be in office in the future.

 

[blume357]

I don't disagree with your points other than I don't think this 'downfall' has occurred in the last decade or 25 years or so... it started in 1788 and has been going on since then. The amazing thing is it has taken so long to actually get to this point.... this is because of our constitution and 3 sections of government. If not for our constitution this country would have fallen apart a long time ago.

 

[Paul B]

Many years ago, about 1974 or 75 one of my co-workers got a visit from his father and mother in law. The man was a minor diplomat in Russia, stationed in Moscow. The wife and I were invited to have dinner with them and the conversation turned to life in Russia. That man made one comment that floored me. "The average Russian today has more freedom and rights than you do here in the US today." :shock: He then went on for well over an hour making his points with solid comparison "twixt us and them". That was almost 40 years ago and you know damn well we're literally losing more of our rights on a daily basis. :x Some of the posts here reminded me of that long ago conversation.
Paul B.

 

[blume357]

Yes, but there might have been a price.... we weren't standing in line for a loaf of bread.... just gas.

 

[TRanger]

The short answer to Rancher Will's post title is simple. We went wrong when we turned away from God.

 

[graygun]

I guess you have to be dull enough (like the one who posted this) to believe it's a spiritual condition. Look at ancient Israel as it went up/down,was blessed/cursed for thousands of years. Behind all the apparent complexity,life is starkly simple. Some things have to be revealed or spiritually discerned rather than intellectually learned.

 

[Paul B]

The short answer to Rancher Will's post title is simple. We went wrong when we turned away from God.

Absolutely!
Paul B.

 

[Rick Courtright]

I don't disagree with your points other than I don't think this 'downfall' has occurred in the last decade or 25 years or so... it started in 1788 and has been going on since then. The amazing thing is it has taken so long to actually get to this point.... this is because of our constitution and 3 sections of government. If not for our constitution this country would have fallen apart a long time ago.

Hi,

Blume makes a rather solid point which reinforces many of the quotes Rancher Will included in his post:

Whether our Founding Fathers were the wisest people around or not will always be arguable. They may have had the best ideas for setting up a government, running a country, etc., or perhaps there were better ones. I dunno about that. What I do know is they were master students of human nature and the conditions it puts us in, good or bad. And that knowledge, especially how to avoid the bad, shows thru in our Constitution every day.

Every public servant, from your mailman thru our military personnel all the way up to the President of the United States swears an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That oath doesn't have a whole lot of room for "interpretation" of that same document. So, as Ben Franklin suggested, we have to "hang onto it (our government)" by ousting those whose "interpretations" stray from the bounds of "what it says" to the arena of "what we want it to mean."

Where I think we've gone wrong is failing to take that responsibility on our own shoulders, from the very beginning, as Blume dated it. Peacefully is desirable, if possible, thru the electoral process and removal of an individual who does not follow his oath. But Mr. Jefferson suggested it might not always be peaceful, when he said a periodic "revolution" to keep everyone's attention was a good idea. And all the signers seem to have agreed that the 2nd Amendment was tailor made to make that "revolution" possible should it prove necessary.

The biggest problem in that approach seems to me that our Founding Fathers pledged "our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor" to that cause. Yet today, how many can we even get off the couch, assuming there's still cold beer in the fridge, good batteries in the remote, and a ball game or race on TV, to renew their pledge?

Rick C

 

[RugerHound]

I don't disagree with your points other than I don't think this 'downfall' has occurred in the last decade or 25 years or so... it started in 1788 and has been going on since then. The amazing thing is it has taken so long to actually get to this point.... this is because of our constitution and 3 sections of government. If not for our constitution this country would have fallen apart a long time ago.

There it is... Don't forget Franklin's prophetic reply to the question of what form of government we have as he was leaving the Con-con in 1787:

"A republic if you can keep it."

The ink was barely dry when politicians started meddling with the republic and trying to turn it into a democracy.

As blume357 correctly states - This would have gone down the flush long ago if not for the genius of the Republic as designed by the founders.

Key milestones in our destruction are:

The War of Northern Aggression
The 16th and 17th Amendments
Franklin Roosevelt
The Korean war (When we forgot how to win)
The 1960s (When we forgot how to think)
Barack Hussein Obama

Just to name a few...

 

[Jimbo357mag]

aaaaaaaaaaaah yes, The Good 'Ole Days.

Some people think this country is great and some people think it is not. Some people want to turn the clocks back and others want to move ahead.

I try and stay positive and not complain about everything.