What we support and defend

[Bob's World]

While the discussion of weapon bore's is fascinating, I noticed that no one answered these questions from a few pages back (though several took shots at each in the posts pror to my request):

What I find myself very frustrated with, however, are the following questions for my fellow Americans:

1. When did the Constitution become irrelevant?

2. When did the Declaration of Independence become inconvenient?

3. When did the thinking of our historic leaders, such as Washington and Lincoln become "illegitimate"?

To discount these things has become a ready arguement by those who seek to rationalize why America must engage the world in the manner it has adopted in recent years. I personally believe we are better served by tuning our current approaches to our former national doctrine than we are by tuning our former national doctrine to our current approaches, but I can't believe I am alone in that position.

[Ken White]

While the discussion of weapon bore's is fascinating, I noticed that no one answered these questions from a few pages back (though several took shots at each in the posts pror to my request):

What I find myself very frustrated with, however, are the following questions for my fellow Americans:

1. When did the Constitution become irrelevant?

To Congress, I think about 1802 -- been downhill ever since...

Congress, due to power of the purse, influences, generally adversely, everything else in the US Government -- including DoD, the US Army and USSOCOM.

The rest of the country doesn't think it's irrelevant but they sure do have about 200M interpretations of what it means; that's not irrelevance, that's disagreement on semantics and other things. The very expensive legal system exists to sort out those variations but its decisions are frequently watered down by the aforementioned Legislative body. We all hate it when others do not share our wisdom and see things our way -- but I'm afraid we're stuck with that.

2. When did the Declaration of Independence become inconvenient?

To many but not all people when it suggests their desired behavior is inconsistent with its principles.

3. When did the thinking of our historic leaders, such as Washington and Lincoln become "illegitimate"?

That's the easy one -- in 1960 when we began electing excessively venal persons to the Presidency and allowed them to hire sycophants and charlatans for 'advisors.' That also has been downhill ever since.

All the above are only slightly tongue in cheek, those answers are too close to absolute truth for comfort...

To discount these things has become a ready arguement by those who seek to rationalize why America must engage the world in the manner it has adopted in recent years. I personally believe we are better served by tuning our current approaches to our former national doctrine than we are by tuning our former national doctrine to our current approaches, but I can't believe I am alone in that position.

You're not alone in the position. However, others may not totally share your view of precisely what "our former national doctrine" was and / or what "our current approaches" really are. Thus many, to include even some in positions of power may share your broad conclusions but differ over details and processes of implementation. To be repetitious thus boring without bores: "We all hate it when others do not share our wisdom and see things our way -- but I'm afraid we're stuck with that".

[carl]

To many but not all people when it suggests their desired behavior is inconsistent with its principles.

I like this combined with what Slap said about Wilson. A political philosophy has developed that sees "good government" as trumping the strictures of the founding documents. The problem of course is "good government" changes with the wind. There is no longer any recognition of the sin of pride anymore either. One of the founders, Adams I think, talked about how he had to fight that, not always successfully but at least he knew it was bad. There is no recognition that it exists let alone that it is bad anymore I think. If you don't recognize the sin of pride there is no internal brake on willfulness. Combine all this with the de-facto separation of the political classes from the rest of the citizenry and we have a rather large problem.

I hope I have explained this clearly. Probably not though.

[slapout9]

I noticed that no one answered these questions from a few pages back (though several took shots at each in the posts prior to my request):

I don't believe there is some exact date, more like a slow chipping away. IMO opinion it started with the Wilson presidency and has continued on since then. But we have forgotten the purpose of the Constitution more than anything, we get hung up on this law,article or whatever instead of seeing the problem or situation through the lens of original purpose which is contained in the Preamble not the individual pieces.

In the preamble it establishes 6 core missions in order to accomplish the original purpose of America.
1-form a more perfect union
2-establish justice
3-insure domestic tranquility
4-provide for the common defense
5-promote the general welfare
6-secure the blessings of liberty for now and the future

Now explain to me how giving tax breaks to rich people and installing laws and treaties that make it possible to send jobs and technologies (paid for with tax dollars) overseas is constitutional. Under citizens united AQI or the Communist Chinese can form a PAC and give money to get people elected

[wm]

I don't believe there is some exact date, more like a slow chipping away. IMO opinion it started with the Wilson presidency and has continued on since then. But we have forgotten the purpose of the Constitution more than anything, we get hung up on this law,article or whatever instead of seeing the problem or situation through the lens of original purpose which is contained in the Preamble not the individual pieces.

In the preamble it establishes 6 core missions in order to accomplish the original purpose of America.
1-form a more perfect union
2-establish justice
3-insure domestic tranquility
4-provide for the common defense
5-promote the general welfare
6-secure the blessings of liberty for now and the future

Concur with this. In fact I wrote pretty much the same thing way back at post 60 of this thread when I characterized the Declaration and Constitution as basicly an Op Plan for establishing the US government with the Preamble being the Mission statement for that operation.

I like to view the two framing documents as something like an operations order for Operation USA. The Declaration of Independence is Paragraph 1 of that Op Order: Situation. A significant (and I think greatly overlooked) piece of the Constitution is its Preamble. I view this as the Mission statement for Operation USA. The remainder of the basic document constitute the opord's remaining three paragraphs while the various amendments serve as fragos that modify the operation due to changes in the situation. The various laws of the US Code might well be viewed as the various specialized Annexes that turn most opords into such ponderous works.

If you like this analogy, then reflect that never has the Preamble been modified. In other words, we the people of the United States still have a mission to "form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Doing that is what "supporting and defending the Constition" meant to me when I took my oath and is what that phrase still means to me today.

[slapout9]

Concur with this. In fact I wrote pretty much the same thing way back at post 60 of this thread when I characterized the Declaration and Constitution as basically an Op Plan for establishing the US government with the Preamble being the Mission statement for that operation.

Yes, I have posted it before on other threads, but what I like about your version is viewing it as an Op Plan (of course to me it is a system)which is what it is but is not generally taught that way. There is to much focus on it being a supreme legal document as opposed to it being a plan!! And how it can be useful to accomplishing our purpose as a nation.

[slapout9]

of course but this is an excellent video on how we(USA) got this way. It was made in 1965 for NBC television with reporter John Chancellor, also has various CIA heads and former heads and Congressman Eugene McCarthy.
The whole thing is about modern adaption of the Constitution, Morals and War against Invisible Governments without involving Congress. Decision making by the CIA and the Executive branch alone. It drags in places but it is quite a history lesson.

Link to "The Science Of Spying" 1965 NBC Special with reporter John Chancellor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi710...eature=related