It has long seemed to me that the greatness of a nation’s leaders tends to have an inverse relationship to the greatness of its people.

The historians count as near great Woodrow Wilson, who was re-elected with a minority vote and who was succeeded by the candidate of the opposing party.

Contrariwise, historicans are dismissive of Calvin Coolidge, who was elected in his own name in a landslide and who was succeeded by the candidate of his party.

If “greatness” required being re-elected (or elected in your own name following an ascension to President) in a landslide and being succeeded by the candidate of your party, then we have had only two great presidents since Coolidge: FDR and RR.

FDR, it might be said, saved us the Great Depression; or, it might be said, prolonged the Great Depression, depending on how you interpret the numbers. Putting that matter to the side, FDR could be credited with being our president during the war against fascism, and saving us and the world from a very, very bad thing.

RR, it might be said, restored America’s confidence following a period of inflation, creeping taxes, economic malaise, and the expansionism of Soviet-style communism. I think it could be said that his “greatness” was mostly in un-doing the problems that were befalling us due to inflation.

At this juncture of our nation’s history, with an advanced welfare-warfare state, it seems to me that it is be very difficult for anybody to be a great president.

As for your second and third points:

I have designed a confederation, rather than a union, so that the individual states would be the sovereign units, not the confederacy, in fact in Article I, I go so far as to make this explicit.

As for the whole issue of the head of state. There would be no central executive at all. Department heads would report to Congress directly and would serve at the pleasure of Congress. The President would essentially be a ceremonial figurehead only, serving at the pleasure of Congress. I have dealt with the dangers of a strong executive, simply by eliminating the position entirely.

In my proposed “Articles of Confederation” I have specifically addressed your first point. Any proposed governing document must have strong prohibitions against fiat money. As you can see, I have gone the full length to strangle inflationary robbery before it can even get started.

From proposed Article VI.

No State shall emit bills of credit nor charter a central banking institution. Each bank under a State’s jurisdiction shall be required to maintain one hundred percent reserves on its demand deposits and one hundred percent reserves against any banknotes. All banknotes issued shall state particularly the commodity backing the note, the weight of the commodity and shall state the note shall be redeemable on demand. No State shall ever pass any legal tender laws. All money coined under State authority or privately shall be gold or silver and each coin shall state its content of gold or silver. All States shall only make disbursements in gold or silver coin or bullion. No State shall make any law prohibiting the use of money lawfully coined in any other state. This section shall not be construed to prohibit the coining of platinum money for collector purposes.

From proposed Article VII.

Each state shall raise its assessment in such manner as it shall see fit. Each state shall pay its assessment to the Confederate Treasury on a quarterly basis. The Confederate States in Congress assembled shall establish the due dates for each quarterly assessment. All assessments shall be paid in gold or silver coin or bullion. Special assessments levied under the provision of the second section of the eighth article shall be remitted separately from regular assessments and all assessments collected under such section shall be placed in a separate Treasury fund to be used solely for paying off the instrument of debt for which the assessment shall by law be made.
All payments and disbursements made by the Confederate States in Congress assembled shall be paid in gold or silver coin or bullion.
The Confederate States in Congress Assembled shall never emit bills of credit nor shall the Congress charter any central banking institution nor pass any legal tender laws nor coin money.

“If one believes, as several of the posters here seem to, that “the enemy is the state”, then the solution is obvious: abolish government altogether.”

The problem is, the state won’t allow those who oppose it to divorce themselves from it, nor will it allow the decentralization that even those who recognize that the state is inherently immoral would favor.

To me, this only reinforces the fact that the state is the enemy, all the more so as our present welfare-warfare colossus exhausts itself amid the burgeoning fiat fiasco. But look for it to expand rather than contract, at least in the near term:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=14965

Since the enemy is the state, and since constitutionalism is statism, the goal must be to decentralize the state (dissolve the Union via secession) until free society finally gets its chance, demonstrating that neither a state nor a constitution is necessary.

So, time to try again?

Would you suggest specific changes to the existing constitution, or do you think things have gone so far wrong we ought to give this business of constitution-making from scratch another shot?

Third try a charm?

I see that I’ve offended you and assure that it wasn’t my intention. As a matter of fact, I even interpreted your original post as somewhat tongue-in-cheek with regard to the words “not a minor matter” and hadn’t even connected it to an actual feeling provoked by my conflation of the two peoples. Indeed, just an ordinary consideration for accuracy would have prevented that mistake
in the case, for instance, that your name had been signed Macgregor, one more recognizable (to me) as Scottish. You may believe that my mistake was not innocent but I am certain I was guilty of no intention to offend nor even of indifference as to whether my remarks might offend. In all honesty, it simply didn’t occur (at the time) to me as a likelihood that anyone might have such feelings–as I said, I took the parenthetical expression (in your correction as to Gordon’s nationality) as a jest, perhaps alluding to more distant animosities.

I’ve tried to be clear. Everybody’s entitled to whatever happen to be their feelings and I NEVER
intentionally attempt to damage same or even engage in remarks which seem to me likely to do so. I’ve got 60 years behind me of consistent behavior in that wise and some more about which my memory is only somewhat less reliable.

That’s my apology. Additionally, I’d like to add that there are hundreds of millions of people to whose opinion of me as an offensive boor I’d be completely indifferent. But you are not one of them.

The ideas to which I referred are those of Economics, not those of political organization.

I have no dog in the dispute between those who bemoan that the Articles were not more faithfully replicated in the Constitution. The arrangement under the Articles provided more clearly for seccession, an idea I favor–but I couldn’t give you much in the way of a reasoned argument for my preference, just that that’s what I think is a better arrangement. And, as long as the present arrangement doesn’t allow for seccession, I don’t see much point in talking or even thinking about the benefits–which are not actually perfectly obvious, no matter what one might prefer. The arguments in favor of each were already in existence at the time, as you’ve pointed out.

But that’s not what I spoke of. The economic arguments do not favor one form of arrangement over another–they favor the regognition, in the arrangement of whatever entity exists, that interference by that entity with the economic activities of its people or the redistribution of the wealth of some of them to others–is “no way to run an airline” and will lead to worse conssequences than the ones they sought to make better with their original interference. That’s something that applies to both (or either) of the organizational types we’re discussing. The smaller or less-centralized State is not particularly less likely to engage in bad economic policies or even in infringement of various rights: they’re just somewhat less capable of enforcing their bad judgment over those who might choose to “vote with their feet.”

So where did the anti-federalists get their ideas? The anti-federalists, the defenders of the article of confederation, understood a greta many things that were “forgotten” once the constitution was ratified. The knowledge was there, it was simply pushed into the back country. Read “the anti-federalist papers”.

Mr. Berman, given that you not only now know that you should not call people like us English, but you repeated the offence and rubbed it in by adding that you did not care – given all that, it is clear that whatever elase you are, you are an offensive boor.

We have bought into the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) ever since we took on Russia in the Cold WAR.

Through a combination of public apathy and threats by the MIC we have let the SYSTEM get too large. It is now a SYSTEMIC problem and the SYSTEM is out of control.

I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.

There is no conspiracy. The SYSTEM has gotten so big that those who make it up and run it day to day in industry and government simply are perpetuating their existance.

The politicians rely on them for details and recommendations because they cannot possibly grasp the nuances of the environment and the BIG SYSTEM.

So, the system has to go bust and then be re-scaled, fixed and re-designed to run efficiently and prudently, just like any other big machine that runs poorly or becomes obsolete or dangerous.

This situation will right itself through trauma. I see a government ENRON on the horizon, with an associated house cleaning.

The next president will come and go along with his appointees and politicos. The event to watch is the collapse of the MIC.

For more details see:

http://www.rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com

I guess these historians would like Presidents who got along with Congress and pass volumes of freedom killing legislation and lived on the fringe of getting the US into a war.

My votes for worst are from worst:
Nixon-He had the gaul to pick the collegiate national football champion. He bombed the poor people in Cambodia, he passed wage and price controls.
FDR-enough said.
Wilson-Enough said.
Bush 2-Literally almost as bad as the others.

You’re damn right! I do make passes at them French foxes. Prolly do better when I kin git some of the lingo, too.

And I don’t care where he was born–he was English if he was “a-servin’ of Her Majesty, the Queen.” And, by that token, the bhisti was English, too–and maybe the elephants, if you looked into the matter.

It is something interesting to note (and I don’t believe I’ve EVER seen it mentioned before, though I’ve understood it for nearly 50 years):
it’s impossible to actually outlaw slavery. The contracts may be criminalized and any coercive restraint, etc., as well. But the relationship, though suspected, cannot even be detected, given determined conspirators.

Interestingly, Burton observed that Muslim law regarding slaves forbade them being freed against their will – food for thought, until you find out just what was involved in freedom and slavery in those times and places.

It contrasts well with the case law that led to the abolition of slavery within the U.K., when someone had simply thrown out a sick slave and then tried to reclaim him after a kind stranger had helped him back to health.

The British approach led to throwing out all slaves, which was OK on that scale because of enough kind strangers, but a disaster for at least some when Lincoln did it. A lot of slaves were past an age and health when they could fend for themselves any more – so much for Lincoln’s suggestion that they should just root like hogs.

Also interesting is what happened to slaves who got freed in French and Belgian colonies. They were simply moved across to native armed forces, which were then topped up from orphans who had outgrown missionary care – something very like Uganda’s rebel armies today. Oh, and freed convicts in French Guiana were worse off than serving ones, who at least had barracks and rations.