Combat Ranting (formerly known as Famicom Mini)

[A Black Falcon]

The Heritage Foundation... I've heard of them. I doubt that they've ever said a true statement since their founding. I can quite reliably know that whatever they say the opposite is probably true.

I'm getting tired of this... not sure if continuing has a point. Well, except for this one, because I love history and can't resist an effort to talk about that. :)

I know what they would think. You might remember that not too long before the Constitutional Convention, there was a little matter of a war, one that we defeated Britain in. You might remember that some of the main reasons we fought this conflict were overtaxation and overburdening governmental control. They, perhaps reflexively, did everything they could to limit the power and scope of the government. I can't find it possible to believe that they would even consider the idea of making the federal government a perpetual wetnurse charity organization.

Wrong wrong wrong. We fought the American Revolution for many reasons... but first, remember a few things. One, the colonies were not united and reasons varied in different places. Two, the main reasons for the Revolution. The main one was not because we were being taxed, actually. If you remember the Townshend Acts, one of the last ones, taxed a variety of things... the protest was great. They removed all of them except a symbolic and very small tax on tea. Paying it would not have been a hardship for Americans. So why did they react so badly and do things like the Tea Parties, the most famous of which was in Boston? Simple. To quote them, "No Taxation Without Representation is Tyranny". THAT is the main reason. Not that they were being taxed -- though taxes were an onorous burden like they always were, they paid local and colonial taxes without revolution -- but because they had no say in if they were taxed. The response from England was that the Parliament is (if you don't know, for a long time the Parliament was not realigned -- it was set up at one point based on what were towns then and didn't change for centuries. So some people were "elected" from towns that had ceased to exist while some major industrial cities had no vote at all because they were newer... colonies were in that same boat.) that the Parliament stands for all Englishmen, elected by you or not. But the Colonists didn't like that idea and it set us on the inevitable path to war.

Overburdening governmental control? You mean repressive control. Yes, they didn't like having soldiers quartered in their homes, or curfews, or taxes they had no say in... but that is different from hating the government. They wanted a government that they could choose and influence and not one chosen for them... a revolutionary idea at the time to be sure but not one that was aimed at destroying the idea of a government having power over its nation. Well for a while it was but that cooled down quick...

After the war, we had the first American government, governed by the Articles of Confederation. If you don't remember it, this was a true radical form of government where the national government barely existed and only had any power over international issues -- states had control over local and state-to-state issues. Also, it had just one house, which elected its president. It was the ultimate in state's rights... which made sense at the time given how much the states disliked eachother. The US really was more like thirteen nations than one.

Needless to say, it failed miserably. Without any power in the federal government the states had all kinds of quarrels and the nation could not function well. They could tax trade between states for instance with no problems because the federal government couldn't do anything about it. Oh, by the way, in the late 1700s 'Conservatives' supported big, authoritarian governments (like monarchies; see Alexander Hamilton's ideas) and 'Liberals' small, more locally controlled ones (state's rights). The Constitutional Convention was called by conservatives, in secret -- it was originally supposed to just revise the Articles, but they quickly decided to write an all-new Constitution (and historians ever after have a huge debt to James Madison for keeping those secret notes of the proceedings). It was the antithesis of the liberals' (such as Jefferson, who of course at the time was in France, or Patrick Henry, who wasn't there either) ideas of what the US goverment should be in many ways -- unlike the previous one as I said it has a very strong central government. Conservative idea. Several branches, with a balance of power... compromise to keep the big and small states, and the liberals and conservatives, happy, as each branch was different... the House, for the people with its 2 year terms; the Senate, elected by state legislatures and with 6-year terms; the President, elected by the Electoral College elected by the states (not sure if it was by popular sufferage (of white male landowners) or by the state legislatures at first though); and the Judicial branch, appointed by the President or Congress and having life terms.

What they did was form a much stronger form of government than the liberals who started the Revolution wanted... right on the edge of what the people would accept, because the people by that point had been liberalized (at the start it was 1/3 pro revolt, 1/3 neutral, and 1/3 Tory, but the latter group was gotten rid of obviously after the independance). Showing that this more centralized and stronger form of government (that kept the people farther away from power, a key idea for 18th century elites like the Framers) was needed was important... what we got from that was the Federalist Papers, a very well done defence of capitalistic democracy.

"did everything possible to limit the power and scope of government"? Depends on what you mean. If you mean that they limited government powers? Somewhat... but yes that was more the liberals, who insisted on the Bill of Rights be added on. Actually the Bill of Rights at the Convention was mentioned and it was promised that it would be the first thing done once the new government was formed. That did limit governmental options with things like freedom of speech and no quartering of troops and the idea that you can't be forced to incriminate yourself. But liberals did that, not conservatives, who would have probably rather not had them, or had them in a more limited form... I know Hamilton, the pentultimate American (well he was actually born in the West Indies, but moved to the Colonies when he was young) Conservative, made us pay our debt off (because he knew that we could not start off in debt, it'd ruin any chance of our nation's success), and what he really wanted was a monarchy. And as for the Constitution what it actually did overall was make a form of government not as strong as a monarchy but far, far stronger than the Articles -- a good middle ground that still was one of the most liberal governments in the world but now was one that this elite could support.

I could go on for some time, but I think you get the picture...