Mar 01 2010
Well, at the insistence of Don E. Chute (he used CAPS AND EVERYTHING!), I took the Nolan Chart Quiz. I think I had taken this a year ago, maybe. I see that my views haven’t changed one bit, thank you very much.
I am NOT a Libertarian, however. I hate it when quizzes marginalize you into a colorful section on a graph. 
I do not believe that we should legalize (or encourage) pornography, pot-smoking, “escort” services, polygamy, and blaspheming activities. I think society has every right to ban these activities as unwholesome to a nation and society. (By the way, I am an American history scholar who has read and studied the Constitution and the writings of the Founding Fathers, and they believed the same thing!).
ANYWAY. So the Nolan Chart says I’m a Libertarian. When I’m not.
What I am is a Federalist, for lack of a better word. Read The Federalist Papers: that’s what I believe. I believe in a federal government for the purpose of unification, and defense, and world trade. AND THAT’S IT.
Everything else– all powers not given to the federal government by the Constitution nor prohibited by the States, are GIVEN TO WE THE PEOPLE.
Oh gee, that has a familiar ring to it. *gasp* 
Could this possibly be the Tenth Amendment?! Why, yes, boys and girls, it IS!
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Well, the next question to be asked is: Do we still retain the original form of representative government given to use by the founders?
And boys and girls– we do not. The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the Patriot Act. Sorry, we no longer have a Constitutional republic. What a shell game. We can’t do anything anymore without the federal government breathing down our necks: get a job, cash a check, use our transportation, make a phone call, have a baby.
But even before that blasted “Act,” something else radically altered our form of government 100 years previously; it was when the Progressive idjits in government CHANGED state representation to have senators elected by popular vote instead of state legislatures. This occurred in 1913 (gee, the same year as the Federal Reserve Act and Income Tax– those Progressives SURE were busy, weren’t they?). Hello, there was a REASON that the Founders included the state legislatures the way they did– to make sure that the larger states (which had higher population and more urban centers which are the renowned bastions of wicked sinners) did not control the entire federation. It was called the New Jersey Plan, written by William Paterson. You see, back THEN, the states cared about equal representation.
Since the Progressive tyrants have eliminated that check and balance, our nation is basically controlled by the big (liberal) states: Florida, New York, California, and Texas. Even though all the states still retain two senators per state, the state legislatures themselves have lost their representation in the federation, therefore allowing the federal government to usurp power more readily (in such things as education, eminent domain, mandated and/or unfunded social programs, government-funded home insurance quotes, blah blah, etc).
So that was really the beginning of the end, 1913.
Back to the Nolan Chart. Those quizzes are meaningless. I think they have good intentions, but they are meaningless because the people who REALLY know what American government is all about are going to be marginalized, as I was. These quizzes don’t truly represent the original intent of our form of government. Why are we tut-tutting about health care and Social Security?! The larger issue is that the federal government has totally usurped power. Why isn’t that part of the discussion? 
Why aren’t we spending our time defending the Constitution and Bill of Rights, instead of bickering over government HMOs and Granny’s pension and whether the government can allow teenagers to kill off their unborn babies?
Politics always gets me worked up. Good gravy. 
I feel so much better. I haven’t had a rant like this in, gee, three or four days! Thanks, Don. 
I just HATE to admit to prospect that shopping there gives me inspiration. Noooooo it cannot be! It gives me diarrhea, not inspiration! 
)
