Beck is "declaring war" on the "very bad" progressive movement

I understand your position. I was only making the point that I hope there is only a small group of Americans who can be so easily fooled.

You're technically the one making it. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin were all against slavery. I suppose you have some witty liberal comeback about how Jefferson couldn't be against slavery while owning slaves. Go ahead. Make the argument so we can continue this debate.

True, an income tax was instituted during the Civil War. Lincoln didn't abide by the constitution during the war. Many favorable Lincoln biographers identified him as a benevolent dictator because of his many unconstitutional acts. He suspended habeus corpus among many other things. There were attempts by members of Congress ( in most instances it was Republicans advocating it -- the Whigs, Federalists, and Republicans were the ones advocating a large central government in the 19th century)) to establish a federal income tax, but they were all shot down under the grounds that it was unconstitutional. That is why it took a constitutional amendment to adopt it. There was nothing in Article 1, Section 8 that gave power to the federal government to adopt an income tax before the enactment of the 16th amendment.

Today, absent the 16th amendment, advocates for an income tax wouldn't even bother with the pretense that they needed to change the Constitution to adopt an income tax. They would just absurdly claim that the general Welfare clause allowed for it, and the Supreme Court would rubber stamp it. This is because we don't strictly interpret our Original Constitution. Our Courts, congressmen, and Presidents just decide what they think it ought to mean. Changing the Constitution through the amendment process is messy and hard - - it's just so much easier to change it through an oligarchy of the Courts. We might just as well be governed by a blank sheet of paper. Why should any of us expect a branch of the central government, the Supreme Court, to limit the power of the federal government to its constitutionally enumerate powers when every branch, including the Court, will benefit from a consolidation of power at the federal level? As the cliche goes - - it's like letting the rooster guard the henhouse.

I appreciate your respectful posts raddave. It's a nice change of pace for this site. The 17th amendment has done a lot of harm though. Remember that the federal government and the Constitution were creations of the states. The first line of the Constitution, We the People, was originally proposed to be We the States. The Founders set up a central government that was intended to be part federalist/part nationalist in design -- they did not give us a national government. They feared a heavily centralized national government because of their own experiences under the British mercantalist system. As an aside, Hamilton ( John Adams as well) was a great fan of a heavily centralized national government, but his plan was shot down at the Constitutional Convention.

It might help to know that the very word congress in the 19th century meant a gathering of countries. This is exactly how the original states viewed themselves -- as a gathering of sovereign countries contemplating organizing into a federated system. The states were especially jealous of their sovereignty and were very wary of ceding a lot of power to the federal government. Article 1, Section 8 gave the federal government all of its enumerated powers and was intended to lace the central government up tightly.

The Founders also feared direct democracy which some of them went so far as to declare mob rule. After all, in a true direct democracy, can we allow five wolves and one sheep to vote on what they will have for dinner? That is why they gave us a representative republic that was democratic, but limited the wild impulses of a sometimes ill-informed public. The executive branch is chosen through an electoral college system and the Senate was designed to represent the interests of the individual states. The House of Representatives, on the other hand, is elected directly by a plurality of the people and is, consequently, called the people's house.

The U.S. Senators from the states were seen as ambassadors ( this is the language that our Founder's used) from the states to the federal government. They were chosen by state legislatures. The Founders reasoning for this was that the state legislatures(which were directly elected by the people) would be more knowledgeable than the average citizen and would consequently vote with better judgment. The Senate was seen as a check on the House which would frequently act more rashly.

The other reason for our Founder's decision to have Senators appointed by the states was that if a Senator were to vote on a piece of legislation that transferred state power to the federal government, then he would be removed from office very quickly. If a Senator were to vote favorably upon a piece of legislation that was outside of the Constitution's clearly enumerated powers, then he faced the possibility (likelihood) of being removed. Always remember, the Founders viewed the Senators as ambassadors from the states to the federal government. This arrangement was intended to maintain state sovereignty within its own sphere while simultaneously keeping the central government in its limited sphere of power as well. This was an ingenious system that worked very well for well over a century.

The 17th Amendment changed this by allowing for a direct vote of Senators. A U.S. Senator now has every reason in the world to want to expand federal power at the expense of state and local governments. The increased consolidation of power in the central government works to a Senator's advantage because that means more power has accrued to him personally as well. It helps them in their rent-seeking efforts as well. Most of the American people are completely oblivious to our Founder's original construction and they completely misapprehend the nature of the the current structure of government - - if they think about it at all.

We now have U.S. Senators who raise the majority of their campaign contributions (bribes? protection money?) from outside of their own states. Senators form Iowa, Rhode Island and Montana spend a great deal of their time at fundraisers in New York and California because that's where the money is. This could have never happened under the old, rational system of selecting Senators. There was corruption under that old system too, but it expanded exponentially under the new Senatorial election system.

It is not a coincidence that the central government has exploded in size and scope since the 17th Amendment was enacted. The 16th Amendment and the Federal Reserve System are the funding mechanisms for the Leviathan State -- all of these things were brought into existence at the height of the Progressive movement around 1914..

I am heartened that you acknowledge that the Founders set up a system that created a federated central government that was powerful within a very limited sphere. Most of the people on this site deny that or try to evade it. I appreciate your intellectual honesty.

In regard to your population argument, I would posit that a system of government is either rational or it's not. If it can work for 1 million, it will work for 1 billion. Much of what the federal government is doing can be done by state governments or local governments. Who is likely to be more responsive to you: some far off Senator in D.C. or local officials. You may not always get what you want from state or local governments, but they are much more likely to be responsive to you than some representative in D.C.

Some of what the federal government does (the welfare state, for instance) would best be handled by individuals acting in a civil society. That is exactly how our ancestors did it to such great effect.

I don't think in terms of political parties; I think in terms of ideas and principles that are immutable. If a person finds the objective truth, then it is the truth in antiquity or a 1,000 years from now. I think our Founders came very close to the truth by history's test, but we have strayed far from that original path.