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"A lot of Americans believe that the American “Founders” created a system that automatically fixes itself. They talk about the “balance of powers,” and think that it will always save them from a tyrant. The balanced powers of the US Constitution, however, were trashed within fifteen years and doubly-trashed just a century ago.
In the Constitution, the states balanced the power of the national government (the one now in Washington, DC.)."
The 17th Amendment is one act in particular that illustrates how easily people can be deceived and convinced to support that which is not actually in their best interests to support. As the story goes, the founders were wrong, and it should be the people, through popular elections, who decide who their Senators are! Power to the people! (Cheers and applause from the people). The founders were not wrong at all ... the wisdom driving this method of appointing Senators by each state legislature had a valuable purpose that was lost with the 17th.
The reality is, those wealthy monied interests who would like to control the US Senate through campaign finance donations, hit the jackpot with the 17h Amendment, as now one need only influence and control a slight majority ... say 52 out of 100 Senators, in order to control the entire US Senate, and hence, the entire national legislative agenda, by helping elect those 52 Senators of their choosing. Prior to the 17th, when each state legislature appointed their two senators to represent the state's interests in congress, it was virtually impossible for those wealthy interests to manipulate the system by financing the campaigns of a majority of the many state representatives making up those 50 state legislatures, in order to see that they would appoint the Senators sympathetic to their interests, rather than the interests of the state and the people of that state.
Even in the days when the constitution was being drafted, there were two sides jockeying for dominance ... the side whose leanings were toward a much stronger national government, and those who wanted very limited national government, with each state maintaining the maximum level of it's sovereignty, ceding only those powers to the national government that were necessary to successfully fulfill it's purpose, and no more than that. So, the desire to wrest more and more power away from the states existed from day one, and was an ongoing effort.
Nothing has produced more damage to the country and the people, than this complete fraud perpetrated by the federal government that keeps grabbing more and more unconstitutional powers. And the US Supreme Court, rather than being a roadblock to this power grab, has become accomplice, as they so often ignore the original intent of the laws they "interpret", by re-interpreting the language of the constitution to fit political agendas.
Under the original scenario, those monied interests would only need to influence a handful of state legislators.
And those monied interests did. conservatives seem to reject American history.
History to conservatives seems to be just propaganda that is apart of some neat narrative that spans American history. Of course human behavior and human history can't and don't fit into neat categories to justify current policy positions or some modern political ideology.
Sadly American conservatives truly seem to believe that this is possible, and this need for a historical narrative that runs throughout American history that supports their modern political ideology clouds the understanding of history.
The best part about that whole topic is that people are paying money to these rip-off artists in order to learn about theories that if practiced will get them thrown in jail. Which they will blame everyone else but themselves for. It's people paying money in order to inflict financial and legal pain on themselves.
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