Quote of the day—Charles R. Kesler

Under present circumstances, the American constitutional future seems to be approaching some kind of crisis—a crisis of the two Constitutions. Let us pray that we and our countrymen will find a way to reason together and to compromise, allowing us to avoid the worst of these dire scenarios—that we will find, that is, the better angels of our nature.

Charles R. Kesler
October 2018
America’s Cold Civil War
[A pleasant call for peace. Unfortunately for our future no further compromise is tolerable for those whose vision of the constitution is the original intent. If we compromise further, and probably even if we fail to turn back the existing compromises, we will sink into a socialist hellhole.—Joe]

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14 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Charles R. Kesler

  1. I am sick and tired of listening to calls for ‘compromise and bipartisanship’; this is the reason we find ourselves in our current position, it’s how we got to where we are now. It is a failure to understand the basic nature of the enemy [and leftists/progressives are the enemy of individual freedom]; they are incrementalists, they way overreach, but then compromise is reached and still they advance the ball in the direction of ‘Marxism/progressiveness’; and liberty is continually eroded. Unfortunately I don’t see a way out this conundrum, mainly because our ‘Leaders’ don’t have any principles other than their own self interest, and people continually avoid conflict which in the end will only make the resolution of these two opposing world views even more violent.

  2. I don’t see a peaceful future. There is no “crisis of two constitutions”. There is the one Constitution and one only. And there are those who want to abide by that and those who want to destroy it. If things keep going the way they are the U.S. will become another Europe and the globalist elites will be one step closer to their goal.

  3. “The two Constitutions”?!?! WTF? I only remember ONE Constitution with 27 Amendments! Leftist/Progressive/Socialist idea of “compromise” is that they stake out an extreme position, harangue the opposition, and “settle” for 98% of their goal, then go after the remaining 2% in the next round. F ’em.

    • What was the joke about the Ayatollahs Kerry “negotiated with” to reach the “no nukes treaty” with Iran?
      The Ayatollahs said, “Death to all Americans.”
      Kerry replied, “Can we meet halfway?”

      And Haranguing the opposition until they yield is what I call “Argumentum Ad Nauseum”, or perhaps “Argumentum ad Fatigare”. The 153rd modern logical fallacy, if you will.

  4. He leaves out what to me is the most viable option-a negotiated partition. I think he considers it a variety of secession given the comments about the Czech Republic and Slovakia but it is different. That is partition while the Confederacy, Biafra, and Yugoslavia (initially) were secession. Sometimes partition doesn’t work out great (see India/Pakistan) but it has a better chance than secession. Partition also tends not to work when one side hasn’t given up dreams of dominance over the whole (Vietnam). Both however are better than hot civil war.

    • Curious… what do you speculate it would take for a negotiated partition to work for the US?

      • Think of it as a divorce
        Split the property, make a deal about the kids and go your separate ways. All divorces are painful, some are bitter but few end in a shootout

        • Except, of course, that you don’t – can’t – split the kids apart at the DNA level.

          That’s the rough equivalent of the situation in this country; at high resolution it’s a person-by-person thing. But even on the county level, few if any states are 100% red or 100% blue. How do you divide that without either extreme Balkanization, or disenfranchisement of a decent fraction of the population?

  5. In agreeing with most of the commentators here, I would like to make a couple of important points:

    1. Compromise only results in demands for more compromise.

    Question: When have the Liberty grabbers ever compromised?

    2. We will avoid an open conflict because we are armed. That is why the nation’s Socialist-Left obsesses over the precursor to gun confiscation – Intergalactic Background Checks.

    3. The nation’s Socialist-Left has made it clear they want gun confiscation. They have made this demand over 70 times in the past few years – with the rate accelerating with each exploitable tragedy.

    https://noqreport.com/2018/10/05/list-leftists-demanding-gun-confiscation-updated-sep-2018/

    4. The nation’s Socialist-Left has ‘nuked’ it’s own argument over guns – thanks to Eric Swalwell.

    It is now a debate within the context of the Left’s demand for confiscation – always keep that in mind.

  6. Pingback: Quote of the day—Harvey Milk | The View From North Central Idaho

  7. I just wrote an article that might shed additional light to the above expressed angst and so share:
    Suggested guest op-ed
    ###############################
    POLITICAL FACTIONS AND THE 17TH AMENDMENT
    By Michael J. Geanoulis, Sr.
    Anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the reasons for Washington gridlock should examine the warnings about factions most eloquently articulated by James Madison in his Federalist #10 (1787).
    Madison tried his level best to ensure long term success for the newly hatched United States. His efforts included a thorough investigation into the history of failure for democracies in Europe which included a written request to Thomas Jefferson, then in France pursuing support for our new nation, to send him a few books on the topic. Equally motivated by profound concern and dedication, Jefferson responded with a shipment of two crates of such books. Knowing Madison like I think I do, I have little doubt that he studied them all in detail. Who else but Madison; and how else in the absence of his magnificent example of devotion and concern, could we have discovered the primary reason for the decline of Athenian democracy in ancient times: faction.
    As defined by Webster, faction is “a party or group (as within a government) that is often contentious or self-seeking.” Madison states, “These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.”
    Factions originate from all sides. They can be fostered by the minority or the majority; the former easily squelched if not designed for the common good; the latter potentially violent, dangerous, adverse to the rights of others, and adverse to the liberty that, oxymoronically, facilitates them. They can permanently damage the aggregate interests of the community; and they can be mischievous, divisive, sinister, and wicked. Permanent damage? Wicked? Wow.
    There you have it, Madison’s 10th in a nutshell. All of those adjectives came from Madison’s pen. I cribbed them all to make sure, given what I’ve discovered about America’s inclination to study its own history, that you understand the gravity of it.
    Even in his time Madison groused that “our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”
    Knowing that counterproductive factions cannot be eliminated in a free society, Madison and his colleagues sought to reduce their adverse influence by installing a government complete with every manner of countervailing representation which included three branches (Executive, Legislative and Judicial); a bicameral lower/upper House/Senate for the legislature; a Bill of Rights, the first article of which sidestepped religious factions by providing that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion; and control of the senate by state legislatures to keep citizens at arm’s length from the legislative process. Tocqueville considered that last as a stroke of political genius (Democracy in America, 1835).
    Virtue and integrity have little standing with sinister factions, rich and poor alike; the most noxious of which came from elites in a Supreme Court ruling that gave tacit approval for one person to own another–Madison’s constitution, replete with so many words about freedom and equality for all, notwithstanding (Dred Scott decision, 1857).
    Close behind that elite example in factious contempt came the populists of the lower classes who removed control of the senate from state legislatures by way of an amendment that gave the people closer control over the legislative process and the unequal distribution of property (17th amendment, effective May, 1913). Populists (aka socialists) wanted no more of the double election formula for the senate.
    Both the House of Representatives and the Senate are lower houses now thanks to a forgotten amendment that more easily facilitated factious income tax laws, foreign entanglements, forever wars, family decay and debt-riddled entitlement programs of every description which I explore in greater detail in my memoir (The Big Gorge, 2018).
    Madison and his colleagues underestimated the power of determined factions. I’d bet my improperly funded social security account that if they knew then what we know now, they would have considered making it much more difficult to reconstruct our once beloved government and included a clause providing that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of selective benevolence.” Matters of public health, education and welfare could be handled more efficiently by the state and its people as provided for in the 10th amendment.
    Let’s pray we will rediscover and preserve the genius of our founders, soonest.
    ##################################
    Submitted by Mike Geanoulis, PO Box 45, New Castle, N.H. 03854
    Text/Tel 603 436 8810 email: geanoulis@comcast.net
    [Note: This I release with no strings. Do with it as you wish. Thanks to Kesler and the rest of you for being there.
    Please consider reviewing my memoir: “The Big Gorge: Fragile Families, Precious Memories and a Concerned Father’s Prayers for our Future.” It is available at Amazon.com.
    Finally, one of those you-wont-know-unless-you-ask suggestions to all those editors/publishers out there: Consider publishing, in its entirety, Madison’s (most popular) Federalist Paper #10 which he anonymously signed as, Publius (3300 words.]

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