PeterZ wrote:The same the Oxford Dictionary defines it; the supreme power or authority.


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Eyal
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As has been noted, most Wuropean constitutions define the state's authority as flowing from the people.
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Daryl
Posts: 3610
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Australians are getting a laugh from a clip of a US Fox show, where they seriously discuss how we have "a bit less gun violence" (actually 1/29 per head of population), but at the expense of having "lost our freedom", from the same argument as PeterZ states. By any overall measure we are at least as free as US citizens, and as many here have argued with examples most developed countries are actually freer.
It is such a weird notion that we are amused rather than annoyed. As an example, although there are about 11 times as many yanks as aussies, at any time there are about the same total number touring the world. Apart from those in uniform invading some where. |
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thinkstoomuch
Posts: 2729
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Just curious. Do you have a cite for the number of tourists. Though I could take exception to the 30+ coutries I was a tourist for on Uncle Sam's dime. Funny how none of them were aware that sucking up dollars constituted "invasion". Looking forward to some stats, T2M -----------------------
Q: “How can something be worth more than it costs? Isn’t everything ‘worth’ what it costs?” A: “No. That’s just the price. ... Christopher Anvil from Top Line in "War Games" |
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PeterZ
Posts: 6432
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I would recommend that you read constitutions like that of the French or the Irish. The French Constitution specifically does NOT recognize the sovereignty of any group less than the entire citizenry. The Irish Constitution refers to this as "the will of the people". That means sovereignty is recognized as belonging to the corporate body of citizens not individuals. When the citizenry act in elections, they express their sovereignty. The US citizen is individually sovereign and in theory the government is prohibited from acting outside its specifically allowed parameters so that the individual may act as he chooses. If sovereignty does not belong to the individual but in the citizenry as a whole, government answers not to individuals but only to the outcomes of elections. Once elected, the agents in government decide how to apply their charge to protect and serve the citizenry. The agents decide what is best for the citizenry as a whole and individual rights or preferences are a secondary concern. The US was founded on the opposite premise. It might not be nearly as true now as it was at the founding, but individual sovereignty means government only does what the individual cannot or has allowed to government. That tradition still resonates with a great many US citizens. Understanding how our politics work without understanding that foundation and how deeply many people still hold that tradition to be true is impossible. |
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The E
Posts: 2704
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Let's look at some primary texts again! US Constitution, Preamble: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Please explain where individual sovereignty is established here. Please explain why this is fundamentally different to the various equivalent statements in other constitutions. Rhetorical flourishes aside, the legal and philosophical underpinnings of most modern constitutions are the same; Your claims that the US is singular in recognizing the individual as opposed to "the people" in aggregate do not seem to be founded in the actual text of the actual constitution. Further, let's look at the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Again, we find no mention of the individual. It's always "The People" from whom governmental power derives. Please enlighten us, PeterZ. Where, precisely, can we find a definitive declaration that the US government is based upon individual sovereignty? |
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PeterZ
Posts: 6432
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The 10th Amendment should clarify your own cites. Although what you cite pretty much declares what I have asserted. We the people establish and ordain this constitution. We the people order/decree this constitution. We have the authority and contract with each other to confer specific powers to our government.
The 10th specifically States that whatever powers are not specifically conferred to the Federal government is retained by the States or the people. Since We the People decreed the Constitution to begin with, the 10th is read that We the People retain whatever we choose not to confer to government. In other words we have the sovereignty to decree the Constitution which empowers government and to confer what limited powers we choose to confer and still retain the remainder of sovereignty. That is what we mean when we say our liberty. Its there for the reading, E.
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The E
Posts: 2704
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No, it really doesn't. You keep claiming that the US is alone in recognizing individual sovereignty, that the various formulations talking about the origins of power in other country's constitutions are somehow lesser. That is simply not the case. Even the 10th Amendment only talks about "the people" in aggregate, just like every other constitution on the planet that incorporates popular sovereignty.
That isn't what I was asking for. In an earlier post, you said this:
I have highlighted the relevant part. None of the documents defining the legal framework of the US include language to this effect. Yes, there are exclusionary passages (roughly equivalent to "rights not enumerated here are expressly reserved"). But that alone does not define a concept of individual sovereignty any more than the absence of such passages makes other countries' citizens less free. I would also refer you to United States vs Sprague, in which SCOTUS defined the 10th Amendment as a truism (as in, it doesn't add anything to the Constitution that wasn't present before). As such, the absence of similar formulations elsewhere does not mean what you think it means. |
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PeterZ
Posts: 6432
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No it does not. The God the Declaration refers to created numerous individuals with individual free will. That tradition is inherent in the concept of We the People. Reading the Preamble to assume the Founders did not recognize the individual relationship between God and His individual creations just silly. Whether people believe in god today or not is beside the point, the Founders did believe and defined their legal concepts by their belief.
Agreed, it adds nothing, nor does anything need adding. It simply clarifies that which might be overlooked. Just as you do here. The Declaration asserts that our Creator imbued his individual creations with certain inalienable rights. He did not imbue those rights to a group of people residing in the original US States or in some other group of people but in all people individually everywhere. Since any combination of people will have these inalienable rights, the rights are not a function of groupings or only manifest in an aggregate of some number more than one but exist in each individual. The Preamble takes that foundation and uses it to justify the Constitution and the limits associated with the Constitution. The 10th Amendment takes what the Preamble began and the rest of the Constitution builds upon and emphasizes the truism that whatever the Constitution did not grant to then Federal Government is retained by the individual and the States. To assert that the God granted rights the Constitution was established to protect only existed in the group of Americans in aggregate is to assume that either the Founders believed God gave Americans rights that He did not give anyone else or that the Founders believed individual citizens did not have the right to protect their own God given rights. Neither premise has any support and so the assertion is pure fancy. Reading our Founding documents to mean that we do not have individual sovereignty is simply ludicrous. The Founders simply did not view rights, responsibilities and the sovereignty associated with them as belonging to the collective We the People. The moral responsibility to act morally resides in the individual not some group and so the sovereignty to make those decisions resides in the individual not some group. So We the People individually accept the Constitution's limitations on our individual sovereignty and the attendant authority it grants the Federal Government and the States. |
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The E
Posts: 2704
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Oh for the love of kittens. NONE of the primary documents defining the relationship between the people of the United States and the Government of the US define a concept of individual sovereignty. It doesn't exist in that context. Sure, individual sovereignty is a philosophical concept important to the concept of popular sovereignty, but it is not a defined term in the context of the US constitution. It has no meaning in it. To be in any way relevant, they would need to be defined in here. They aren't. Thus your claim that this principle is not only somehow present in the US constitution, but also absent everywhere else is quite thoroughly debunked.
You know you just invalidated all your claims to the US being exceptional in this matter with that statement, right? Good.
This is what is commonly called the social contract. A concept which, unsurprisingly, is also present in every single society on this planet that implements popular sovereignty. Not that you actually need all this "God created us..." bullshit on top, of course. Again, once more: Please point out exactly where the US is singular in its recognition of individual sovereignty. Points will be awarded for scholarly articles (wikipedia will suffice). What will not suffice are differences in the specific terms of the social contract between cultures. Those are irrelevant to your claims. |
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MAD-4A
Posts: 719
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They also don't define the word "is" so that word has no meaning in them? Should there be a preamble that defines every word used in the document? It was a basic concept to those who wrote them. It is the very foundation of the Declaration-of-independence and the Constitution. The truth is that sovereignty was suppose to be held by each of the States individually. It was to be the power of the states to rule those under them and the power of the central government to ONLY arbitrate between the various states and foreign governments NOT the individual. That concept was the worst casualty of the war for southern independence (the US has, by definition, never actually had a "Civil War" only a failed war of independence). The individuals were suppose to be able to set up whatever form of government they wanted at the state level, if you didn't like it you can move to a state with a state government more to your liking and still remain an American. -
Almost only counts in Horseshoes and Nuclear Weapons. I almost got the Hand-Grenade out the window does not count. |
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