Government – Iron Ink

Government Class review and assignments — 11-14-2016

Assignments

Remember the assignments given in class

Next two chapters in Carson for reading.
Presentation — Brogan-Griffin first chapter for the week
Presentation — Becca and Carter second chapter for the week

Vocabulary

pulchritudinous
abstemious
abstruse
aesthetic
bumptious
bohemian
circumlocution
debonair
cupidity
coquettish

Notes from Lecture

I.) Elecotral College

A.) How number of elecotral votes for each state is reckoned

B.) Presidential election night = 50 elections… not 1

Unity in diversity
Illustration — Baseball Season … 1960 World Series (Yankees vs. Pirates)

C.) Challenges to the electoral College

Pure democracy

D.) Founders opinion on pure democracy

E.) 17th amendment and pure democracy

How the election of Senators worked prior to 17th amendment

F.) Who gets to be President if there is an Elecotral college tie or no one gets a majority?

1.) Historical examples

1800 — Jefferson vs. Burr
1824 — Jackson vs. John Q. Adams vs. Henry Clay vs. Crawford

2.) House’s role
3.) Senate’s role

G.) Who gets to be President if the President elect dies before the Electors meet?

H.) Who gets to be President if the President elect dies after the Electors meet?

I.) Popular vote Win… Electoral college loss

Five times a candidate has won the popular vote and lost the election. Andrew Jackson in 1824 (to John Quincy Adams); Samuel Tilden in 1876 (to Rutherford B. Hayes); Grover Cleveland in 1888 (to Benjamin Harrison); Al Gore in 2000 (to George W. Bush); Hillary Clinton in 2016 (to Donald J. Trump)Looking at Tilden vs. Hayes — 1876
“Old 13-12”
Rutherfraud
The deal

J.) Why Electoral College review

II.) Turning the ins out

A.) Economic downturn
B.) Major foreign policy blunder
C.) Division in the party
D.) Major corruption of party in power

Hi Pastor, here is the condensed note from last class.

Different Kinds of Government:
Head of Decision Power Rule Political
state Maker source length Freedom

Military Dictator: Dictator Dictator Military Indefinite determined
by dictator

Full Monarchy: Monarch Monarch Hereditary Death Determined by monarch

Oligarchy: Small Small
Group Group $$$$ Death Small group

Republic: President Checks + Constit- Term Bill of Rights
Balances ution limit

Full Democracy: n/a Majority Majority n/a Determined by Majority

Anarchy: n/a n/a n/a When gov. Determined by everyone
est.

Communism: Dictator Dictator Seizing Indefinite Determined by Dictator
power

Corporatism: Corp. heads Corp. heads $$$$ ”

Confederacy= many states who want to make a general gov. for a few enumerated and delegated powers

Constitutional Monarchy= When monarch is limited by law

Theocracy is an INESCAPABLE category

Socialism= Takeover by evolution, when the economy is planned by the government, gov. is God

How A Bill Becomes Law:

1. The bill begins as an idea

2. It gains a sponsor, usually a sen. and a rep.

3. Bill is introduced, starts in house

4. Goes to committee

5. Bill is reported in the House (for impeachment, 2/3 vote is required for conviction. Senate becomes jury, tried by president. some of House of Representatives as attorneys.)

6. Bill is debated in the House, can be amended

7. The Senate repeats steps 4-6, sometimes put in a drawer

8. Debated again, goes back to House (sometimes with amendments)

9. If the House does not like amendments, the bill goes to a conference committee of both Sen. and Reps., decide on compromise, if approved goes to president

10. Goes to president, either signs it, veto, or pocket veto. Both the Senate and the House together can override a veto with 2/3 vote.

____________

Locate these elements in the US Gov’t and briefly explain how they function as such

Monarchy
Aristocracy
Democracy

2.) Total # of Electoral Votes in College

3.) Total # Electoral Votes need by a Presidential candidate to win

4.) Total # of Representatives in US House

5.) Total # of Senators in US Senate

6.) Total # of SCOTUS

7.) Senate has the responsibility to advise and consent on Presidential appointments to SCOTUS

8.) Turning the ins out (4)

9.) Briefly define the purpose of the Electoral College

10.) Briefly explain why theocracy is an inescapable category

11.) T F — It is possible to win the Presidency while losing the nation wide vote total.

12.) If this is possible name one example

The Divine Right of Judiciaries?

It was Samuel Rutherford in “Lex Rex,” who put a shimmy in the idea of the Divine Rights of Kings. This idea posited that as Kings were anointed by God none could gainsay their authority. When the King spoke it was ipso facto law. This was a Rex Lex (King is Law) model. Rutherford stood that on its head and insisted, to the contrary, that God’s law was King over Kings.

Over time the doctrine of the Divine Rights of Kings transmuted in England to, “Divine Rights of Parliament.” Actually, it was this thinking that the Colonialists in 1776 squared up against. English Parliament was acting in such a way that communicated that there was no authority above their authority. The Colonialists begged to differ.

You can even find epochs where some have argued that Presbyteries were acting like they believed in a doctrine we might call “the Divine Right of Presbytery.” John Milton complained once that, “New presbyter is but old priest writ large.” He was complaining about the instinct of Presbyters to invest themselves with “The Divine Right of Presbytery.”

Now we are living in a time when we have to put up with this old idea but now as invested in our Courts. We have arrived at a doctrine of “The Divine Rights of Judiciary.” Witness the Obergefell decision. No Federal legislative body has passed laws saying Marriage no longer means marriage and yet SCOTUS and its sycophants are insisting that a mere ruling from these Black Robed Clowns means that the States have to embrace their decision as if it has the force of law. It doesn’t. It’s their opinion and that is all it is.

Even if a Federal Legislative body codified not-marriage as marriage that wouldn’t make it legal. It is not possible for legislation that seeks to legislate non-reality into existence to be legitimate. Legislation that calls a cow-pie, a jelly-roll doesn’t make it a jelly-roll. And legislation that calls perversity “marriage” doesn’t and can’t make it marriage.

Inasmuch as many many of our Institutions have rebelled against God’s Law and have rebelled against the “Divine Right of God,” in that much we no longer owe these usurpers our obedience.

The Subterfuge of Lincoln’s 1st Inaugural Address … Part 3

L – 1st – I

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was “to form a more perfect Union.”

Bret untangles,

Lincoln is giving us poetry here and not reason and he depended upon the poetry to create a sentiment that was not examined by rationality.

Looked at closely Lincoln is arguing here that the whole (the Union) is older than the document that gave birth to the whole. Lincoln ignores that the Unions formed by each successive document was a different Union then the Union that preceded it. The Union shaped by the Articles of Association was a different Union as birthed by the Declaration of Independence was different than the Union formed by the Articles of Confederation was different from the Union formed in 1787. The fact that these were different Unions is established by the fact that different bylaws governed each Union. Each document gave birth to a different Union even though the parties might have been the same.

If the same 13 people enter into different contracts several times the Union of those 13 people is a different Union each time as dependent upon the new contract they enter into each time. Each new Union obviates the previous one and creates a new Union.

Lincoln is clearly in error when he says that the Union preceded the Constitution. He may have been correct if he had said, “a series of Unions preceded the Constitution.” For Lincoln the same mystical presence was always present to inhabit whatever new union was struck upon. He needed this idea to advance his duplicitous purposes.

The Union was not older than the Constitution that formed it.

2.) Even the idea of forming “a more perfect Union,” implies that there was a previous Union that this new and different Union supplants that was less perfect than this new and different Union now newly and uniquely formed by the Constitution.

Major Kudos for Lincoln’s ability to take an absurd idea and turn it into a poetry that still convinces people. If I am ever to be judged by a jury of my peers I’d want someone with Lincoln’s ability with the use of language to conceal to represent me.

L – 1st – I

But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

Bret deconstructs,

1.) Of course the first paragraph depends upon Lincoln’s idea that “The Union” preceded the Constitution and that has already been dismissed as unfounded and novel. Remember “The Union” is Lincoln’s mystical poetic entity. There was no “The Union.” There was only a series of Unions. Lincoln assumes what he has not proven except by magical linguistic hocus pocus.

2.) No where in any of the documents mentioned is there any idea that eternal perpetuity is a mark of approaching perfection.

3.) Touching the second paragraph above,

Once again, that the South was in insurrection and revolution was only true if one assumes that Lincoln was correct. On the contrary, if one assumes that secession is legal (as we have demonstrated) then insurrection and revolution is what that which Lincoln and the North were guilty. The North was guilty of insurrection and revolution against the Constitution.

4.) Keep in mind that Lincoln here is saying that the authority of the United States is pre-eminent over the authority of the States which created the Federal Government in keeping with very precise delegated and enumerated powers. This is like saying a co-op, created by a group of 13 pair of parents, delegated only with the task of litter clean up has the authority to tell certain parents they can’t opt out of the co-op once the co-op has determined that the co-op is responsible, without amendment of the original co-op agreement, the role of telling the parents how to raise their children.

5.) We would not that in that second paragraph above Lincoln is putting the case as emphatically as George III and his ministers formulated the law when dealing with the original thirteen colonies. If Lincoln is right here then the original thirteen colonies were in insurrection and revolution when they departed England.

L -1st – I

I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.

Bret responds,

1.) Obviously, the “Laws of the Union” can not extend to those who no longer were in the Union.

2.) Lincoln’s implied threat here is that he will pin the Union together by bayonet if the South does not come to heel. Lincoln indeed was good on his threat but the nation he saved from disunion was a different nation then before he “saved” it.

The Subterfuge of Lincoln’s 1st Inaugural Address … Part 1

I have a young friend who was recently challenged about his decided animosity towards Abraham Lincoln, especially in regards to Lincoln’s first Inaugural address. I told him I would analyze Lincoln’s 1st Inaugural in order to see through Lincoln’s sleight of hand and dis-ingenuousness. I will not be examining the complete address but just what I think are the points where Mr. Lincoln was playing the three card Monte with his dissembling lawyer language.

I am greatly helped here by Edgar Lee Master’s, “Lincoln The Man.” A biography I highly recommend to get a balanced view of Lincoln.
______________________

Lincoln’s First Inaugural (here after, L-1st-I)

“Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

Bret Responds,

1.) There was more than reasonable cause for the South to have cause for apprehension.

a.) First, there was Republican Seward’s own “Irrepressible Conflict” speech. Seward, a favored Republican Presidential hope in his own right was tabbed as Lincoln’s Sec. State. In the aforementioned 1858 speech Seward had offered,

“It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free-labor nation.”

This kind of language would have given Southerners more than reasonable cause to fear a Republican administration.

b.) However, it was not merely Lincoln’s subalterns from whom the South had reasonable cause to fear a Republican administration. Lincoln’s own “House Divided” speech would have given ample evidence that a Republican administration would be a threat to the Southern way of life. In that 1858 speech Lincoln offered,

“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.

Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.

In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new –North as well as South.”

This speech belied Mr. Lincoln’s statement that he had no inclination to interfere with the institution of slavery.

2.) Notice an important nuance in the Lincoln speech above. Lincoln says, “I have no intention to interfere with the Institution of Slavery in the states where it exists.” Any bright Southerner hearing this would have easily heard, “I do have intention to interfere with the Institution of Slavery in the new would be states (Kansas) where it does not exist.” Southerners, who revered the Constitution would have known that Lincoln had no Constitutional authority to do that and so had just cause for apprehension in Lincoln’s occupation of the oval office.

Given all the *un-constitutional measures that Lincoln would soon undertake it is easy to see that the Southerners, not believing Lincoln’s specious assurances from his 1st Inaugural, were indeed justified in their mistrust.

*Addendum

1.) On April 15, Lincoln called up the militia from all of the states to put into the field an army of more than 75,000 men. The Constitution puts this power with the Congress: Article I, Section 8, sets forth the powers of Congress: “To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections….”

2.) Also on April 15, Lincoln called Congress into session, as required by the Constitution for “extraordinary Occasions,” but delayed the meeting of Congress almost three months and during those three months Lincoln acted unconstitutionally and dictatorially in preparation for war.

3.) On April 21, he ordered the purchase of war materials, five naval vessels, which under the Constitution required congressional appropriations.

4.) Also on April 21 he ordered the navy to blockade all Southern ports. A blockade is an act of war, requiring the resolution of Congress.

5.) On April 27, he suspended the right of habeas corpus. Under the Bill of Rights, a person cannot be charged with a crime except by an indictment from a grand jury, nor can a person be convicted except by a jury of fellow civilians. No military trial of civilians was permitted, or so said the Constitution.

Because of this over 10,000 citizens were arrested and kept in Lincoln prisons without charge and / or trial.

6.) And of course there was the countless violations of the 1st amendment “Freedom of the Press” that the Lincoln Administration would soon transgress. Instance after instance of burning down Newspapers that wrote contrary to his “truth,” or alternately the wrecking of printing presses that refused to print Lincoln propaganda.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Son …

“… Israel assumed that the messianic king would be a political ruler and world conqueror, so that it equated the Kingdom of God with an historical state, a greater and world-wide Rome, as it were. The idea of government was equated with the state. This equation was radically pagan. In pagan antiquity as today, the state was seen as a divine-human order, and as the over-all lord and sovereign. In such a view, all things have their being within the jurisdiction and only with the approval of the sovereign state. Religion, art, family, school, and all things else are departments of the state and cannot be allowed to exist in independence of it. The state thus usurps the over-lordship of God and becomes God on earth. No area of freedom can exist outside the state: freedom becomes a privilege granted by the state and subject to its conditions.

Christianity, by asserting the supreme lordship of Christ over Caesar and all other human institutions, reduced the state to its Biblical dimensions, as a ministry of justice (Rom. 13:1-6).”

R.J. Rushdoony; pg 70, IBL II.

I am writing this out of frustration in seeing many people view Donald Trump as the president that will make America great again. In truth, as per the quote above, we will not be able to reform or make America great again (if it ever was great) through the civil realm. In point of fact, when we look to that area of government to create reform and to restructure areas where they do not belong, we are engaging in not only a pagan thought, but a Talmudic pagan thought. I will call people’s attention to where Jesus told Peter, after he had struck the ear off the high priest’s servant, “those who live by the sword, die by the sword.” If Rushdoony is correct in the above passage, which I believe is obvious, then a proper understanding of this passage would be that those who look to the state, die by the state, as the state’s administrative role has always been the sword. If Peter was faulted for expecting our Lord Jesus Christ to be a political savior (for lack of a better term), how much more are Christians to be faulted for expecting reform to come from someone who believes or would use the civil realm to dominate every other sphere. Therefore, as Christians, we are not allowed, per God’s law and Christ’s command, to advocate, vote, or participate in any function that furthers the state being used or seen as political savior, for that would be burning incense to Caesar.

So what must we do then, as there is no candidate and will be no candidate that is running on a platform of removing civil government intrusion? Should we not participate in the civil government functions at all? Certainly not. I believe we should do as God has commanded and not only obey Him by tithing to a faithful repository of the Church, but tithing to a faithful repository of the civil government. And by this, I do not mean the taxes we pay to the usurpers in the civil government. (The method you used to prevent that thievery is something I will leave up to conscience.) However, we as God’s people are still required to tithe to a faithful civil government. If none is in existence, then we should set the money aside as sacred and holy to the Lord until the time we can form or find one. Yes, I am suggesting to do as God commands and, like Gideon, send all the hosts away so that there are only three hundred men remaining. It is not the horse or the strength of men that win the battle, but it is the strength of God, and He has given us set rules and commands, though they may seem small or insignificant, they are much more powerful than any false vote for a king. God is the omnipotent ruler, and if we look for reform, we must look to Him and His laws, and first apply them in our lives so that people may say who is this and what God do they serve?

If the Scripture is not enough, we can look to history and see what the early Christians did by setting up their own courts, and their own judgment halls, and abiding by them, so in the end the political savior had to accept their dominance of that sphere or face internal destruction.

In summary, we should not let our emotions become entangled with any political savior who seeks to rescue us through the use of civil government. We should not consider the money stolen from us in taxes to be the tithe that the Lord has commanded us to give to the state. If we engage in either of these practices, we run the danger of facing the Deuteronomic curses. We should set aside money to a faithful civil government so that the Lord’s commands might be obeyed, and His promised blessings received. For God is the omnipotent sovereign, and though the nations conspire against Him and His people, He will laugh at them in scorn and run the threshing wheel over them, causing them to be chaff in the wind. As He has promised, so it will be.

Anthony McAtee