My View of #MAGA

We have a great country. That was proved on November 8 when millions of us - more than twelve million - went to the polls and, by a goodly majority of electoral votes, we effected a bloodless revolution. Now we have to deal with the future.

What can we do to truly Make America Great Again for all of us? From where I sit, there are a few things that would go a long way to not only making America stronger than it was, but keep it stronger for our future generations.

One YUGE thing popped into my awareness yesterday - our Constitution. It's been assaulted, again, by our own government, by someone who took an oath of office that declares, in part: "to uphold and defend the Constitution".

Secretary Kerry and President Obama signed a treaty with the United Nations that could, realistically, undermine our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. This treaty is intended to prevent the trade of arms "across state lines". The UN, at least publicly, says those lines belong to nation states. However, it is not at all difficult to extrapolate that "state line" component into individual American state lines.

This angers me. It angers me a lot because I happen to understand the brilliance of our Constitution.

It's a guideline, not a rule book, and it can be - if decided upon by the majority of American citizens and American states - be modified. However, and it's a big HOWEVER, it is not supposed to be something that can be undermined or weakened by a simple swipe of the pen by one person or a small group. Changes to the Constitution, such as gutting the Second Amendment, require ratification by thirty-eight of our fifty states.

Therefore, from where I sit, one challenge is how to guarantee that our Constitution and our sovereignty are protected from any such treaty in future? Simple, but not so easy:

Amendment Thirty-Four: No Administration, Department or Agency shall enter into any treaty that weakens or directly affects, negates or offsets any of the Amendments to this Constitution without achieving a two-thirds majority vote of the legal American electorate.

That wording is not as elegant as the preceding thirty-three amendments, but it covers the bases. It makes it harder for any Secretary of State or President, to sign away our sovereign rights to another entity - like the UN.

We've already had our First Amendment threatened. Earlier this year, the US gave up its control of the internet DNS - Domain Naming System - to the UN via the ICANN treaty. We haven't seen the change, yet. However, if the UN decides that internet "things" are getting out of control, what prevents them from shutting it down, or modifying the DNS access we currently enjoy to something unusable?

As it is now, if you type in a domain name, the DNS recognizes the link between the name and the IP address and directs you there, without you having to remember the TCP/IP string of ###.##.##.## which is convenient. However, let's say the UN's group that oversees the internet decides it doesn't like me and others like me who say what we think. Not all members of the UN like free speech. If they're in power, or heading up the internet group, what's to prevent them from meddling? This is something that should not have been turned over to another entity.

Going farther, because of the changes in society over the past two-hundred fifty years, we need to think hard about our approach to things. We need to look back and take measure of the best parts of the character and ethics of the men who wrote this document. We need to weigh their morals and values against ours (which, in my view are weak, at best). When it was written, they approached governance of America from the standpoints of:

The greater good - what is good for ALL of the citizens, not just for them and their cronies? There weren't lobbyists and the buying of access and power then as there is now.

Justice for all had meaning. It meant that the laws that affected the people would apply equally to them. There would be no different strokes for different folks as there is now - think of Hillary Clinton and her cabal. Do you really believe that if any one of us did one-one-millionth of what they've done we would get a pass? Hell no! We'd be tried and convicted in half-a-heartbeat and the key would be thrown away for good.

The Founders asked themselves under what guidelines and laws will ALL of us live? They expected to live by the same rules and regulations imposed on everyone else. They never envisioned a state of affairs with one set of rules for We the People and an entirely different set for the rich, the powerful and the politically connected. Congress, for instance, doesn't fall under the sway of Obamacare. Some unions and states were given a pass on it - they didn't have to buy into the exchanges and weren't subjected to the rules.

Service to America - not dictatorship. When the Constitution was written, the people who would serve in Washington expected, and were expected, to serve for short periods. They would be elected, go to Washington, do the work, get the job done, and go home again. They never expected to be career politicians as we have now. These career politicians are the people (vermin) who have done so much damage to our country. Donald Trump's term limits proposal is exactly what's needed.

I also think that it's crucial that we re-institute American History courses in our schools. Not just one year, or two, but year after year. Teaching needs to go back into the decades that preceded our withdrawal from British rule, without revision or parsing. It must be true to what happened.

What made us want to leave? How did the Constitution and Bill of Rights come into being? (It wasn't just a bunch of guys sitting around the dinner table one night.) What were the effects of those documents on the men who formulated and signed them? How high a price did they pay for demanding to be free? How did the Revolutionary War start, and how was it fought?

None of our kids - none of the #Snowflakes running around, screaming their heads off - know these things. They do not know the brilliance and the beauty of our Constitutional form of government. THAT, among all the rest of it, is the biggest crime of all.

So, those are a few of my visions of what will Make America Great Again. There's a lot more, but if these things get started, I'd sleep better at night.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Broken Ankle, Life & Stuff - but Juan is wrong

It's not my ankle, thank goodness, but my MIL's - and I do have sympathy for her, but being a human being and at least somewhat selfish, I am glad it isn't mine. That, Visual Basic, hockey and baseball have been the distractions the past several days. I'm back, though, and happy to be so.

Despite the distractions, I did not miss much on the political front. It's too fascinating not to watch, and sitting around a hospital room for several hours each of the past few days has been a good opportunity.

I caught the series of attempts at explanation of election theft and corruption from the GOP / RNC all weekend. "It's da rules!" And, this morning on CNN, there was a question by a talking head that made me snort in derision and get very annoyed with the respondent. There's also the Juan Williams nonsense that just about dislocated my jaw when it dropped.

Regarding the GOP / RNC - the party is still shrugging its collective shoulders and saying, "So? We're corrupt. We know it and now you know it, so what are you going to do about it? Now give us your money, we need it so we can fund this system we've got going."

I'm surprised, given the frequency of those shrugs, that they don't have bigger pains in their collective neck than they do.

What's striking is that this is the only time in my life I can think of when open bribery is perfectly okay. You can't bribe a cop, you'll go to jail. You can't bribe a judge, you'll go to prison. But you can bribe a politician - or at least a political operative. That's perfectly okay. It's all out in the open and no one, except the electorate who are having their voices stripped from the process, seems to care.

What I haven't yet heard, aside from "but they're the rules", is why the GOP / RNC holds that it's perfectly okay to buy votes. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge - here's a bag full of expensive goodies - you'll vote for me now, right? They haven't even given a glance toward what's honorable and that just serves to make my disgust with them that much deeper.

My snort of derision and deep feeling of annoyance came from the fact that one of Trump's representatives missed a golden opportunity. Now, to be fair, I don't actually know whether he is 'official' or not, but he was asked a question I would have leapt all over. It had to do with the buying of delegates:

"Why doesn't Trump play by the same (corrupt / dishonorable / semi-criminal) set of rules Cruz is playing by?"

What he didn't say but should have is: "Because Mr. Trump has ethics and character. He hasn't gotten where he is by cheating and bribery, and he's not going to start now. If Mr. Cruz chooses to buy votes and politicians, that's his prerogative, but it's underhanded and dishonors our democratic election process."

It is very annoying that that was not the answer given. Instead it was pure blather that really offered nothing substantive. Frankly, a fresh dog dropping would have more substance than the half-answer given. In fact, that half answer was so unmemorable I don't remember it. I just remember annoyance that this talker didn't have the brains to forcefully and unequivocally state that if Ted Cruz chooses to be a sleaze, let him, but we are not going to lower ourselves into that cesspit.

This has been all over the place this weekend, ever since Trump started pointing out how corrupt and undemocratic this election system is. Reince Priebus (for whom I actually feel a little tiny bit sorry since he's the one holding the crap-filled bag) has been out there shrugging madly. "These are the rules." As if rules aren't there to be broken and as if rules that are bad cannot be changed.

What Priebus totally ignored, and what I'm sure he doesn't want us to see because this might be a wave of the party future, is this (excerpted from the Denver Post article of August 25, 2015, bold typeface added for emphasis):


Colorado will not vote for a Republican candidate for president at its 2016 caucus after party leaders approved a little-noticed shift that may diminish the state's clout in the most open nomination contest in the modern era.

The GOP executive committee has voted to cancel the traditional presidential preference poll after the national party changed its rules to require a state's delegates to support the candidate who wins the caucus vote.

State Republican Party Chairman Steve House said the party's 24-member executive committee made the unanimous decision Friday — six members were absent — to skip the preference poll.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28700919/colorado-republicans-cancel-2016-presidential-caucus-vote

So there it is: 18 people in the state of Colorado decided the primary election for all of the nearly 1,000,000 registered Republican voters. Yeah - there's democracy in action for you - not rigged, not unethical or dishonorable.

Whatever. What's come clear to me is that the GOP / RNC doesn't want people to actually participate in the election process - it's too bothersome. They just want our money - thus the fundraising letters and so on.

Well, they're not getting mine. Whether you choose to pony up for a corrupt process is up to you, but I value the representation of my labor too much to throw it into a pit toilet.

Regarding Juan Williams - he's an idiot. I knew he was long ago, but now he's proved it. He's got a new book out and yesterday he was asked, "If the Founders came back today, what would they think?"

He responded, "They'd be thrilled!"

Uh... No. They'd be doubled over heaving up their guts at what's gone on.

Central Banking - There's an excellent article on the "Constitutionality" of the Central Bank (aka Federal Reserve), here:

http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/33-2/465.pdf

Bottom line, though, is that while Alexander Hamilton supported the idea of a central bank, many of the Founders did not.

Enumerated Powers - There were three distinct types of power given to the Federal Government. Not three hundred or three thousand, just three. And the Founders were explicit in how the division was to fall: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." So if it was not given to the United States by the Constitution it was a State's Right, or a People's Right.


Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 32 (of the Federalist Papers):

This exclusive delegation, or rather this alienation, of State sovereignty, would only exist in three cases: [i] where the Constitution in express terms granted an exclusive authority to the Union; [ii] where it granted in one instance an authority to the Union, and in another prohibited the States from exercising the like authority; and [iii] where it granted an authority to the Union, to which a similar authority in the States would be absolutely and totally contradictory and repugnant.

So, no. I don't believe that if the Founders came back today they would be at all thrilled with how things are.

Government has shoved down our collective throats Obamacare.

Government has instituted a tax system not called out in the Constitution.

Government has created a fourth and separate branch of government in the form of the Central Bank / Federal Reserve that is not subject to the will of the People. This is a "bank" not subject to government control, audit, disclosure or intervention - it stands apart from and superior to the Legislative and Judicial branches.

Government funds abortion - and doesn't bat an eye over the fact that the organization on the front line of that effort harvests baby parts.

We have a socialist running for president who wants to take my wealth (non-existent though it is) and pass it off to someone else in pure Marxist fashion - from each according to their ability to each according to their need. It's still not defined who has ability, aside from being able to get your butt out the door and hold a job, versus who has need.

Since I have a house that's falling apart, and car that's twelve years old and can just barely make ends meet, I'd say I have need, but the fact that I have an income is red meat to those who don't.

So no. I do not believe for one instant that the Founders coming back today would be thrilled. Horrified, yes. Disgusted, yes. Dismayed, yes. Not thrilled. And then there's all that's going on in this so-called electoral process where the People's voice doesn't count for squat.

Now - we're all caught up. I hope you had a wonderful weekend and a better week coming up.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Shameful Politicians - Just Like Neon Marshmallow Chicks

Allow me to introduce you to the Peep Senators:

Susan Collins (R-ME), Rob Portman (R-OH), and Mark Kirk (R-IL).

These are selfish critters - ugly and small. Much more concerned about their own political futures in Washington than they are about the future of the United States of America and its Constitution.

These individuals are up for re-election in November. Because of the leftists in their districts pushing for a leftist SCOTUS nominee, they are afraid that they won't get their cushy job again come the election. Instead of standing up for what's right, they are willing to throw America to the left for at least one generation, and probably forever. These three have agreed to give a show - they will meet with Obie-One's SCOTUS nominee - Merrick Garland.

Now I don't know much about this man. I did check out the SCOTUS blog before getting farther into this than the paragraph above. Maybe he would be the greatest thing since sliced bread. But the fact that he has been nominated by a socialist-leaning President who has done everything he can think of to undermine and abrogate my Second Amendment right is a gigantic red flashing warning sign.

I do not want a man or the Supreme Court to re-write the Constitution. They are not there to re-write it, or mold it into something other than what it is. They are there to interpret it. Period.

The fact that Garland openly questioned the Court's decision on the Heller decision is telling. He does not like the Second Amendment. He wants to strike it down as far as possible without trying to get it repealed. That would be a losing battle and he knows it. But if he takes a seat on the Court, he will be in a position to do great damage to this right and to any other to which he takes exception.

This article from the Washington Times lays it out in clear terms: 

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican presidential candidate, said Judge Garland is the kind of nominee people get “when you make deals in Washington, D.C.”

“Make no mistake: If Garland were confirmed, he would side predictably with President Obama on critical issues such as undermining the Second Amendment, legalizing partial-birth abortion and propping up overreaching bureaucratic agencies like the EPA and the IRS,” Mr. Cruz said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/16/merrick-garland-has-very-liberal-view-gun-rights/?page=all

We all know Obie-One is done after the November 8th general election (thank GOD!) so the article isn't referring to the man, it is referring to the man's positions.

Obie-One is an open opponent of the Second Amendment. He has spent eight years taking every opportunity to try to ignite a grassroots uprising against it, and has failed. He has papered the West Wing in an attempt to find the Executive Order that will stick, and has failed. This nomination is his last best hope - and it's a play for which these Peep Senators are falling.

As for Garland, when the Heller ruling came down he was on the Washington District Court. He suggested that it should be reconsidered, even though SCOTUS - the very body he wants to join - had spoken.

In that case, a Washington DC police officer - someone who routinely carried a handgun during his duty hours - asked for permission to purchase and register a gun for his residence. He was denied, so he applied to the Supreme Court under the Second Amendment.

The Court heard the case and determined that Heller had the right, under the Second Amendment, to purchase and keep an operable firearm at home for his self-protection.

Garland didn't like that. Therefore, he questioned the decision. Which is his right, but it does not bode well for Constitutional freedom if he takes a seat on the court.

The fact that these three Senators are showing all the spine of an Easter peep is worrying. And it's shameful.

Obviously they are far more concerned about their political futures than they are about the future freedoms of their constituents. That is despicable. They should be ashamed and they should lose their seats come November. The fact that they will cave to some political directive instead of standing hard and fast on principle speaks to their character. They don't deserve to represent anyone.


Personally, I value the rights given to me as a citizen of the United States via the Constitution. I do not want the Court to take my rights away. If we give up one, another will follow and then another. Eventually the Constitution won't be worth the paper on which it's written - and this country will be just like every other.

Imagine the government gaining more right, more power to examine our lives - how we act or speak or with whom we associate and punishing us for those actions, thoughts or associations.

With the Constitution as written we are protected from government intrusion into our lives.

What if the Court decides that we have too many rights, too much freedom of association? What if the Court decides we don't have the right to speak or write as we want?

With a leftist Court, one that doesn't like this Amendment or that, these things are not outside the realm of possibility.

Already there is a move afoot to shut people up - the First Amendment is under scrutiny and outright assault on our college campuses.

Just this week someone or a group used chalk - plain, ordinary chalk - to write pro-Trump messages on sidewalks, railings and fences at Emory University and other students claimed - because of a few white lines easily blurred or wiped away - that they felt 'threatened'. They whined and cried to the University administration which caved and is threatening to punish the perpetrators of this horrible act. Really? Obviously, the pro-Trump people haven't got the right to express themselves.

This is not an isolated case and it is one that could well end up in front of SCOTUS.

Do you want to lose your right to express yourself? Do you want your right to speak out, even if it's not the popular, taken away? Are you prepared for the thought police to take control of your life - perhaps even throw you in jail because you write a few lines in chalk on a campus sidewalk?

If we have justices on the Supreme Court who do not interpret the Constitution but instead mold it into their world view, this is not impossible. This could well come to be in short order - and it would be impossible to undo.

Our rights, our freedoms are at stake and it is not something to take lightly.

Just something to keep in mind between now and election day. We need someone to nominate a Justice who values the Constitution, who understands their role as interpreter, not crafter. Based on my review of his background, Merrick Garland is not a good choice.

Best~
Philippa

The Scraping Sound You Hear Is...

My soapbox being dragged from the closet.
 
Ironic, isn't it? Just yesterday I said that I will write and post about things that interest me, but I'm not a torch carrying standard bearer. Aside from that being too dangerous - after all, if the torch you're waving ignites the standard you're carrying, where are you? - the interweb is full of people proselytizing.

Then, just yesterday, I came across something someone posted over on Authonomy (we have torch carrying standard bearers there, too) that just dropped my jaw. I'm still scratching my head over it this morning.

Straight-up, dead honest, I am a gun owner. I grew up in a house with .22 caliber rifles. For almost thirty years, on virtually every Saturday morning, my dad taught hunter safety for the California Department of Fish and Game. Through his classroom passed, literally, thousands of people who learned the fundamentals of safe gun handling. Including me. I took the course when I turned thirteen - the earliest age at which I was eligible to participate. I learned certain fundamentals:

• Never point any gun, toy or real, at any human being.
• Be sure of your backstop. Be Sure of your target.
• A safe weapon is an unloaded weapon. Do not give or take a weapon on which the chamber is not open.
• Use the safety and make sure it's on if you are handling a gun.
• Never store a firearm with a round loaded in the chamber.
• Keep ammunition stored separately from the firearm.
• Guns and alcohol do not mix.

It's all very basic commonsense kind of stuff.

Dad died of cancer when he was eighty-six. He never shot himself or anyone else. He taught my brother and me gun safety, too. When I was little, I knew that if I touched one of those guns without his permission, it was not safe. If I did and he found out I would be 'toast' as the saying is. So I never did unless he let me and stood right there to make sure I didn't do anything stupid. Like dig out the ammo, load the thing and 'play'.

So, I'm a safe gun owner. I know the rules, I understand the ramifications and responsibilities of having guns in the house. Mine are and remain locked up until I perceive that I might need them. Then they are there to be used if necessary.

I bought the shotgun not for its looks, but for the distinctive and loud snap-snap of the forestock when you chamber a round.

If someone breaks into my house, because my guns are locked up and not loaded, I'm not going to make the mistake of holding my index finger in the air while pleasantly saying, 'Can you hold on just a sec? I need to get out my gun and ammo and load it, 'k?' I am going to grab the unloaded shotgun, take it into the upstairs hallway (for the acoustics) and slide that forestock, letting it snap-snap as loudly as possible. Stealth will not be my goal. My fervent prayer in that instance is that whoever is coming through the ground floor window or door will hear it. I genuinely hope they wet themselves and flee (or flea, as Woody Allen would have it in 'Love and Death').

If not, I'll end up using it as a club when they come up the stairs because, at that point, I won't have time to dig out the shells and load it.

What got me going on this, though, is the incredible stupidity of lawmakers. Alcohol and firearms do not mix. Ever. Period. But the legislature in the Great State of Texas has decided that letting college kids carry concealed weapons on campus is a good idea.

Now, before I throw the Texas legislature under the bus, let's get something clear: Other states already allow this. Including Colorado, where marijuana is now legal - and that's a very bad mix, and Oregon (along with Kansas, Mississippi, Wisconsin...)

In Texas, the limitations are that students have to be twenty-one or older. As if that's going to carry any weight. No eighteen year old ever drinks the liquor that isn't legal for them until they're twenty-one.

Apparently, the idea behind this is campus safety. The argument being that if other students are armed and some idiot gets the idea that shooting up the campus is a brilliant idea, they can stop the whack-job before it gets very far. Virginia Tech had an on-campus shooting in 2007 in which thirty-two people died because a mentally ill student wasn't flagged as such in any record repository that a gun seller could check. Patient-doctor privilege, no doubt. In Austin, Texas there was the clock tower shooting in which a student holed up in the campus clock tower and shot sixteen people dead. That was in 1966. We all know there have been others.

The problem is that college kids drink. How many college kids end up in the ER or die because of alcohol poisoning every year? Lots. And when you have college kids drinking, and there are guns lying around (because none of these carrying students is also going to have a gun safe to hand), that is a very bad, a very bad mix.

The fact is that unless and until we get responsible as a society when it comes to guns and gun safety, this is a terrible idea.

What is interesting, though, highly interesting actually, is that other states have carry laws and I've not heard of wild campus shoot-em-ups in those places. That doesn't mean it won't happen, but it hasn't yet. Which is encouraging.

However, back to guns and gun safety. I am a radical when it comes to this because the process I see that's needed is not a three day or ten day or whatever day waiting period while the gun store checks with the Feds to see if you're okay. This is something that requires fundamental changes in the way we think of guns, safety, and privacy. Here are the rules in my perfect world:

First, and foremost, anyone who wants to buy a gun must submit to a thorough background check.

Alcoholism, drug use, psychiatric problems, anything that might be an issue when it comes to that individual being safe and reasonable knocks them out. I don't want some kid who had a run-in with the law and ended up in juvenile court when he was fourteen owning a gun when he's twenty-one. That is not a good mix because, to me, it shows that he's already shown that he's incapable of living within the bounds of  acceptable behavior that society has established. I also don't want someone who's been seen by a pshrink and has been given drugs to control bi-polar or any other mental disorder owning a gun.

Second, if anyone is going to carry a firearm anywhere, they must attend and pass gun safety classes that are taught by professionals. Before they are allowed to own or carry, they must prove to the professionals teaching the class that they know how to safely handle the weapon. Tie this into applying for the purchase of a gun. If you want to buy a gun, you cannot take possession of it until the background check - psychiatric and criminal - is complete and you have taken the classes, taken the test, and proved to the satisfaction of the professionals who taught you the basics that you can be a safe gun owner.

Third, ammunition should not be a walk-up purchase. You should not be able to walk into any store that carries ammunition in this country and be able to buy it without some form of identification. Show your permit, complete a form, sign your name and pay. That simple. And that goes for re-loading supplies, too. You want to buy cartridges, bullets and gunpowder? Same deal - permit, form, pay.

As for the students carrying on campus, anyone who walks onto school grounds - be it K-12 or college, should immediately be subject to search. And this one bothers me - A LOT. It's too police state and far over the line when it comes to the Fourth Amendment (illegal search).  However, if I'm sitting in class and I have a gun in my bag and if I know that my bag might be searched and the consequences will be hard, fast and blind, I'm going to make damned sure I'm in compliance.

Any student or visitor to that campus who is not a member of law enforcement there on business must be willing to submit to spot checks of their dorm room or person. If they have a gun in their possession, they had damned well better have the permit for it, too. If they don't, out. Done. Prosecution for carrying a concealed weapon, period. Fines, 'first time' excuses simply do not exist. It's jail time because this is far too serious and too dangerous for half-measures.

So, soapbox goes back into the closet and I'll let this one go. I just hope to heaven that these guys in Texas know what they're doing. Colorado and Oregon and Idaho, etc., seem to be okay. So far. I sincerely hope it stays that way but if you visit a college campus, be polite, don't piss anyone off, and watch your back.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

This Will Probably Bore... But It's So Darned Interesting!!

Oops. Move an iPad and publish your blog without a word (but the title) written.  I'm embarrassed...

Anyway, that's not what I was going to write.  What I was going to write is that there's been a discussion over on Authonomy about the recent British General Election. https://www.authonomy.com/forums/topic/20260/

Most people are complaining (because it's a British website run by a British publishing house), others are defending, and it all sounds pretty American - except for parts.

In the discussion, the question of the 'right' to protest came up and there appeared to be confusion about whether protests had to be tame and boring, tromping down the street with signs in the air that's full of chanting. Or if protests can include defacement and demolition of public and private property.

No one came right out and said that destruction should be part and parcel of a protest, but they did admit that it happens and that the organizers of the protest can't do much to stop it. Still, the police should, by inference in what was said, just leave the protestors alone.

Whatever. I'm not going to discuss the rights and wrongs of that here, so I'll leave it.

But this whole conversation brought into it the Amendments that 'allow guns' and that 'allows protest'.  Well, I knew the allowing protests wasn't the case. The Founders never wrote a word that explicitly 'allows protest' like we see today with looting and burning and violence. So I looked it up. Just like I used to tell my daughter to do. You want to know something, look it up.

Even though history usually bores the crap out of me, I decided to expand my horizons, a little.  So I did what everyone does, I Googled and found a fantastic website for all things American History - Rutgers University, and it's where I found the Federalist papers online (have a book, but online is so much hipper).  http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1786-1800/the-federalist-papers/

I started reading - and I'm fascinated.

As for the initial premise, the 'right to protest' isn't really that. It's actually the right to assemble peaceably (with the object of that clause being the 'peaceably' bit). It explicitly says so, right in Amendment I to the Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The key word there is peaceably. Yes, the protesters in Ferguson and Baltimore had the right to assemble, but... Seems the 'peace' part seems to have gotten lost. But that's a different discussion

Then I decided I wanted to know by what logic the Founders developed our Constitution and Bill of Rights and you know what I discovered?  It is really fascinating reading!

I'm not much of a history buff. Usually it's a snoozefest so I dabble, at best, and have scattered knowledge mostly based off of historical research someone else has done in writing a book that I've read. In some cases, I have gone farther - World War II is something I've read about in more than a casual way. Mostly, I find history to be boring - dry as dust. But this... Wow!

Did you know that the Founders looked back at history - all the way to Greece - to find ideas they could make and mend into a constitutional republic?

Did you know, based on Federalist 1 written by Alexander Hamilton, that the three men who wrote the Federalist essays (there were 85 in all, written for publication in the New York press because New York and Virginia were key to getting the Constitution ratified) envisioned something like the European Union? They did! It says so - right there, in black and white - and that's where the idea of the militias and right to bear arms comes in:

"...you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject...comprehending its consequences nothing less than the existence of the union, the safety and welfare of the parts..."

In other words: by creating a union of independent states - each with their own government like the European Union has, today - and having the centralized Federal government provide the benefits of a monarchy - the standing army and centralized bureaucracy that would keep things running, we could have the best of both worlds. Now that's a DNA scratch of a fingernail (the cellular bits after someone scratches and there's stuff left behind - it's just a touch, really, on the bigger bits) of the entire series, but if you read on, it's a theme oft repeated.

The states would govern themselves, like little countries. They could maintain militias so that if a bigger badder state wanted to pick a fight, the little state could defend itself. If things got out of hand with Massachusetts or Connecticut beating upon Rhode Island, for instance, then the federal army could be called upon to step in.

That is pretty cool stuff!

It goes on, and it's really remarkable.  Hamilton says: "...reserved to the people of this country...to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force."

In other words: can men govern themselves, or must they be governed - as by a monarchy or conquering army?

The rest of it is equally interesting.  Man, these guys were smart!

I won't promise to read every word, but I am definitely going to browse!  Federalist 8 is also interesting, but I won't be a spoiler...

Have a great day!  Expand your mind - READ!!

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories