Good morning Andy, Helen and all survivors of the 3 day weekend.
Over the 231 years since the USA has been governed by the
Constitution, there have been never ending efforts to improve the
document to include and expand Liberties and Justice for all citizens.
The original Constitution was flawed in the sense that it protected
only White Males over the age of 21, who were Landholders or of
considerable wealth.
Improvements began immediately with the inclusion of the Bill of
Rights, and later the inclusion of non white citizens, and finally
even women were granted the right to vote, even though women and non
whites continue to struggle toward full equality.
On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire
became the ninth and last necessary state to ratify the
Constitution
of the United States, thereby making the document the law of the land.
By 1786, defects in the post-Revolutionary War
Articles of Confederation
were apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign and
domestic commerce. Congress endorsed a plan to draft a new
constitution, and on
May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention convened at Independence
Hall in Philadelphia. On September 17, 1787, after three months of
debate moderated
by convention president George Washington, the new U.S. constitution,
which created a strong federal government with an intricate system of
checks and balances, was signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at
the conclusion of the convention. As dictated by Article VII, the
document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the
13 states.
Beginning on December 7, five states—
Delaware,
Pennsylvania,
New Jersey,
Georgia,
and Connecticut—ratified it in quick succession. However, other
states, especially
Massachusetts,
opposed the document, as it failed to reserve undelegated powers to
the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political
rights, such as
freedom of speech, religion, and the press. In February 1788, a
compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states
would agree to ratify
the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately
proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in
Massachusetts, followed by
Maryland
and
South Carolina.
On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the
document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the
U.S. Constitution
would begin on March 4, 1789. In June, Virginia ratified the
Constitution, followed by
New York in July.
On September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States adopted
12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution—the Bill of Rights—and sent
them to the states
for ratification. Ten of these amendments were ratified in 1791. In
November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S.
Constitution.
Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of currency and was
critical of compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the
Constitution until the U.S. government
threatened to sever commercial relations with the state. On May 29,
1790, Rhode Island voted by two votes to ratify the document, and the
last of the original 13 colonies joined the United States. Today the
U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in
the world.
On 1/21/20, Helen Murphy via acb-chat <
acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
> i will have to do my home work there is a senator lady senator who supports
> the ada
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 10:05 PM Andy Baracco via acb-chat <
>
acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* Edwin Cooney <
edwincooney45@icloud.com>
>> *Sent:* Monday, January 20, 2020 1:18 PM
>> *Subject:* count down via pro-log
>>
>> Hello Everyone,
>>
>> This week I write about all of those "theys" out there who are so
>> corrupt,
>> inhuman, reckless, insensitive, and dumber than you, me and Uncle Dudley
>> regardless of political philosophy or ideology. We all have an Uncle
>> Dudley
>> who knocks fools on their fritters don't we? I know I do! The fact that
>> I've never met him doesn't mean he doesn't exist does it?
>>
>> Anyway, I invite you to read on, because now it's your turn!
>>
>> Warm Regards,
>>
>> Me, E.C.?
>>
>>
>>
>> MONDAY, JANUARY 20TH, 2020
>> COUNT DOWN VIA PROLOGUE
>>
>> Opening his second presidential nomination address at San Francisco in
>> late August of 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower told the following
>> story to the assembled delegates.
>>
>> Two new Republican office holders were riding in a Washington, D.C. taxi
>> early in 1953, when one of them glanced up at a building bearing a sign
>> that read: "What's past is prologue." "What does that mean?" one of them
>> asked the learned taxi driver. "Oh," said the cabbie, "that's just
>> bureaucrat talk. All that means is you ain't seen nothin' yet!"
>>
>> There are 8,760 hours as of today, remaining in President Donald Trump's
>> term, realistically assuming his likely acquittal of impeachment charges
>> in
>> the U.S. Senate. (I could offer the minutes and seconds as well, but,
>> that
>> would be absurdly absurd!) The question is: Who will use the time left
>> most
>> effectively, Trump or Trump's opponents!
>>
>> On the night of November 6th, 1984 that Ronald Reagan was re-elected,
>> referring to his upcoming term as compared to his nearly completed first
>> term, he said "What's past is prologue" right out loud - "You ain't seen
>> nothin' yet." However, rather than balanced budgets and lower taxes,
>> what
>> was next was Iran Contra, the 1986 tax increase, and a debt three times
>> Jimmy Carter's 1980 one trillion dollar record deficit!
>>
>> The key to America's socio/political and economic future is invariably
>> our
>> national attitude toward one another. Attitude governs outlook, which
>> together constitutes socio/political and economic results.
>>
>> In a critical commentary against Bernie Sanders last week, columnist
>> David
>> Brooks observed that Sanders and others live in an era of "theyism -
>> that's
>> T.H.E.Y.i.s.m." In other words, there are groups (outside the rest of us)
>> who are doing this or that to the national body politic. There's
>> president
>> Trump's theyism, which consists of all who disagree with, or oppose him.
>> There's Conservatism's theyisms consisting of gun grabbers, LGBTQ types,
>> pro-choice advocates, socialists, and of course secularists and climate
>> change suckers. Liberal's theyisms are: exploiting capitalists, racists,
>> anti-choice protestors, and sexists, as well as climate change deniers.
>> All
>> these "theys" are deliberately doing America socio/economic harm. Bernie
>> Sander's personal theyism, according to Mr. Brooks, is his ongoing charge
>> that capitalists are exploiting workers. Brooks says the flaw in
>> capitalism
>> is a lack of productivity rather than an abundance of greed inspired
>> exploitation. Brooks scolds Bernie Sanders for purposely exaggerating the
>> capitalist's genuine productivity dilemma. If we feed that which
>> produces,
>> employers and workers will all be profitably productive according to
>> David
>> Brooks. Thus, socialist exploitive theory constitutes Senator Sanders'
>> theyism!
>>
>> "Theyism" is apparently everywhere and crosses ideological lines. Just
>> the
>> other day I received two emails from a reader who doesn't think much of
>> my
>> "far left-wing BS" but at least this reader looks forward to it. In one
>> missive this reader sent he/she expressed utter contempt for Barack Obama
>> calling him scum, even though this reader voted for Obama in 2008.
>> Pointing
>> out that his/her family were once "Kennedy Democrats, but are no more."
>> this critic's theyism's are liberals like me who've "drunk the Kool-Aid
>> of
>> socialism instead of the tea of liberty." Finally, this reader expresses
>> regret for his/her past political choices. That's especially sad. I voted
>> for Nixon and would have voted for Goldwater at one point except that I
>> was
>> too young to vote for Barry. I don't regret past choices as they
>> constitute
>> what I understood and how I evaluated what I knew then. I highly
>> recommend
>> that this reader give him or herself credit for voting his/her conviction
>> in 2008 or in any other time. I look forward to hearing from this reader
>> again and again so that we might have a mutually enhancing dialog. All of
>> your responses to these musings make writing them worthwhile.
>>
>> What none of us knows, as the final months, days and hours of President
>> Trump's term begin passing by, is the effect his behavior will have on
>> how
>> people vote. As I see it, Donald Trump's conservatism is the least of his
>> offenses. His conservatism is enough to prevent my voting for him. The
>> question is whether Donald Trump really and truly is a conservative! I
>> know
>> some conservatives who've told me that they doubted Richard Nixon's
>> "conservatism" but for them his political instincts were sufficiently
>> superior to John Kennedy's, Lyndon Johnson's, Hubert Humphrey's or George
>> McGovern's liberalism to suit them. Ironically, there are apparently a
>> number of prominent 2020 conservatives who doubt President Trump's
>> conservative credentials!
>>
>> Change in times of tyranny or exploitation is what has kept this republic
>> afloat since 1776. Federalism replaced confederacy in 1788 with the
>> adoption of the federal Constitution leavened by the Bill of Rights in
>> 1791. Slavery was abolished by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the
>> Constitution in the 1860s and '70s. The 16th amendment brought about the
>> progressive income tax replacing the government's reliance on tariffs.
>> The
>> 19th amendment gave women the right to vote. All of these changes
>> followed
>> eras of limited opportunity for Americans.
>>
>> If liberty-advancing change is the true prologue that dominates in 2020,
>> we'll be well served. If the era of "theyism" prevails, which once
>> represented 18th century confederacy, then the best days of our republic
>> may well be the new prologue which indicates regression into confederacy
>> and perhaps into a new era of medievalism.
>>
>> I don't know whose theyism is likely to prevail. What I am sure is that
>> tomorrow's nation and world will be different from yours and mine.
>>
>> Even more, that's the way it ought to be. History only informs, it never
>> dictates. Tomorrow belongs not to us, but to our children, who hopefully
>> will take the best of us and make a world suited to themselves, which
>> they
>> may regard as being better than our own. If they don't, perhaps their
>> children will out do even them!
>>
>> RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
>>
>> EDWIN COONEY
>> _______________________________________________
>> acb-chat mailing list
>>
acb-chat@acblists.org
>>
http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>
>
