If you're going to seat your hope for change in revising the federalist structure, you'd do well to focus solely on the reliance of the states on the federal government to pad their budgets. Nothing goes forward until the states control their own finances. All other discussion is irrelevant until the states can stand up and assert their own rights with authority. To explore without reconciling this fact is like a teenager who flips their parents the bird and declares their independence, only to return home for lunch money later that evening.

Octavian, what you suggest isn't as simple as it may sound in your own mind, and it may even prove to be treacherous. The cornerstone of the American dream is that as citizens we are able more so than in any other nation to transcend and maintain mobility between the informal classes we've divided into. If one were to formalize a class system through socioeconomic divisions in government, you risk cementing Americans into certain classes and removing their mobility altogether. Our informal classes are not static. Individuals move within them regularly. The rich, middle, and poor classes wax and wane with trends in the economic system. If you can't rely on a farmer always to be a farmer and a merchant to always be a merchant as is the case in the United States, bringing the concept of socioeconomic divisions in government will create a very real and dangerous environment for class struggles and warfare. The very nature of the reform you seek will bring Marxism into the realm of political possibility. You stand to deconstruct the liberty of all for some perceived notion of stability.

Octavian, I would venture to guess that the failure of the Constitution was the reliance on the notion that there is no need to explicitly forbid actions that are not explicitly permitted. It would seem that Hamilton's argument against a bill of rights in Federalist Paper 84, and the corresponding Anti-Federalist paper are instructive in this regard. I'm not so sure that delineating the makeup of checks and balances on socioeconomic factors is any more effective than the system we have now. What we're left with is more basic than the fundamentals of the Constitution. We've inherited a social contract that is remarkably generous in concessions, but not overly so in the administration of rights. Generation after generation we've bought into the notion of allowing fundamental rights to be restricted and modified for the sake of safety and civility. Our primary obstruction to liberty isn't the wording or administration of the Constitution, it's our own willingness to constantly make concessions against our rights for the perceived benefit of society.

What is the end result of what we do here? When the dust is settled, and there's no energy left to define the problem what solutions will we have seen? This cannot last if all we are to do is march and protest. We need to seek actionable reform. Without proactive measures to write legislation and press for its passage, we will have accomplished little more than beating our chests and proclaiming our anger. What, if any, reforms might be sought on a national, local and state level to deliver us from the stage of protest and into a stage of setting and realizing obtainable objectives?

I wonder if the number of freedoms lost aren't proportional to our reluctance to involve ourselves in actively protecting our freedoms over the years. Bush and Obama are just actors in a drama that's spanned several generations. It's kind of like a soap opera, one actor quits or gets displaced and another assumes the role.

I would suggest he hasn't been smoking anything that would alter his mind. Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain your own understanding of the founding fathers, and for that matter how you suppose that the Declaration of Independence would have any bearing on how governance is executed?

As to the original content of the post being commented on, there were very real reasons at the time why the federal government needed to stretch its legs a bit. If either side of the aisle had won out completely at the time, we would never have lasted 50 years as a nation. You'd do well to go back and read Washington's farewell address. While the color of politics was certainly a factor, there were some very key warnings Washington made to anyone who would step up to the presidency after him.The warnings are in fact very telling, and without his farewell address I'd probably have no respect for the tone set in the Washington presidency at all. It's also very interesting that Jefferson's presidency was very much at odds with some of his core beliefs.

From time to time I'm drawn into discussions about the manners in which states rights may be used to cure the ills that face us. Quickly, the origins of the argument turn to a statement that people can like it or leave it. It is much more agreeable to the ends of liberty that states be allowed the freedom to govern themselves. In this regard, I am not in disagreement. It must be said, however, that if through states rights one state may devolve into tyranny, its brother into anarchy, and its sister into the proper conveyor of liberty; that we've failed in some very basic and necessary goals. States rights must not be allowed to devolve into a new sort of identity politics. The rights of all Americans should be secured whether they live in California or New York, Texas or North Dakota. The movement for states rights will accomplish very little if the rights of men in California are separate from the rights of men in Vermont. We've come together with a clear understanding of fundamental rights for all men, but it would seem we willingly betray those rights if we are to turn a blind eye to the abuses of government in other states simply because the pain is not our own. Further, if we are to overlook abuses elsewhere; what's to stop those same abuses from entering into our local awareness of our own states? We must eventually answer the uncertainties of the 14th amendment and the issue of incorporation if we are to press for adherence to the 10th amendment and states rights. Otherwise, there's little to prevent us from trading one tyrannical governance distant from us for one that may plant the boot on our heads in our own homes.

In many ways we've left ourselves in a very unenviable position. The time at hand is one where results are of utmost importance. The advent of protest among individuals like us is very much unprecedented. So much so, that current political circles are content to wait us out entirely. If we are not to press for results soon, they may be successful in that regard. I've observed on this site, and many like it, that we are fully capable of articulating the message that something isn't right. What we have yet to articulate, is what actions we demand be taken to correct this. If one were to view the Liberty movement as a living redress of grievances, the absence of realistic reforms and corrections being put forth would most certainly undermine it as a whole. To date, what actionable reforms have we pressed? To demand common sense and principled forethought of our politicians is commendable. However, it is also akin to squeezing water out of a stone. If we are to succeed beyond the advent of protest, we must understand the system and work within it so that we may seek to draw water from more sensible locations. Or else, we may very well die of dehydration long before any results are seen.

The more I talk about politics, the less political I become. It would seem to me that politics is a process of trancension into the realm of self doubt and illusion. If you transcend correctly, you remove self doubt and illusion entirely. The sum of this is nothing short than a definitive declaration of principle, of which there will be no compromise. As I've observed time and time again: it can be said that of politics and principles, politics will win every time should a principled man be incapable of conveying the proper articulation of his principles. Most important of all is the ability to defend principles against the attacks of politics in a manner that shows the fading and volatile nature of politics. Ladies and gentlemen, if we're not soon past politics and into the labors of articulating principle; what we do here will fade entirely. A movement of this kind, once faded from memory, is lost forever.

The existence of American governance has been marked by periods of wealth and destitution, fortune and failure, and ethics and corruption. Throughout the ebb and flow of human governance, the will of the American people is to endure and innovate; to rise above and triumph over the burden of the impossible. The greatness of the American Republic isn’t simply an invention of an arrogant consciousness; it is the sum of a great collective of individuals that challenge the imperfections of mankind to govern itself in an ethical manner. Any consideration that holds to an assumption that the American Republic will die with a whimper at the hands of corruption and unscrupulous politicians is an exercise in ignorance of the true collective of power in the United States: We, The People.

If you believe in what I just said, I need your help with something. We at UniteorDie.org have a project in the works called the "American Writ of Grievances." I could sit down and write it, post it for signatures online, and we could thump our chest like a thousand other sites out there, but what would that accomplish if there's no discussion about what the real trespasses are, and how to remedy them? if you believe in the greatness of this country like I do, I want to hear your voice. I want to know what we can do together within the system now to make things better.