Divisions along Rule of Law versus Criminal Rule

[Josf]

Human Action
“Ok, I’ll bite - why were the Federalists criminals? In what way did they oppose the rule of law?”

First, it may be a good idea to dispel any errors concerning my intentions. I am not selling anything, there is no bait on a hook, so accusations of this type are unfounded.

The so called Federalists were accurately identified (at the time) as Nationalists, or Monarchists, which turned out to be those who worked toward Rule by Criminals, and they had to get rid of Rule of Law.

An example of this accurate accounting done, in general terms (not great detail) is exemplified here:

Secret proceedings and debates of the convention assembled at Philadelphia,...

“One party, whose object and wish it was to abolish and annihilate all State governments, and to bring forward one general government, over this extensive continent, of monarchical nature, under certain restrictions and limitations. Those who openly avowed this sentiment were, it is true, but few; yet it is equally true, Sir, that there were a considerable number, who did not openly avow it, who were by myself, and many others of the convention, considered as being in reality favorers of that sentiment; and, acting upon those principles, covertly endeavoring to carry into effect what they well knew openly and avowedly could not be accomplished.”

Another example is found here:
http://www.rightsofthepeople.com/freedom_documents/anti_federalist_papers/anti_federalist_papers_03.php

“There are but two modes by which men are connected in society, the one which operates on individuals, this always has been, and ought still to be called, national government; the other which binds States and governments together (not corporations, for there is no considerable nation on earth, despotic, monarchical, or republican, that does not contain many subordinate corporations with various constitutions) this last has heretofore been denominated a league or confederacy. The term federalists is therefore improperly applied to themselves, by the friends and supporters of the proposed constitution. This abuse of language does not help the cause; every degree of imposition serves only to irritate, but can never convince. They are national men, and their opponents, or at least a great majority of them, are federal, in the only true and strict sense of the word.”

In order to move from the law of the land, which was understood as trial by jury, which was based upon ancient ideas handed down, including the idea of trial by the country, those who moved from rule of law had to also finance their work. That effort to finance, to pay for, is a very old method dating back to the Money Changers who were documented during the time of Christ.

A very good explanation of how that finance method works is here:

So the general answer to the question (“I’ll bite…”) is offered in two examples from the time period in question, and the detailed answer is also offered in the lecture linked.
Ravenman wrote:

The division of the rule of law form the criminal law is the division of the self against the corporeal idea of human corporation, except in reverse order. If one is innocent from the rule of law, the mens rea also applies to how we divide society into units of uncountable mass.

So what I’m saying is, if we set aside all the unclean debates and simply focus on the logical syllogism, which is present before all the assumptions are dictated into the argument, then we can get at the heart of the matter.

Do you agree? If you do, where am I wrong?

That zeros a focus of attention upon two competitive points of view concerning accountability and responsibility.

1. Individuals are responsible and therefore individuals are accountable.

2. Groups, not individuals, are responsible, therefore groups, not individuals are accountable.

The move from individual responsibility (defend people from criminals) to group responsibility was well explained by the 6th President of The United States of America in Congress Assembled when he wrote against the Nationalization effort, or Consolidation effort, in great detail. The idea of a “legal fiction” is a move in this direction from individual accountability, which is the basis of Rule of Law, to a so called “group” prejudice.

This is part of a tactic called a straw man argument; it is a diversion, it is deception.

There are understandable causes for the invention and use of legal fictions, or corporations, which are based upon ideas such as trust. People create a trust, and a trust can be used to create an estate, and an estate can be a method of “crowd funding” for such purposes as mutual defense of the innocent from the guilty. When said process, based upon said trust, is no longer worthy of trust, due to individuals who break that trust, then a federal union, which is a voluntary union, based upon trust, is broken by the individual (or individuals) who invent and employ said deception. A guilty mind (mens rea) may be understood as one internally, as a criminal knows he, or she, intends to criminally injure a targeted victim. What about those individuals who actually think they are saving people by deceiving them into believing very old forms of deception? Crimes in fact are precisely what they are in fact; even if individuals can’t, or refuse to, accurately account for crimes as crimes.

If a whole group of people can’t, or won’t, accurately account for crimes as crimes, then “belonging” in that group requires that specific accountability accounted to each individual in that group. Anyone able, willing, and working toward accurately accounting for crimes as crimes does not belong in that group.

1. Rule of Law is made up of individuals who constitute a group, or trust, or corporate entity.

2. Criminal Rule is made up of individuals who constitute a group, or “honor among thieves,” or “legal fiction” when the criminals work to take over Rule of Law.

an instance of a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn (whether validly or not) from two given or assumed propositions (premises), each of which shares a term with the conclusion, and shares a common or middle term not present in the conclusion (e.g., all dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore all dogs have four legs ).

•deductive reasoning as distinct from induction.
“logic is rules or syllogism”

A voluntary association is exemplified in the formation and maintenance of a federation. All individuals working toward mutual defense against criminal injury constitute one type of federation proven factually as each individual, in time and place, is effectively defended from injury by criminals.

If that is the idea, then there are ways in which to measure the results of applying the idea. Are there any victims? Why were those victims not defended?

[Ravenman]

@Richard_Parker

As John Locke said, that is ontologically right but epistemologically inaccurate. You have to depart toward rules and rule of law, like the difference between pens and penguins.

A jury is a conspiracy in both form and fact, made legal only by our formal procedures having rendered their overt acts functionally free from illegality. The question is whether it will be seated by owls or men. Since owls will not sit on juries, then if the verdict is spell-checked, isn’t it therefore logical? Isn’t it therefore comprehensible?

As Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and [something].” I forget how it ends.

But your post illustrates with words. I’ll have to take some time to think about the points you raised. Just as how heat applied to food can produce the Maillard Reaction, making edible things delectable, I’m going to have to apply my consideration to your post to see if it can caramelize and enrichen the law.

[Shodan]

[QUOTE=Human Action]
Ok, I’ll bite - why were the Federalists criminals? In what way did they oppose the rule of law?
[/QUOTE]
Is that what the OP was about? I read it three times, and became less sure of the meaning each time.

IIRC the Anti-Federalists were opposed to the Constitution, but my knowledge ends there. And then came the examples of My Lai as “the rule of law”, and my brain shorted out.

Are the Anti-Federalists in favor of the rule of law, or vice versa?

On preview, I see he has responded. Unfortunately it doesn’t help - the more I read, the more brain cells I can hear exploding.

Regards,
Shodan

[Josf]

Richard Parker wrote:

As John Locke said, that is ontologically right but epistemologically inaccurate. You have to depart toward rules and rule of law, like the difference between pens and penguins.

A jury is a conspiracy in both form and fact, made legal only by our formal procedures having rendered their overt acts functionally free from illegality. The question is whether it will be seated by owls or men. Since owls will not sit on juries, then if the verdict is spell-checked, isn’t it therefore logical? Isn’t it therefore comprehensible?

The idea of (involuntary) rule by man was understood to be a bad idea, and that is not new. There are two examples of how this idea was dated in ancient times in the following links and quotes:

http://www.freenation.org/a/f41l1.html

The practice of selecting government officials randomly (and the Athenians developed some fairly sophisticated mechanical gadgets to ensure that the selection really was random, and to make cheating extremely difficult) is one of the most distinctive features of the Athenian constitution. We think of electoral politics as the hallmark of democracy; but elections were almost unknown at Athens, because they were considered paradigmatically anti-democratic. Proposals to replace sortition with election were always condemned as moves in the direction of oligarchy.

Why? Well, as the Athenians saw it, under an electoral system no one can obtain political office unless he is already famous: this gives prominent politicians an unfair advantage over the average person. Elections, they thought, favor those wealthy enough to bribe the voters, powerful enough to intimidate the voters, flashy enough to impress the voters, or clever enough to deceive the voters. The most influential political leaders were usually Horsemen anyway, thanks to their social prominence and the political following they could obtain by dispensing largesse among the masses. (One politician, Kimon, won the loyalty of the poor by leaving his fields and orchards unfenced, inviting anyone who was hungry to take whatever he needed.) If seats on the Council had been filled by popular vote, the Horsemen would have disproportionately dominated it — just as, today, Congress is dominated by those who can afford expensive campaigns, either through their own resources or through wealthy cronies. Or, to take a similar example, in the United States women have had the vote for over half a century, and yet, despite being a majority of the population, they represent only a tiny minority of elected officials. Obviously, the persistence of male dominance in the economic and social sphere has translated into women mostly voting for male candidates. The Athenians guessed, probably rightly, that the analogous prestige of the upper classes would lead to commoners mostly voting for aristocrats.

That is why the Athenians saw elections as an oligarchical rather than a democratic phenomenon. Above all, the Athenians feared the prospect of government officials forming a privileged class with separate interests of their own. Through reliance on sortition, random selection by lot, the Council could be guaranteed to represent a fair cross-section of the Athenian people — a kind of proportional representation, as it were. Random selection ensured that those selected would be representatives of the people as a whole, whereas selection by vote made those selected into mere representatives of the majority.

44539282.pdf

“The tribunes of people were at first five in number, tho afterward, their body was Increased to five more. They were always annually Ellected by the people, and Gennerally from their own body. They had Power of annulling.”

The American federation which existed between 1776 and 1787 was adapted from specific processes known to work in the past, and adapted to work in the present, while the future remained (and remains) in question.

The idea (if this is the idea shared by the individual adding a viewpoint to the topic) that there is no such thing as trial by jury whereby the whole country of people are represented by randomly selected jurists according to the common law, and instead of trial by jury there is ONLY fellow criminals agreeing to perpetrate crimes upon innocent people, then that idea is unfounded in the actual records recorded by many people who measure success by those individuals defended in time and place from those criminals identified as such in time and place.

To claim, on the other hand, that people are not perfect, and therefore even trial by jury is not perfect, is a claim that reinforces (rather than discredits) trial by jury as the law of the land instead of Monarchy, Dictatorship, Tyranny, Oligarchy, and all names labeling basically the same thing, which can be understood as Criminal Rule, which becomes Criminal Rule the moment a criminal brakes the rules that they claim are their sources of authority.

[Ravenman]

@Josf

“The tribunes of people were at first five in number, tho afterward, their body was Increased to five more. They were always annually Ellected by the people, and Gennerally from their own body. They had Power of annulling.”

This was debated here.

[Czarcasm]

Are you a part of the “Freemen on the land” movement?

[iiandyiiii]

Josf, This life is nothing short of a redefining rebirth of sensual empathy.

We live, we reflect, we are reborn. Rejuvenation is a constant.

Yes, it is possible to disrupt the things that can confront us, but not without potential on our side.

We exist as a resonance cascade. The quantum matrix is aglow with bio-feedback. Consciousness consists of a resonance cascade of quantum energy. “Quantum” means a redefining of the ethereal.

Prayer may be the solution to what’s holding you back from a breathtaking current of divinity. As you believe, you will enter into infinite balance that transcends understanding. You will soon be recreated by a power deep within yourself — a power that is unlimited, ancient.

Although you may not realize it, you are amazing. The quantum matrix is calling to you via morphogenetic fields. Can you hear it? If you have never experienced this uprising through non-local interactions, it can be difficult to vibrate.

Through numerology, our essences are baptized in healing. We are being called to explore the universe itself as an interface between learning and conscious living. It is a sign of things to come.

It can be difficult to know where to begin. How should you navigate this angelic cosmos? Have you found your quest?

[Josf]

Label it whatever you want, I stand by the assessment. The posts of yours under discussion are riddled with jargon and short on clarity.

If you want to make this out to be libel, I suggest you seek legal counsel.

Character Assassination attempt #3 above.

If someone debates cleanly then someone does not resort to ad-hominem attacks as their form of “debate,” and this is well known in the rules that still survive today.

If there is an example of that which constitutes “riddled with jargon,” then said example can be shown, so as to add credit to the baseless accusation that remains baseless without exemplification.

What is an example of “riddled with jargon”?

One man’s “jargon” is another man’s useful word in context. How can anyone know what the assassin means when the assassin attacks with this type of ad-hominem attack?

Is the term “ad-hominem” now an example of “jargon” according to the assassin?

As to “legal council” (which is jargon) the idea may be such that someone pays a Union member a fee for a service. The demand (the service demanded) is due process of law, or Rule of Law, as an accuser accuses someone of Libel. The supply offered is a Union member who belongs to a Union of “Law Professionals,” (according to this jargon) and so the response I can offer in return to this suggestion is no thanks.

Why would I pay a Union member for this service when I am confident in my ability to defend myself against this attempted libel?

[Ravenman]

“Riddled with jargon” – what does that even mean?

[Bryan_Ekers]

I rest my case.

[Josf]

THE STRAIGHT DOPE
Great Debates

Is that a false front?

If Rule of Law were in force, where individuals agree to abide by Rule of Law, then why would members of a group choose to resort to deception as their methods of communicating?

It is well known, stated and restated often enough, that it is against the rules to intentionally incite flame wars.

If the idea shared is not Character Assassination (as a rule) then what is the opposing idea?

A subject matter is offered. Those agreeing to Debate the subject matter are those who stick to the subject matter instead of Character Assassination (as a rule) because the idea shared is the idea of sticking to the subject matter.

So the subject matter is Rule of Law (stick to the often repeated rules governing debate) versus Criminal Rule, and the divisions that divide people into separate groups.

1. Those who agree to follow the rules governing Debate here in Great Debates.

2. Those who agree to resort to Character Assassination as their rules they impose upon those who belong in the opposing group.

How does one individual respond and within the response the individual belongs in one or the other group?

1. Individuals offer words having to do with the subject matter.

2. Individuals offer words having to do with personal characteristics of forum members, directly or indirectly, causing the division, where no division would exist if, when, and where, individuals agree to follow the rules.

The subject matter of the Topic is exemplified by those forum members who refuse to abide by Rule of Law.

[John_Mace]

And God separated the clean from the unclean debates. And He said to Man: ye may partake of the clean debates, but of the unclean ye must make a burnt offering before ye parteketh. And that offering shall be either of the lamb or the calf, but neither of the puppy nor the kitten. Nor of the kit, the kid, the gosling nor the chulengo.

[Richard_Parker]

@Josf

Richard Parker wrote:
The idea of (involuntary) rule by man was understood to be a bad idea, and that is not new. There are two examples of how this idea was dated in ancient times in the following links and quotes:

The Athenian

http://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44539282.pdf

“The tribunes of people were at first five in number, tho afterward, their body was Increased to five more. They were always annually Ellected by the people, and Gennerally from their own body. They had Power of annulling.”

The American federation which existed between 1776 and 1787 was adapted from specific processes known to work in the past, and adapted to work in the present, while the future remained (and remains) in question.

The idea (if this is the idea shared by the individual adding a viewpoint to the topic) that there is no such thing as trial by jury whereby the whole country of people are represented by randomly selected jurists according to the common law, and instead of trial by jury there is ONLY fellow criminals agreeing to perpetrate crimes upon innocent people, then that idea is unfounded in the actual records recorded by many people who measure success by those individuals defended in time and place from those criminals identified as such in time and place.

To claim, on the other hand, that people are not perfect, and therefore even trial by jury is not perfect, is a claim that reinforces (rather than discredits) trial by jury as the law of the land instead of Monarchy, Dictatorship, Tyranny, Oligarchy, and all names labeling basically the same thing, which can be understood as Criminal Rule, which becomes Criminal Rule the moment a criminal brakes the rules that they claim are their sources of authority.

I think an analogy would be useful.

Consider the typical statue (statute!) of justice, blind and holding scales. Why is she blind? How would vision empower her to bias the scale any more than non-vision? Or re-vision? So you can see clearly that the statue/statute is nothing more than a mixed metaphor. She may be, in fact, too blind to see.

I trust that makes my point clear, but if not refer back to the anowlagy.

[Josf]

Richard Parker

I think an analogy would be useful.

Consider the typical statue (statute!) of justice, blind and holding scales. Why is she blind? How would vision empower her to bias the scale any more than non-vision? Or re-vision? So you can see clearly that the statue/statute is nothing more than a mixed metaphor. She may be, in fact, too blind to see.

I trust that makes my point clear, but if not refer back to the anowlagy.

The idea behind Rule of Law in the form of trial by jury is offered by those who credit it with more than words.

Any example of any innocent victim anywhere anytime facing any criminal where the criminal intends to injure the innocent victim will suffice to illustrate the point.

If you prefer not to offer an example, then I can offer one so as to exemplify the point in time and place.

RESPUBLICA v. CARLISLE, 1 U.S. 35 (1778)

That is a real world example, certainly not perfect, but the point at which defense meets offense is pointed out in that example.

The alternative to effective defense, in time and place, is no defense. No defense is relative to a knowable measure of offense. No defense can be understood as an invitation to inspire more offense added to the existing offense.

If all those who agree to work effectively at defense were suddenly to give up on that idea entirely, then specific things would happen in time and place, things that can be imagined, or things that can be exemplified as examples occurring right now, or things that can be exemplified as examples that have occurred in the past.

Example:

Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?.. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation… We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn Quotes (Author of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich)

What that means, in my view, on this subject matter, is a failure to defend the innocent from the guilty (in part) causes an increase in very serous crimes perpetrated by very destructive criminals as those criminals are thereby presented with opportunity.

So what forms are competitive forms that serve those who seek defense?

1. Trial by Jury
2. Federation
3. Do absolutely nothing in the face of accelerating crimes perpetrated by guilty criminals upon innocent victims

Did I miss the point?

[John_Mace]

And if ye shall find the chulengo, ye mustn’t chinga the chulengo, for that is an abomination. However, if the chulengo giveth permission, but spitting twice in thy face, then ye may stroke the balls of the chulengo, if it be a man-child chulengo.

[Ravenman]

I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.

[Richard_Parker]

@Josf

Did I miss the point?

If you did, you were supposed to refer back to the owls. Did you?

[Human_Action]

@Josf

Human Action
“Ok, I’ll bite - why were the Federalists criminals? In what way did they oppose the rule of law?”

First, it may be a good idea to dispel any errors concerning my intentions. I am not selling anything, there is no bait on a hook, so accusations of this type are unfounded.

It wasn’t intended as an accusation.

@Josf

The so called Federalists were accurately identified (at the time) as Nationalists, or Monarchists, which turned out to be those who worked toward Rule by Criminals, and they had to get rid of Rule of Law.

An example of this accurate accounting done, in general terms (not great detail) is exemplified here:
Secret proceedings and debates of the convention assembled at Philadelphia, in the year 1787 : United States. Constitutional convention, 1787. [from old catalog] : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

“One party, whose object and wish it was to abolish and annihilate all State governments, and to bring forward one general government, over this extensive continent, of monarchical nature, under certain restrictions and limitations. Those who openly avowed this sentiment were, it is true, but few; yet it is equally true, Sir, that there were a considerable number, who did not openly avow it, who were by myself, and many others of the convention, considered as being in reality favorers of that sentiment; and, acting upon those principles, covertly endeavoring to carry into effect what they well knew openly and avowedly could not be accomplished.”

Yes, political opponents of the Federalists used harsh language to describe Federalist positions. This is true of all political disputes.

A strong national government is in no way less conducive to the rule of law than strong state governments are. Looking around the world, there are federations with the rule of the law (such as Switzerland), and unitary states with the rule of law (such as France).

Further, the Constitution proposed by the Federalists established a (limited) democracy and the rule of law, not a monarchy or other arbitrary system.

@Josf

Another example is found here:
http://www.rightsofthepeople.com/freedom_documents/anti_federalist_papers/anti_federalist_papers_03.php

“There are but two modes by which men are connected in society, the one which operates on individuals, this always has been, and ought still to be called, national government; the other which binds States and governments together (not corporations, for there is no considerable nation on earth, despotic, monarchical, or republican, that does not contain many subordinate corporations with various constitutions) this last has heretofore been denominated a league or confederacy. The term federalists is therefore improperly applied to themselves, by the friends and supporters of the proposed constitution. This abuse of language does not help the cause; every degree of imposition serves only to irritate, but can never convince. They are national men, and their opponents, or at least a great majority of them, are federal, in the only true and strict sense of the word.”

No, both supported a federal union, and thus either group could be called ‘federalist’. Neither faction supported a unitary state or 13+ sovereign states.

@Josf

In order to move from the law of the land, which was understood as trial by jury, which was based upon ancient ideas handed down, including the idea of trial by the country, those who moved from rule of law had to also finance their work. That effort to finance, to pay for, is a very old method dating back to the Money Changers who were documented during the time of Christ.

Do you have a cite for the claim that the Federalists opposed the right to a trial by jury?

@Josf

A very good explanation of how that finance method works is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QSwmvMr9cY

I can’t watch videos on my work PC. Can you summarize, or supply an alternate source?

@Josf

So the general answer to the question (“I’ll bite…”) is offered in two examples from the time period in question, and the detailed answer is also offered in the lecture linked.

The examples leave much to be desired. One is a political jab, the other a quibble over semantics.

[Josf]

In the absence of clearly expressed constructive critical review of the subject matter ongoing there can be offered additional information for those unable or unwilling to participate.

At the time of the Crisis which inspired the formation of a Federation two points of view met in Debate during that offense perpetrated by people claiming to be The British Crown, as defenders claiming to be free people defended themselves (as best they could under the circumstances), as the American version of Federation was formed.

Before the Declaration of Independence, for example, there had to be a number of people agreeing to form the federation so as then to be in a position to credit a Declaration of Independence with a measure of defensive authority.

The two points of view met on two topics of interest right away during the formation of the defensive (voluntary) federation.

1. Finding an agreeable way to agree to necessary defensive actions caused by the aggressors who were currently causing so much damage to so much property and life in America.

2. Agreeing to methods of funding.

It was agreed upon, right away, that in all cases having to do with any one accused of any wrongdoing anywhere, anytime, said accusation would follow Rule of Law in the form of Trial by Jury, according to the common laws of free people.

That alone, right there in that agreement, establishes a voluntary association, or a government by consent, and the means of consenting to any order issued by anyone, anywhere, anytime, was individual, any individual, anywhere, anytime, can refuse to obey any order, and the individual is afforded trial by jury in their defense in any case of controversy of conscience.

Any dictator, anywhere, dictating an order to be obeyed without question, can be an individual Revolution as the defender Declares Independence from such criminal orders (to be obeyed without question) and the matter of controversy is thereby a cause of action according to the common laws of free people. The matter is decided upon by the whole country represented by trial jurists as trial jurists are assembled in the common manner according to the common laws; which remain on the books (statutes) in the form of a Bill of Rights.

Those founding the defensive (voluntary) federation moved to Funding, and at first they agreed upon leaving the means of funding to the independent State governing bodies, and each independent State was to be charged with a proportion of the costs of defensive war based upon the land mass of the State.

Then there were changes made to that original agreement, changes that affected each individual, independent, free man in the federation.

[2sense]

@Josf

My part in this Great Debate is offered here and now in the form of an intention to discuss the obvious membership of one side known as the Federalist Party, which are knowable as the criminals, and the obvious other side, which were falsely called the Antis,

They weren’t falsely called the “Antis”. The terms were coined before 1787 when those who supported strengthening the federal Congress were called “federalists” and those who opposed it were called “anti-federalists”. It’s not a description of their opposing philosophies where, yes, the antifederalists did prefer a system more federal than the federalists, but rather describes their relationship with the central government under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.

The so called Federalists were accurately identified (at the time) as Nationalists, or Monarchists, which turned out to be those who worked toward Rule by Criminals, and they had to get rid of Rule of Law.

Not all Federalists were nationalists let alone monarchists. Many hoped to strengthen the government under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union without basing a government on the People themselves. But such efforts appeared doomed given the unanimous ratification requirement and so they supported the Constitution as the best possible reform, illegal though it may have been. Certainly there were plenty who were committed to limiting the power of the states, particularly the power of states to take the side of debtors, and even some who wanted a return to the monarchy. But not all.

The American federation which existed between 1776 and 1787 was adapted from specific processes known to work in the past, and adapted to work in the present, while the future remained (and remains) in question.

A good point. The United States under the Articles doesn’t get the credit they deserve. They successfully made alliances in Europe and defeated the greatest maritime power of the age. After the war they were able to organize the national domain via the famous Northwest Ordinance. If the Constitution had failed to be drafted or ratified the states might well have continued successfully for who knows how long? The US might not be the world empire of today but those Americans might well have been freer and happier. And more of those we went on to conquer might have been thankful as well. Or not. We don’t know.