The division is clearly expressed by the two sides as such:
“So, Josf, you’d like a federal republic; wherein the central government has limited, enumerated powers; governed by the rule of law; with a Christian slant; and featuring a free-market economy? Great news! That’s what the United States is.”
The change from a federation into a national government, not a federation, was understood by those on the other side, the side that is not the side expressed above.
So there in the words quoted above is one side.
Here are words expressed by the other side:
Expressed later by the same individual are the following words:
Based (again) upon the very well voiced definition of the meaning of the word federal, in the English Language, offered by John Adams before the Declaration of Independence, clearly, according to George Mason (among many others on the federal side) the Consolidated National government was NOT a federal one.
As to what happened when John Adams was elected as supreme commander presiding over the Consolidated National government, which was NOT a federal one, he published the Alien and Sedition Acts which was the Act that inspired Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to counter such anti-federal Acts with their Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions earlier quoted.
So, again, two sides represented by a forum member named Human Action who claims that the government existing now is federal, on one side, and at least George Mason explaining the opposing side whereby the government in question is not federal, it is a Consolidated Nation state.
“So, again, two sides represented by a forum member named Human Action…” Human Action does not “represent” the rest of the posters-he is one of many posters with questions that you have either been unwilling or unable to answer to anyone’s satisfaction. Do you have any intention of answering anyone else’s questions…hopefully in an as non-verbose form as possible?
John Adams offers a competitive answer (that I think is a competitive answer which is as good, if not better, than any other competitive answer) of what IS the meaning of federal in the context of the formation of the American federation which started as a result of the criminal British War of Aggression:
Human Action ask:
In my own words, but based upon the words of John Adams quoted in Elliot’s Debates Volume I, a federation is simply a voluntary association that is no longer a federation when a member (an individual or a group of individuals) initiate criminal aggression upon the other members. The aggressor is no longer volunteering to maintain the federation.
The example offered by John Adams is the federal (voluntary) union between the people in the colonies of America and the Parliament of Great Britain.
The people in the States, in a federation, are always independent of the federal government, any restraints on trade offered to the states by the people in the federal government derive efficacy only by acquiescence from people in the states, and not from any “rights” commanded by the people in the federal government. So no one in a federal office possesses any right to restrain trade between anyone in any state, and the only reason trade is restrained by anyone in a federal capacity is by the consent of the people in the states. That means, unequivocally, that people in any State can secede from the federal union at will when people in any State face false federal officers dictating obedience (without question) to people in those States.
The Declaration of Independence documents the example of people in federated union choosing, by their consent, to recognize when a member (or members) of the federal union initiate criminally aggressive acts upon the people who were formerly federated.
So what do I think is a federation?
A federation is a voluntary union typically formed for the express purpose of mutual defense against all enemies of Liberty (voluntary association) foreign and domestic.
A federation is NOT the opposite of a voluntary association for mutual defense; whereby special interests groups aggressively enslave everyone else.
An example that exemplifies a federation is the former federal union with the British Monarchy and the people in American Colonies. That is what I think is a federation, and that is what John Adams claimed to be the meaning of a federation.
An example that exemplifies a non, or anti, federation is the former federation that ended when the British Monarchy began a War of Aggression upon the people in America so as to enslave those people under a dictatorial, tyrannical, criminal rule.
An example of another federation is the federation that was formed by the people in the former Colonies as they formed independent states out of formerly independent colonies, and those independent states formed a federation so as to federate in mutual defense against the common enemy of Liberty.
Another example of a non, or anti, federation is the change from the original federation under the Articles of Confederation into the Consolidated Nation State under the so called Constitution of 1787.
If that again fails to answer the question, then focus attention only on the words of John Adams (in context) and see if the English spoken by John Adams can convey any meaning to you.
Human Action ask:
I think John Adams offers a competitive meaning of federation that is good enough for me to employ when I wish to convey the meaning of federation to anyone else.
I am not a member of any group that calls themselves “sovereign citizens” as I understand such groups are misled by some seriously false information.
An example is the misuse of the term “pro se in rem” often used by people who misuse the terms “sovereign citizens” as if each individual can do whatever they want whenever they want because they say so.
Rule of Law is very simple to understand if someone applies the base principles that are offered in such ideas conveyed as the example in Matthew 7:12, or the example process knowable as trail by jury according to the common law.
If you have any other land mine type questions you think is worthy of my time and effort, then I can read those offers (as I have read so far) and I can decide to spend my time and energy, voluntarily, answering your questions. Currently the forum member Human Action offers the best (highest quality and lowest cost) information offered from the opposing side: as far as my judgment (which is prone to error) goes.
If you were me then you could determine (for me) which questions I think are worth answering.
Edit:
“There you go.”
No, there you go, the question concerned my thinking, not yours, and not the thinking used by the author of a dictionary (one of many competitive dictionaries dating back to the start of the English language in the 1700s).
And still you managed to botch it, by switching the word from “federal” to “federation”…and not even bothering to actually give a definition for that word either.
Thanks for the answer. However, the various dictionaries I consulted all give a difference definition, such as this one:
: a country formed by separate states that have given certain powers to a central government while keeping control over local matters
: an organization that is made by loosely joining together smaller organizations
: the act of joining together separate organizations or states
So, when I say the modern US is a federation, I am correct, because I am using the mainstream, dictionary definition. Hence the confusion, I guess.
Under your definition, isn’t almost every organization a federation? A charity, a bowling league, a trade association…
How was that union ever voluntary (or a union?) For the most part, the colonies were founded with royal charters; they were never independent states that joined the UK, they were colonies of the UK.
Also, why doesn’t your classification apply to the states themselves? Are they not to be voluntary associations?
I’m probably in the 30th percentile, on my best day, of posters here in terms of knowledge and eloquence, so it’d benefit you to solicit other opinions.
And here we are, nearly a week later, with thousands of words, (including multiple invented definitions), tossed randomly on the pages, and the point of the thread remains:
[ul]
[li]a group of European immigrants to North America, having stolen land from the indigenous people in order to set up a European style society,[/li][li]and having engaged in a war of treason to separate from their government in order to establish a separate government,[/li][li]then, finding that their charter was not sufficient to their needs, convened a meeting to consider changes to that charter which resulted in the proposal for a new charter,[/li][li]however, notwithstanding the theft and treason that preceded the desire for changes to the existing charter, since the proposed new charter was not the purpose for which the meeting was convened, the proposed new charter is “criminal.”[/li][/ul]
The delegates to that convention, did overstep their actual instructions, proposing a new charter. Of course, the new charter was then debated publicly throughout the entire nation resulting in the majority of voting citizens agreeing to the proposed new charter, rendering declarations of fraud or “criminality” as so much bushwa.
Because the delegates to the convention overstepped their initial instructions, and ignoring the fact that the electorate actually agreed to the proposed change in charter after public debate, (and pretending that the initial land theft and the treasonous separation never occurred), the OP declares that the entire government and all its actions are “criminal” and, therefore, all laws legislated under the new charter for the past 228 years are invalid.
(There is the sidebar, of course, hinted but never explained, that the proposed change in charter was the result of a “Conspiracy.” This despite an utter lack of evidence that that any “conspirators” managed to arrange for the twelve states who sent delegates to send specific delegates who would seek to overthrow the Articles of Confederation–and without providing any proposed method by which such a “Conspiracy” was to be managed.)
Does Human Action claim that “my” version of federation is not the same as the version of federation offered by John Adams in the quote taken from Elliot’s Debates Volume I?
The person being addressed here is you, not Human Action, and(once again) it wasn’t a definition of “federation” that was asked for in the first place.
Do you have a cite that the rule of law is based upon Matthew 7:12 and trial by jury “according to the common law”? Assuming that our society is based upon Christian biblical principles, why does that verse stand out as the bedrock of free society?
Or, if you should choose voluntarily, as a person of liberty, please answer this question: How does your “trial by jury according to the common law” differ from the trial by jury that someone in California would receive today if he is on trial for robbery?
I am honestly curious about what our resident linguists think of this manner of presentation. What sort of stylistic is this? It appears to go way beyond group jargon. Cant? Argot? Incantation?
That the question was not whether, by a declaration of independence, we should make ourselves what we are not; but whether we should declare a fact which already exists:
That, as to the people or Parliament of England, we had always been independent of them, their restraints on our trade deriving efficacy from our acquiescence only, and not from any rights they possessed of imposing them; and that, so far, our connection had been federal only, and was now dissolved by the commencement of hostilities:
That, as to the king, we had been bound to him by allegiance, but that this bond was now dissolved by his assent to the late act of Parliament, by which he declares us out of his protection, and by his levying war on us - a fact which has long ago proved us out of his protection, it being a certain position in law, that allegiance and protection are reciprocal, the one ceasing when the other is withdrawn:
Adams is using the same definition as the dictionary I cited earlier - a country formed of separate states. I see nothing in his remarks to indicate that he’d use “federation” to describe his marriage, or his friendships, or the Freemasons, or any other voluntary association in his life. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
I was holding onto that for a better setup, like Josf starting to talk about purges or collectivism, but maybe he has already and I just couldn’t recognize it.