What's In A Name
Prior to the War Between The States, there was significant use of the older language to refer to our country. The language was significant because "these" pointed to an important part of the true intent of the founders. It pointed to a time when we still believed in the importance and the weight of 10th Amendment. It pointed to a crispness of thinking.... by citizens, by historians, and even by the judiciary.
After the War Between The States, after the Federal Government continued to consolidate power, and after the rise of post-modern thought, "the" United States became not just the linguistic standard, it became descriptive of how government actually works today.
But know this, "the" United States is not totally descriptive of what the founders intended.
It is time to resurrect "these" United States as one of the ways we speak of our country.
It is time to rediscover the original weight of the 10th Amendment!
2 comments:
I believe it was Justice Frankfurther who, when discussing federalism, noted that the various states are test tubes for experimentation and that such was one of the great facets of our Constitution. It is indeed time we get back to that concept or the country will become truly stagnant.
We've also seen our culture begin what is clearly a "race to the bottom" as the cultural elite do as they have done, capture Washington DC, and force the rest of the country into their vision because people have been misled into believing we are "the" United States. We can expect this to continue because the elites simply do not win elections; their only hope for their vision then is a recharacterization of federalism, the bastion called Washington DC and the federal courts as the American electorate otherwise rejects them every time. None of this of course is what the founders envisioned.
We must return to the states being reflective of their people and, when compared to the national seat of power, having the greatest impact on their people. Washington DC should not be doing that. And if that leads California and New York to be run like socialist societies, so be it. They should also pay the tab for that governing style based upon state taxes, not federal taxes. And we will continue to witness their populations do what they have been doing, move to the Southeast, which though not perfect and having much room for improvement, reflect state governments closest to the vision of our founders.
Thanks for the blog Byron 1776. I'll be back!
Byron,
Check out editions of "Reader's Digest" from a decade or so ago.
They once had a regular feature -- a compendium of jokes, I believe -- entitled "Life in These United States."
Not any more!
BTW: The truly radical prefer this styling -- "these united States." Ha! We'll never go back to that one, will we?
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