Comments Elsewhere

“After all, they had 200 years to make up their mind, not one month.”

Who had 200 years to make up their mind?

I sure didn’t. I was born into this mess, and stuck with the Constitution whether I liked it or not.

Neither did the people upon whom the Constitution was enforced at the time. They had a bit more than 8 months from when the arbitrary “convention” of New Hampshire ratified (June 21, 1788) and when the federal government began enforcing the terms of the new Constitution (March 4, 1789). (I’m referring to those that could leave at all, that is. You are aware that several million people were held in chattel slavery and would be hunted down if they so much as tried to leave, right?)

So, hey, I’ll even give you a whole year to pack up your shit and get out of North America before I crown myself Emperor, in accordance with my new unanimously-approved Constitution. That’s even better than what non-voters in 1788 got. Otherwise, I can assume that you are tacitly accepting my absolute imperial authority over you. Right?

“And I have a sneaking suspicion, in any event, that had they proposed such a situation as you just did, our founders would have been dead within a week.”

I don’t know that that’s true. If you play your cards right, you can get away with a lot in a context where you might not expect that you would; just look at Napoleon.

But in any case, so what? Are you claiming that the only reason my new Constitution fails to have the same authority that the old federal Constitution (which has just been repealed by a unanimous vote of everyone eligible) had, is that the substantive terms of the “contract” are bad? If so, I wonder what kind of “contract” becomes binding or non-binding depending on the substantive terms, but not on whether, you know, the “parties” ever actually consented, or were even asked.

If not, then what is the salient difference?