Made this as a post in another thread, realized it might be useful to everyone, so here it is:

Read this:
https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?full=on&ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EQbuJwjQeWK4RyKL2jZm9BLJlsk_1714182966_1%3A19285%3A32618



Then (and don't snort at it being a pig guide, it's legit good) this:
https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?full=on&ac=sl&st=sl&qi=wfHpIaa16gaWFRX%2CEFuGl84cGW4_1714183103_1%3A4382%3A8308


If you read them in order, you will have trouble finishing the second one.  You will be beyond utterly pissed as you realize how badly you've been gaslit and abused and how quickly cotus was trampled.

Then, and only then, watch this:



---------------------------------------------

After you let the stuff above sink in...

Do these:
































(there are more, but they are paywalled, find them here:
https://libertyclassroom.com/constitution/
-------------------------------

While y'all are thinking I am stupidly insane to suggest THIS much time and investement, here, watch a nice short one:



-------------------------------

Then, for the guys who are speedrunners and want this stuff on hardmode in the original sources:

https://constitution.org/1-Education/liberlib.htm

@WhiskersTheCat

@Morlawn66

@Geralt55

And anyone else that has good sources, especially free ones, Drop them in the thread.

Tom Woods is an absolute Chad.

Kevin Gutzman is also awesome.

If you don't want to read a book, just Google "Virginia ratification convention"

I will post a link to Mr. Henry's speech https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/patrick-henry-virginia-ratifying-convention-va/

TLDR, TLDW

But op. Pronounce this word "then"

I hope Americans will actually read Virginian political thought, not because it started the country, but rather because the ideas have held true for hundreds of years.

Guys like Hamilton deserved to die in a dual

At a base level, we have to understand that our freedom was won by confederation.

But magically confederation was evil the next time.

States are different. Counties are different. Towns are different. The entire point of the American experiment since day one was that people are different and centralized government sucks.

I don't want to rule NY or CA. It is indefensible that they should seek to rule me. I agree we have many common interests and I hope to share those interests. But an overwhelming, unaccountable totally centralized national government is not the way to do it. Let the states be themselves, they already are, in spite of federal overreach.

Fixed.

Thank you.

Ok cool.

Now maybe I can take your OP seriously and read and watch so.e of the things you posted.

Put simply, how do you wish to be governed?

It's a really simple question people jump through all sorts of hoops to justify the belief they've already outsourced to others.

I really don't care what other places do, because I don't live there. If it's closer to me, I care more but not enough to override where I live. Everyone knows Maryland sucks and they steal our oysters but I just don't go there. And also they drive like shit. So it's fine.

I would rather have oyster wars 2.0 than rely on a corrupt federal government to determine the terms. And conversely, if it's not that bad and they just steal a little extra and it's not worth oyster wars 2.0 fine. Literally ignoring Maryland corruption is better than ceding sovereignty to the Federal government

Another one worth going short handed to get:

https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?full=on&ac=sl&st=sl&qi=iTjECT%2CdLZykMP04nptiosGT0ZI_1714187112_1%3A12771%3A23492

And just because I wanna be mean to you in a nice way whiskers:



https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=5RVa0qz8JguuKusoo7ePfPSCVgQ_1714187562_1%3A15599%3A27471&bq=author%3Dnot%2520set%26title%3Dcomplete%2520anti-federalist%2520set%2520of%25207%2520%252C%2520storing%252C%2520herbert%2520j.%252C%2520very%2520book

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom ...

Content is king.

I am not.

Good one.

I don't care for rand nor her worldview, but she seems to have said some things like this quite clearly and in a way that made them hard to mistake.

The greeks would have scoffed at what us post-postmoderns deign to call "democracy."  

Interestingly, I think their purer democracy had a moderating element that ours would not: they would and could have you executed for hubris.

The biggest question that always goes unanswered is "How do you wish to be governed?"

Let's unpack that. First, do you have moral agency to have an opinion? Second, do you even care?  Third, do you care what others think about it? Fourth, what are you willing to tolerate? Fifth, do you even know how you wish to be governed?

Ever so lightly. I shouldn't even know they exist. Yes I care more than most.

The Western play here is concentric circles of responsibility.

Be a man.

You need to be in order to get a wife. Once wife is good you can have kids. Once kids are provided for you can have opinions on town politics. Once you have town politics you can have an opinion on county politics. After that, state, then regional, then national, then continental, then intercontinental.

It is a ridiculous idea that we vote at the highest level with ferver, while completely ignoring the things closest to us

In the past, we would even discuss this in the theaters:





To borrow from a thinker far more equipped than I, who I think was right:



5 rests on 4, because in order to have law, you must have a solid source of ethics. 4 leans on 3, because the only coherent way to get those ethics, is to get them from someone who by their nature can know them and make them known.

3 stands on 2, because we are dealing with mankind, as we are, prone to be communists, or socialists, or tyrants, and thus the corruption of mankind must be addressed.  All the rest stand on 1, because you must have a coherent way of knowing.

We should very much be heavily governed.

In terms of in this physical world - by our selves, individually.

So that we may be able to live in freedom, instead of having to be locked in cage so that we do not do wrong to each other.

Those who will not control themselves invite all encompassing chains.

Day crew bump

@killingmachine123 will help he is based

Another good one and worthwhile, I linked one of his videos, and while not strictly on constituionalism, they discuss our character and our split with britain and are very fertile for and tied up with the topic of US constitutionalism:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlZT8kjx7zFQ9gX5Q6A7XIeNs4HMR9qGc









Our american families and Men have a choice: pick up and start forcing people to use the tools our founders gave us, OR do as they did regarding britain.

Either way, that requires of us that we be knowledgeable of what came before so we can make something at least as good, hopefully better.

Even if we do not have to use this content in either of those situations, it's time WELL spent.

Regarding those liberty classroom videos: how many of us know that our founders were fighting to, among other things,  be allowed to keep their highest law - in effect, *their already existing colonial constititons.*  In the form of their charters, and etc. They came and established their highest set of laws. Some quite early on.

I think we miss or forget this because it was on a per-colony level that this was done, before the union was even the beginnings of an idea.

Our founders did not work in a vacuum.

Thank you OP (and the other posters) for this information. My teenage/young adult kids are taking a course on government right now. I'm hoping to incorporate some of these videos/books into their curriculum.

YW.

Hope it's fruitful for you all.

Thank you. Always in the market for some good books

Too bad that the people trying hard every day to destroy those rights don't give a shit about words on a piece of paper or the history behind them

Of course they don't.

Why would they?

Nobody knows what those words represent well enough to teach the things they represent.

Nor explain why they are worthy to have.

I order for paper chains to work, they have to have belief in what is on those paper chains added (to the pathetic strength of those paper chains).

You can't get that belief if you don't even know the words or what they meant.

Working in the foundations is worthy business.

I thought Chad was bad

Hillsdale College LINK

Nope.

Put differently, Tom is a great dude, historian and philosopher. It has been interesting to watch him come over from AnCap to putting his toe in the conservative pool. He's remained the same with his ideas, but I think his hatred of the left has grown quite a bit more.

As with most of us, tbh.

Tom's history seems to be pretty topshelf stuff.

IMO his problem is that he doesn't realize that romans 3 is right about everyone's human nature.

God bless the wonderful fool, he was far too surprised at the weaponization of covid by government. Just too rosy about humanity. He's slowly being dragged around on a course correct on that.

He is an academic, he can be forgiven. Doubly so because he's an actual academic that reevaluates positions, statements and policy as new evidence is available.

Do you return your shopping cart?

(It's rhetorical, I know Whiskers does)

I have my serious problems with hillsdale re:the lincolnian ideas (the union existed before it existed, we are all one people, etc.), but some of their stuff is great.

I just checked my link ... I can't find it, but they have/had an EXCELLENT course on how we wound up with congressmen not debating, not making law, and not legislating anything.

It covered how the progressives took the legislating power away from congress and put it into the bureaucracies to be protected and run by "the experts."
--------------------------------------------
Something I had to learn over many decades is that we have at least two large strains in american constitutionalism and our political life ever since the idea of union between the colonies came up.

A centralizing homogenizing strain, that posits the idea of a singular unitary american people and a unitary political state, overarching and subsuming the colonies and than the states thereafter.  On this side you will find hamilton, lincoln, the nationalists and monarchists of the founding, and a great many of our founders and politicians up till the age of FDR. After FDR, it is (on the not left side) the mainstream "orthodox, you cannot dissent from this" side.

On the other:

A more localists strain, positing several people groups and traditions that may not have even followed the political lines of the colonies and states that came after, and that wishes for a center that only handles a limited few things, mostly in relating to the other states in the world outside of conus; more republic-an in form. Jefferson, I believe patrick henry, and those who would leave room in the varying political units and localities for peoples to have their eccentricities, so long as those don't exceed certain agreed on boundaries. This is now the side that was in retreat because it was pummeled down; it's not in control of the mainstream levers of power, and is looked at as heterodox (ie not necessarily taboo, but just not fully right).

Regardless which side anyone falls on, it's good to recognize that these sides do exist and that they color our histories and our current day politics.

Hillsdale seems to self consciously fall onto one side of this divide.

That doesn't mean their content should be ignored. Quite the opposite.

ETA: Thank you for the link and the mention of hillsdale.

When I get kegs they let me borrow a big uboat (their word not mine lol) and I bring it back inside the store where it belongs before I leave

The carts must be returned. All of polite society requires the carts to be returned.

Calling a flatbed (I assume) a uboat is actually pretty cool.

Returning buggies to the corral is an easy litmus test to see if it's even worthwhile to attempt to discuss self government with someone.

VS

To the Officers of the first Brigade of the third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts

Quincy October 11. 1798

Gentlemen

I have received from Major General Hull and Brigadier General Walker your unanimous Address from Lexington, animated with a martial Spirit and expressed with a military Dignity, becoming your Characters and the memorable Plains, in which it was adopted.

While our Country remains untainted with the Principles and manners, which are now producing desolation in so many Parts of the World: while she continues Sincere and incapable of insidious and impious Policy: We shall have the Strongest Reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned Us by Providence. But should the People of America, once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another and towards foreign nations, which assumes the Language of Justice and moderation while it is practicing Iniquity and Extravagance; and displays in the most captivating manner the charming Pictures of Candour frankness & sincerity while it is rioting in rapine and Insolence: this Country will be the most miserable Habitation in the World. Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other

An Address so unanimous and firm from the officers commanding two thousand Eight hundred Men, consisting of such substantial Citizens as are able and willing at their own Expence, compleatly to arm, And cloath themselves in handsome Uniforms does honor to that Division of the Militia which has done so much honor to their Country. Oaths, in this Country, are as yet universally considered as Sacred Obligations. That which you have taken and so solemnly repeated on that venerable Spot is an ample Pledge of your sincerity, and devotion to your Country and its Government.

John Adams

Dropping this because it was a very compelling read. Yes, it confirmed a lot of what I already knew, but I think it will serve well another reader who wishes to understand the complex nature (bloated deep state bureaucracy) of our current progressive government's Constitution destructive antics.



https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Citizen-Progressive-Globalization-Destroying/dp/154164753X

I’m just gonna give this thread a little tag-tag-tagaroo.

*grabs the audio to listen*

Thanks.

For those who want to download the videos or even just grab the audio and not the videos:

https://www.3dyd.com/

If you click on the tools menu, and put it in advanced mode, you can control-click and choose your preferred video and audio stream, or just grab an audio and not have to download the video, etc.

Best part: they are free softwares. You can buy a license for a bit more capability on them.

It's cute to me that people still think we're living under constitutional governance.

I certainly don't think we are.

The more you know of it, the further back you realize we weren't under it.

In fact, a really good argument could be made that we weren't in the 1790s.

Virginia railed against this in our state assemblies

IDK exactly what you're referring to, but I'm taking about Chisholm v Georgia and scotus overreacing past it's jurisdiction triggering the 11th amendment.

A lot of Virginians did not even want to ratify the Constitution because they felt it would give the federal government way too much power

In for some good reading. Thanks for the mention, Whiskers.

Welcome to the zoo.

You should actively seek out being wrong. You should never defend being wrong.

If you are bested in argument, then cede the point and research until you can argue it better. If you lose on principle, evaluate your principles.

You don't learn anything when you're correct, you only learn when you're wrong. If someone says don't put your hand on that burner, it's hot you might wonder. If you put your hand on there anyways now you fucking know.