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Saturday, February 9, 2013

Restoring The West: Back to the Articles of Confederation as America's Central Government

Americans demanding a return to limited government, a balanced budget and an end to spiraling sovereign debt have been voting for the GOP for decades and the result has been total failure on all counts.


To accomplish these goals we really must turn the government structure back to our first government model, the Articles of Confederation, so the centers of real power are at the state rather than the federal level. Since 1913, it has been very easy, between maintaining the two-party monopoly and buying off Congress, for the power elite to control leviathan from the top down. This would be far more difficult if power, authority and programs were decentralized and returned to control of the individual states.

Changing the government does not mean voting in another president or changing whether the Democrats or GOP control the House or Senate. Both parties are equally guilty and responsible for the downfall of America. Yes, I would certainly prefer Rand Paul to another Democrat president following the second term of Barack Obama. And of course more liberty-oriented state house representatives as well as senators and congress members at the federal level would help to get the liberty message out.

But national politics today is like “window dressing” on the Titanic and electing a “few more good politicians” will never create a majority on most important issues. The political leadership knows we are sinking and have reserved the lifeboats for themselves. All of the electioneering and mindless political chatter is about as relevant as deciding who would pay the final bar tab on the Titanic. Politics is just a subterfuge to keep you in the bar while the elites rush aboard the lifeboats.

A Short History of the Articles


If we really want to restore the original republic of our founding fathers and a modern day version of liberty and limited government back to these united States, the current all powerful federal government must be relegated to the trash heap of failed ideals of history – and soon. The formerly sovereign states of the US must return again to our first federal government, the one our founding fathers created and our patriot armies shed their treasure, blood and lives to establish, the Articles of Confederation.

Before the Constitution was drafted, the nearly 2.5 million citizens of the 13 sovereign states were governed under the Articles of Confederation, established by the Second Continental Congress. The limited confederation government formed by the Articles began on May 10, 1775 and lasted until September 15, 1787. Please note the population statistics at the time did not include Africans or Indians, according to the US Bureau of the Census, so the real population was substantially higher than the official figures.

According to US Office of Personnel Management, the 2011 civilian federal workforce, excluding postal service employees, was 2.15 million. Adding in the 500,000 postal workers means there are more civilian parasites employed by the federal government living off of productive taxpayers in the private sector than there were citizens back in 1776. I believe the Constitution and Bill of Rights have failed our nation because of the actions of a few.

The Constitutional or Philadelphia Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 through September 17, 1787 supposedly to address problems with the Articles of Confederation. Slow methods of communication had made it difficult to govern a decentralized confederation of sovereign states, both at the executive and legislative levels, one of the reasons a more centralized government structure was suggested.

So although the announced public intention was to revise the Articles, powerful interests represented by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton conspired to create a new government instead of improving the lawful and legitimate government of the Articles of Confederation. The result was the Constitution that America operated under for better and sometimes for worse until the coup of Lincoln in 1861 and the total overthrow by Money Power in 1913. Note most of the participants supported the Constitution because of communication inadequacies of the Articles and had the best of intentions but there was a hidden element consisting of those out to emulate the powerful central governments of Europe. Continue reading @Freedom Post