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by NotAtWork
4289 days ago
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> makes it very clear that the new constitutional system must be designed so as to insure that the government will, in his words "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority" and bar the way to anything like agrarian reform My point wasn't that this didn't happen or the US was some magical egalitarian wonderland (though the foundational period of the US had a surprisingly level of wealth equality compared to some other periods). Rather, my point was the manner in which they did this was to construct a system of law that protected the private individual from the instruments of government, and that we're slowly undoing that precise social contract - not stealing their wealth in exchange for restraint on government powers. It's hard to argue even though the founding of the US wasn't perfect, and that these instruments largely came about as a protection for the wealthy, that it didn't significantly raise the profile of the citizen-as-having-rights-to-be-protected form of government or that the US doesn't have a long history of viewing such policies as important, even if there have been historic violations. I think you'd even have trouble finding periods similar to the 50-70 year long ratcheting we've seen meant to undermine those exact same rights, or that their infringement has crept so far up the social ladder. |
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At the same time they purposefully sought to disenfranchise the majority so that they might change the rules at any time.
So the constitution within the constitution is that the government will protect the wealthy, and that makes sense given who was writing it.
It appears that the ruling elites now value control of the population over privacy. I see two possible explanations but perhaps there are others.
* They see the incredible growth of poverty in the US and there is no vast neighboring region in which to exterminate existing inhabitants and settle. Hence wealth protection from the masses is a higher priority than the privacy protections.
* Mass media has distorted the scale of the disenfranchising effects of our system (rich have more control and poor even less) and the wealthy realise they can use their control of the government to make huge fortunes. For example the profits of the banks are derived by transfer of wealth from taxpayers through implicit insurance since insurance allows highly profitable high risk strategies. They then choose short term profits over privacy / human rights.
In any case they choose to exercise their rights under the constitution within the constitution to change the laws to bring about repression and control.
I'm not really rebutting your point here. Instead I want to highlight that what is happening now IS consistent with the ideals of governance around during the formation of the US and what has changed is likely a lower level 'priority'