Contrary to what many people think, the US is NOT a democracy, it is a Republic. In a Democracy, every citizen votes on everything, in a Republic, the citizens elect representitives to make the decisions for them (or in the US, make the decisions the folks with money wants.)
What is even more shocking to learn is that the president of the United States does not have to follow the law as specified by the Supreme Court (Please read up on the Trail of Tears and President Andrew Jackson.)
There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents a state from leaving the Republic of the United States. So there was nothing Unconstitutional about the southern states leaving the Union, even if it was for a extremely stupid cause.
The Civil War could have been prevented in 1843 if the Northern States would have used the same procedure that the British Empire had done when it outlawed slavery... The British Government bought all the slaves, outlawed slavery, then freed the slaves, no one lost any investments, i.e no one was financially ruined.
However, the Northern States, and the Northern Banks that held a lot of loan notes in the south would not stand for this move.
Of the 900+ treaties the United States government made with the various Native American nations, it broke all but 2. (It may shock you to learn that if the federal government was to suddenly honor those treaties, most of the plains states would become the property of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Commanche, and Lakota.... figure 60% of the land from Kansas City west to central Colorado, and north to the Canadian border.) Could you imagine relocating the entire population of Fargo or Omaha?
Under the series of laws known as the Patriot Acts, it is no longer necessary for charges to be filled upon arrest, a person can be held indefinately. Secret 'anti-terrorist' courts can issue search warrents which can be carried out without the notification to the person being searched, hold grand jury hearings without notification to the defendant and order all assets seized on the suspiscion of wrong doing.
Also under the latest of the Patriot Acts, it is no longer necessary for the President to notify congress he is planning to declare martial law.
Under these laws, any group can be listed as subversive, and therefore all members can be placed under observation by the justice department. One such group is actually a Christian group that is against ANY war.
Now with all that being said, there is still the basic fact that under our present form of government, we do have it better than most other nations. However, since 9/11, laws have been passed by Congress, that if acted on in a large scale would eliminate the basic civil rights we hold sacred.
You might want to think about that.
