Goulash Collectivism in the US

It doesn't matter how large government becomes, when it's doing only what is proper to its powers according to the Constitution.

'Goulash collectivism' is the hodge-podge of the various political policies we live under, from LBJ's 'Great Society', from FDR's government employment of the unemployed, from JFK's altruistic "ask what you can do for your country"; to social security, to unending unemployment payments, to phony 'green' energy programs that destroy the oil and coal industries we still depend on, to our new insurance program of 'buy-it-or-get-taxed-for-not-doing-it' policy, to the over-all dogged and ferocious meddling by government in our lives.

That we are employing this goulash collectivism "is not just a fringe view," wrote Mark Trumbull, in The Christian Science Monitor. In a poll, "A majority said it should not be the government's role to redistribute wealth, and a majority said they prefer 'a smaller government providing less services'."

No, it is not just a fringe view, though it may be said that it isn't the left wing progressives who are going to admit it. But it is odd how those progressives can turn and twist the message of prior leaders to fit their own agenda. President Lincoln, said President Obama last year, told us "that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves." He wanted to establish that the redistribution of wealth (his words, not mine) was something we cannot do at all for ourselves--as if it was something that ought to be done in the first place.

While we should not even be trying to do such a thing for ourselves, should we doing it through government, and should a political leader turn the words of other leaders into what they were not meant to say? The things that people "cannot do, or cannot well do, for themselves, fall into two classes," Lincoln said. The first class "embraces all crimes, misdemeanors and non-performance of contracts. The other embraces all which...requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself."

In the last few years the case has been made that Lincoln was a socialist. Even the politically libertarian Congressman Ron Paul has gotten into that act. But it is clear from the quote that our current President used Lincoln's words out of context. Lincoln also said, "I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men’s rights." That is libertarianism, not socialism; it upholds the Ninth Amendment and the idea of individual sovereignty.

It's clear that the progressives could throw as many progressive-sounding quotes from Lincoln as anyone else could throw freedom-loving quotes, but it is another thing altogether to use a quote out of context.

And what is really out of context is a debate over the size of government versus its proper purposes, as were described by Lincoln. If a government is doing only what is proper to it according to the Constitution, it doesn't matter how large it becomes. If the Federal and State governments were doing only what is proper and Constitutional, governments would be larger than they are now if we had the same number of citizens as mainland China.

Yet, the very things that progressives advocate are social programs which Originalist readings show the Founders were entirely against. Until the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" was passed, the biggest social overhaul of government services and of social justice programs was the Great Society, the various acts passed by the progressive President Lyndon Johnson. His anti-poverty program was the most far-reaching piece of socialism in US history.

"Because it is right, because it is wise, and because, for the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty," LBJ told us to justify his meddling. Through his "Economic Opportunity Act of 1964" he began to transfer money from those who had, to those who had not, from "each according to his ability, to each according to his need," just as Marx said ought to be done.

This is not the original purpose of any part of the Constitution, as described by any of the Founders, yet the poverty of those who receive it no worse than it was in 1776--except in comparison to those who are not impoverished. Poor is poor. Yet, the poverty guidelines for 2012 are $11,170 for an individual, while the average income for all Americans is $47,000. So 'poor' is measured as one-quarter of the average, while in the first years of our nation one-quarter of the average would have been a God-send. And yet James Madison said, "Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." He saw the black-and-white of the meaning of the Constitution.

Thomas Jefferson, forecasting what Marx would later say was the proper thing, was more more on the moral mark than Madison, when he wrote, "To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”


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© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Social Justice

 'Social justice' is also called 'distributive justice' by those who don't mind the word association problem. At least they are intellectually more honest than those who hide behind the word 'social'. The Washington University Law Review is one of the honest, posing the question, "What should be redistributed?"

The National Association of Social Workers proudly says: "Peace is not possible where there are gross inequalities of money and power, whether between workers and managers, nations and nations or men and women." I would say peace between them and sovereign individuals is not possible when they must use the force of their political power to 'distribute' money and power.

"Let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you – and why?"  Walter Williams 

Amen. Just tell me how much of what I have is yours to 'distribute', for the purpose of your 'justice'--a justice which is unnatural by the laws of nature which oblige everyone who consults reason to the proposition that no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, property, or health. (See John Locke)

A 'socially just' website, Buzzle.com, clearly states that "In a socially just society, there is equal distribution of wealth and property." By whom, and through the use of what force of power, is this to be achieved; and who gave the right to those who will effect the distribution?

The progressive position does not believe in individual sovereignty (IS). IS is not a road to total anarchy; the progressives don't like anarchy either because it leaves them with no power at all. But IS is Locke's idea of the individual being the source from which all governmental power is derived. I as an individual do not have the power to tax my neighbor for the 'general welfare' of paving the street so that we don't all get stuck in the mud. But government must have the power of building infrastructure.

When in a complete state of nature, I have the right to seek retribution upon anyone who does harm to my life, liberty, property (which metaphysically only is also my family members) or my health. But individuals are often cruel, literally taking an eye for an eye when that is not the right solution. Governments are formed to deal with this also.

Governments are not formed to take part of my wages or part of my home, as was demonstrated in Soviet Russia and depicted in the movie 'Dr. Zhivago'. That solution to homelessness is the logical extreme of progressive socialism--but so is the health care act. That is what Americans said about it when they rejected it in its first form--Hillary care. The dialectics of President Obama's speech patterns and the use of taqiyya to get what he wants led us to where we now stand, in all roads political and economic.

'Justice' cannot be separated by economics, because the distribution of economic elements from one individual or class to another class (never to another individual) is totally foreign to a Constitution that was written to protect the smallest minority, the individual.

See my local newspaper opinion on this subject.

© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Obama's Economic Collective

President Obama's recent remarks about how people didn't do things on their own is not the first time he has slammed individualism, and raised the specter of a collectivist-thinking mind. "If you’ve got a business," he said, "you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen," he said, in his now famous remarks on interdependency.

In December of 2011, at a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, Obama said that a free market "speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government." But he followed that by saying, "It doesn’t work. It has never worked."

He went on with other remarks: 

• "We simply cannot return to this brand of 'you’re on your own' economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country." 
• 'It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and in its future."
• " I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater together than we are on our own."
• "Factories where people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas, where workers were cheaper."

These remarks are the message of 'social justice' that the President has worked for his entire political life. But if you're not "on your own", where are you? Are you in a work environment made impossible for management by government regulations?

How does an economy "invest in its people"? I worked in a profit-sharing company where the idea was that we were greater together. But the slackers always lowered my shares and sometimes left me with nothing. If I had owned my own shop and my own welder I would have made more money, so how was standing in that factory part of being something "greater"?

And the only reason for a factory to go where wages are cheaper, is because something is preventing them from paying lower wages here, thereby keeping the jobs here. You can't have that fact both ways. It's either-or.

The President wants an America in which everyone plays by the same rules, as he said in his 2012 State of the Union Address, which was--over and over again--about 'economic fairness'. Yet, he injects tax-payer's money into companies he likes, in order to change the competition in the supply-and-demand market.

Like all good progressives Mr. Obama wants to see the playing field change. So is must be asked, what does he think is happening when an upstart company makes big inroads into someone else's industry? The only true 'economic justice' to be had is when the distribution of capital moves from what the buyers wanted to what they want now. That is not something that can be forced by government. E-85 was mandated by the Alternative Motor Fuels Act of 1988, 24 years ago. Yet in most parts of the nation, you have to go online to look for stations that sell it.

What if government could force a market to rise from little—or from nothing? "We are all painfully aware of the Soviet style mandate that requires 10% of petroleum to be comprised of ethanol.  This unconstitutional mandate has killed jobs, driven up the cost of fuel and food, lowered gas mileage, and damaged car engines," said RS RedState.

Power Industry News wrote that "The Environmental Protection Agency has slapped a $6.8 million penalty on oil refiners for not blending cellulosic ethanol into gasoline, jet fuel and other products. [C]ellulosic ethanol does not exist. It remains a fantasy fuel. EPA might as well mandate that Exxon hire leprechauns. So far this year, just as in 2011, the supply of cellulosic bio fuel in gallons totals zero." [Emphasis added]

Is it fair for a President--or anyone who controls the tax purse--to determine what should be forced on the unconsuming public? Do you not think that $6.8M penalty doesn't mean jobs are lost? What about a safe pipeline not allowed from Canada, and wells not drilled in the Gulf, and ore mines not mined in Alaska? Why are those concepts of 'economic justice' the very sort this President destroys?

If the rules of the market do not "speak" to rugged individualism, why destroy individualism? Why not destroy the rules that prevent individualism in the market? Why not create rules that allow competition?

© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Obama's Practice of Taqiyya-style Lying

Islamicdictionary.com defines 'taqiyya' as "Dissimulation - to conceal, partially conceal or disguise one's true feelings, beliefs or information when there is threat of death or serious harm and when there is a threat of great evil." 

"In practical terms," says Islam Watch, "it is manifested as dissimulation, lying, deceiving, vexing and confounding with the intention of deflecting attention, foiling or pre-emptive blocking. It is currently employed in fending off and neutralising any criticism of Islam or Muslims"

From a description provided by a website about deception, lying is something practiced by many people in all cultures. "A sociopath is typically defined as someone who lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little concern for others. A sociopath is often goal-oriented (i.e., lying is focused - it is done to get one's way)."

The myth raised in 2007 that Obama was schooled in a radical madrassa does not change the fact that he did, in fact, go to an Islamic school. "[In] January 1968," said WorldNetWeekly, "Obama was registered as a Muslim at Jakarta’s Roman Catholic Franciscus Assisi Primary School under the name Barry Soetoro...After attending the Assisi Primary School, Obama was enrolled – also as a Muslim, according to documents – in the Besuki Primary School, a public school in Jakarta..." And according to Obama's own autobiography, "the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Quranic studies."

This is not an effort to dismiss Islam. It is to make a connection, that Obama was in contact with other Muslims who must regularly practice 'taqiyya' as part of their culture, and he would have at least learned what it was, and as a boy might naturally have tried it.

But why would the American President need or want to resort to this form of false-hood? He would do it for the purpose of fending off and neutralizing any criticism of what he--and we--know to be the most progressive policies ever advocated.

Do not for one minute deny, if you are on the left, if you are a liberal or progressive, or a democrat, that Obama's are not the most progressive ideas in American history to be implemented. You are doing him a disservice if you deny it. Give him credit for doing what you have always wanted in American politics.

But Mr. Obama knows of what he speaks, and because he knows, he must use the tactics of dissimulation that he must have heard over and over again living in Indonesia. His two Islamic fathers may have used the tactic in his presence.

So let's name one, specifically that pledge he made over and over again, that if the health care bill passed you would be able to keep your health care and your doctors. Given the ideas contained within the bill, many right wing and independent critics said it could not happen, that many people would lose their plans or their doctors or both.

In January of 2010--2010, mind you, the President said, "I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge." [emphasis added] Aside from the fact that nothing was snuck past us, but rather Speaker Pelosi said we had to pass it "to see what is in it," there were people who wrote things that made the President's pledge false, and the White House had to know it. The website Scared Monkeys asked, why the President was not more upset about it. "Wouldn’t one think the reaction would be outrage and that he would get to the bottom of this reprehensible action perpetrated on We the People?"

No, he would not be more upset, because making the pledge in the first place was a dissimulation tactic intended to make those who sat on the fence feel a little softer about having their health care messed with. If you were one of those who had no health care, you wouldn't necessarily care if others could keep their plans and doctors, so long as you got a plan and a doctor. 

What Mr. Obama sees as truly reprehensible is an axiom of progressive politics--that 'positive rights' (as opposed to negative rights) are natural human rights--has been allowed to go unfulfilled in the area of health care. Don't forget that Hillary Clinton also describes herself as progressive, and that President Bill Clinton's 1997 health care plan was dubbed 'Hillary care' because it was she who did all the behind-the-scenes work to put it together.

In 2010, Medicare said healthcare costs would nearly double to $4.5 trillion by 2019, accounting for 19.3 percent--almost a fifth--of our GDP. But by June, 2011, health care spending reached an all-time high of 18.2 percent. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this percentage will double again over the next 25 years to 31% of GDP.

If you were a 'goal-oriented' President trying to endow government-sponsored 'rights' upon a nation, wouldn't you use a lot of deflecting, foiling or pre-emptive-blocking-taqiyya in your speeches?

And why wouldn't anyone try to demonstrate before nearly 4 years had passed, that you constantly used the art of dissimulation?

© Curtis Edward Clark 2011

Health Care and the Supremacy Clause

    "State governments are pushing back reasserting federalism as the Founders intended them to do," said the Attorney General of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli."Virginia was the first state to argue in federal court that the new health car law is unconstitutional.....[A] legal expert said our case relied on a 'controversial reading of the Constitution.' Apparently it is controversial to apply the Constitution as it was written." [1] 

    The Constitutional Accountability Center [CAC], which believes in a 'Progressive Constitution', said in its blog that this push-back whereby States' "claims that federal health care reform violates the Constitution’s 10th Amendment and 'states’ rights' rely on an inaccurate view of the federal government as a weak, sharply limited central government."[2]
 
    To view the federal government as anything but a "sharply limited central government" may not stand up against court precedent. But precedent is not what is paramount here, because precedent is nothing but interpretations by judges who may discount original expected application, and who obviously were not there to comprehend from a first-person memory what the application was supposed to be. At the start of the current Congress, Justice Antonin Scalia reminded the House Republicans to read and understand the Federalist Papers.

    Original "meaning" refers in most recent writings to the meaning of the words as they were used when the Constitution was written; but meanings of words change. Where we say "judge", people in the 18th century often said "jurist", but to us in this century a "jurist" is taken to be someone who sits in the jury box. It isn't the meaning of the words as we understand them that is important; but that is what progressive readers of the Constitution use--their own understanding of the words as they wish them to be used today.

    "Evidence of how people used words at a certain point in time is evidence of their original public meaning, but it is not conclusive evidence, because original public use conflates both the content of a concept and its expected application."[3]

    As I wrote on April 29, Tibor Machan, referring to another author, said this is "stating conventional wisdom in the 'post-New Deal era'" of constitutional jurisprudence.  "The way this is made palatable," he wrote, "is to associate the pre-New Deal constitutional jurisprudence--substantive due process and such--with rulings that failed to overturn segregation, etc."[4]

    But there is also more going on here. "[I]n circumstances in which a national approach is necessary or preferable," the CAC continues, "the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause gives the federal government the authority to enforce these lines of authority, preempting state law when necessary to achieve a national goal."

    Who determines when a "national approach" is "preferable" if it is not the States? It is circular thinking to say that, when the federal government was created by the States to serve them, that that servant should then decide when it may preempt the very States' laws they use under the powers of the Constitution as each State sees fit. Who determines a "national goal" if not the nation made of sovereign States who protect sovereign individuals?

    This arrogance in 'preempting state law when necessary' is created by "the 'illusion' [that] the heart of Jeffersonian government is just American individualism!....Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day...."[5]

    Indeed. Much of the Tea Party is founded or supported by libertarians and independents, who were inspired by the ideas of Ayn Rand, who echoed the Founders:

    "Individualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights—and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members."[6]


    The Supremacy Clause says, in part that "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof....shall be the supreme Law of the Land...." But it says nothing about laws made in pursuance of the Constitution being lawful just because a particular group of individuals who have gained supremacy says every law they deign to write is "necessary to achieve a national goal."

    It is only necessary to achieve their goals that they have their sights set on a 'progressive Constitution' that allows for the use of modern definitions of 18th century words, rather than 21st century interpretations of original expected application.

    But it is my opinion that the Tea Party often does little better, or none at all, or perhaps worse at time--when it decides to stand up for a perceived principle that is no principle at all. A perfect example is the call for 'smaller government' through limited budgets, rather than limited budgets through original Constitutional intent. Fiscal conservatism is not necessarily Constitutionalism.

    I have always said that the government must as large as it must be, and only as large as is Constitutional. The Framers didn't want a standing army; but those were there original "meanings"; their expected application was never to allow our nation to be exposed to the kinds of world-wide threats the kinds of which they had no conception.

    Health care, on the other hand, ought to be handled by anyone with the authority to do so, and the Supremacy Clause does not allow for the federal government to do so.

[1] April 21, 2011 lecture sponsored by Hillsdale College's Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C. Imprimis; April 2011 Volume 40, Number 4
[2] CAC July 27, 2010 
[3] Jack Balkin; Balkinization
[4] Tibor Machan
[5] Kelly R. Ross
[6] The Ayn Rand Lexicon; The Virtue of Selfishness

© Curtis Edward Clark 2011

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The Unenumerated Rights in the Ninth Amendment

    After writing last week on the Big Government and the Ninth Amendment I was looking at other blogs and articles on the Ninth, and discovered this article:
    "Unfortunately, the 9th Amendment is hated by many conservatives as well as progressives. While being grilled by the Senate, Robert Bork said that the 9th Amendment had no more legal significance than an inkblot on the Constitution. There are two kinds of conservatives, those who want to return to Constitutional principles of a limited government that protects individual rights and those that want to establish an American Empire."
   I also found this, from my good email friend Tibor Machan (whom I met only once in 1979):
   "Many politicians are afraid of the Ninth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Many of their intellectual cheerleaders in the academy and media show equal disdain for this portion of that legal document. Why?" He goes on:

   "Why should the Constitution make this point anyway? Because, actually, people have innumerable rights, and to list them all is impossible -- whereas, listing the powers of government, which in the American system are taken to be limited and restricted, can be listed without having to produce a mammoth document."

   The progressive nature of modern American politics infects both sides of the isles in Congress, as Bork's statement makes clear in the ugliest of terms. It is in the nature of 'listing the powers of government' that limits it, and it's the nature of the Ninth Amendment to prevent limits on the behavior of Americans.
   But when Progressives are stupid enough to state aloud that "the difficulty of getting the Constitution amended" is reason enough for not only ignoring such provisions as the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, but for tromping on them with judicial activism and with legislation so complicated that former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said with a smile, and without a hint of irony, that "We must pass this legislation so that you can see what is in it," it is clear that the Tea Party is far from getting the message that Originalism isn't about "smaller government"; it is about Constitutional government.
   But what Tea Partier have you ever heard speak of the Ninth Amendment? One of the "innumerable rights" preserved by the Ninth is the right to be free of mandates such as the requirement to purchase something from the market place--or be fined.
   This mandate of Obama-care takes "demand-based economics" to a new level. Fortunately, if this situation is handled correctly, it can be used to unravel the demand economics being forced on us by a "green" government, such as the unwanted production of bio-gas and the eventual "phasing out" (by government fiat) of incandescent light bulbs.
   Unfortunately, if the Ninth Amendment is nothing but an inkblot to the Tea Party, the party will only mire itself deeper into the meaningless conversation about which of the lesser-of-two-evils of progressive argument to accept when those arguments are presented to them. (They apparently don't see that there is no "unprogressive" argument being made.) And that is what will happen if the party doesn't begin to understand this ideological war isn't about "smaller" government, but about Constitutional government.




© Curtis Edward Clark 2011 Visit the Atheist-AA Google Group http://groups.google.com/group/atheist-aa

Big Government and the Ninth Amendment

   The Tea Party lacks for a lot of things. Number 1 is the intellectual basis for arguing why government should be smaller. "Government should be smaller!" the T-Partiers chant, but their argument is that we can not afford it any longer, as if to say, "If we had all the money in the world, we'd be ok with 'big' government".
   Big government ought to be big, if the big problems of the big world call for it. There is nothing wrong with big government so long as it is Constitutionally doing what it ought to be doing, not doing what it ought not be doing, and that what it does that it 'ought to' can be paid for.
   Therein lies the problem. More than 100 years of Progressivism have given rise to the idea of "positive liberty", e.g., entitlements. These are not simply things like food stamps and health care, but also government mandates on hair dryers--which save about 12 lives a year at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars; the mandated demise of the incandescent light bulb so that America doesn't have to build any new nuclear reactors--which are very safe and extremely cheap when the they are allowed to be pebble bed modular reactors; but nooooo, those are not allowed, even while the start-up of such companies as could build them would instantly put tens of thousands of people to work.
   Government mandates are costing the people of this nation hundreds of billions of dollars a year in subsidies, including those for bio-fuels, which as we all know by now are pushing up the cost of fuels, the cost of our food, and are not popular, not to mention that the price of biogas must be something like 24¢ less than regular before it actually becomes more fuel-efficient, because you get fewer miles-per-gallon with it.

   Negative liberty, on the other hand, is the absence of political obstacles and constraints against individual sovereignty, which the Founders sought to guarantee with the Ninth Amendment.

   The Ninth Amendment says that just because the Founders failed to name and to number all the specific rights you have, doesn't mean you don't still have them. The right to a hairdryer that won't kill you if you are stupid enough to use it near water isn't one of them.
   The Tea Party has turned out to be a very vocal group of fiscal and ethical conservatives, which could be good for America's wallets and America's disdain for corrupt politicians, who until now have mostly gotten away with their indiscretions.
   But the Tea Partiers are no more Originalist readers of the Declaration than are their Republican or Democratic counterparts, and therein lies the problem: we need Constitutional Originalists to separate the unConstitutional government from the Constitutional government, not the "big" from the "small" government, because in the end those who call for smaller, or for less, government still fail to remember the reason that a government that governs less governs best: isn't because it's fiscally smaller, it because it is further toward being unable to destroy what is so callously forgotten about the Ninth Amendment.

Originalism vs. Cultural Relativity

Cultural relativism is the view that all beliefs, customs, and ethics are relative to the individual within his own social context. In other words, “right” and “wrong” are culture-specific; what is considered moral in one society may be considered immoral in another, and, since no universal standard of morality exists, no one has the right to judge another society’s customs. http://www.gotquestions.org/cultural-rel…

This has led to the Progressive idea of the Constitution as a "living document" that can be "interpreted" to include the current morally relativist positions of our political leaders and/or those who's political action committees support the campaigns of our leaders.

As a denial of "universal" human rights as protected specifically by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, and by the Constitutional provision that Amendments must be enacted to change what is concretized in the Constitution, it is a denial that men have "unalienable" rights. Those unalienable rights are defined in natural law, and they vary somewhat between philosophers, but essentially they are a refutation of relativism.

President Obama's ideal of six years of national service to the United States government in return for school loans, which were made forbidden by lending institutions specifically so that this six year committment could be instituted, is one such case of relativism.

The first known case of relativism was the statement by Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not".

But if you believe that governments are constituted by the consent of the people, rather than coming from the blunt force of powerful people or from one faction or tribe being bigger and more terrifying than another, than you must believe relativism is wrong.

Consent of the governed is terminology of "popular sovereignty" as defined by Locke and Rousseau, whereby each individual gives up a bit of his freedom to a common government. Jefferson deduced that before any individual could give up such freedom to the "common sovereignty" that he himself must have "individual sovereignty". One cannot give up what one does not have to give.

"Individualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights—and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members." http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/indivi…

That statement is the direct denial of cultural relativism. So is the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights.

Cultural relativism taken to an extreme means a tribe still has the right to throw virgins into volcanoes, or to eat other men who happen to be in the way when the tribe is hunting for food, or to rape virgins in order to prevent getting HIV/AIDS when screwing other women who already have it. (This is a true scenario in some parts of Africa.)

"Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: “I’ll do as I please at everybody else’s expense.” An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man—his own and those of others.

"An individualist is a man who says: “I will not run anyone’s life—nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone—nor sacrifice anyone to myself.” http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/indivi…

Do not make the mistake of believing that I’ll do as I please at everybody else’s expense, as a statement of moral relativism by a person, tribe, city, or nation, is superior to objective standards of ethics.

© 2010 FAMN LLC (MI)

Overcoming the "Overcoming of Originalism"

In my original post of this blog I wrote: "Taken as a 'living document' progressives and liberals have been allowed to abrogate the provisions of the Constitution that otherwise would cause the necessity for Amendments. A 'living document' needs no Amendments. It can be twisted to meet the needs of whatever political party has power."

This morning while searching for something else, I came across this progressive or liberal defense, by Peter Ianakiev, of such "twisting": "Given the difficulty of getting the Constitution amended, doesn’t it make much more sense..." The author talks about a specific obstacle to Originalism, but earlier in the piece he wrote, that Originalism "does not provide us with an effective model of jurisprudence." 


What justification does he give for "overcoming originalism" (the title of his piece)? It does not provide us with any practical way" with "legal reasoning and judicial decision-making."
Ianakiev uses the example of the execution of mentally ill convicts as "cruel and unusual" as determined by the Supreme Court in 2002.


But if the Court had determined that such was the case, and then stayed the execution until such time as Congress or the American people could decide what to do, there would have been no "overcoming" of the Originalist reading that failed to provide for community standards that change. An amendment could have been brought forth for consideration by the States, or perhaps Congress could have legislated a solution.


But "difficulty" in following Constitutional law is no defense for "overcoming" the upholding of a legal set of principles which every jurist and every legislator is sworn to uphold. Ianakiev is not quite right to define Originalism as "what a reasonable person in 1787 interpreted the constitution to mean." It actually means, what do the historical documents written by the Founders themselves, as pertains to specific elements of law under consideration by the Court in question, say about that element of law? 


For example, the "separation of church and state" is nowhere in the Constitution, and yet it is included because all the historical material that shows us that is what Jefferson (and others) intended. Originalism has to do with the Founder's "intentions". You cannot use the example of a mere "reasonable person" because reasonable people lost in Court quite often when they attempted to discover their rights under the new Constitution.


The difficulty of getting an Amendment passed is what I have always believed to be the excuse, usually implicit, in the actions of those who attempt to "overcome" Originalism. If it is that difficult, then let's take on the difficulty one more time with an Amendment that would allow for an easier method of passing such Amendments after that one passes---if the American people believe it ought to be easier.


If they do not believe it ought to be easier, than they have chosen to maintain the objectivity inherent in Originalism. The people will have finally heard the arguments on both sides, arguments which I'm certain the majority of people are not even familiar with at this point, and they will have their day in the voting booths. 


Then it can no longer be said that such "difficulties" are justification for ignoring the very machinery of freedom that was in the minds of those Originalists who wrote what liberals and progressives are tearing asunder because of the expedience required if they are to "overcome" the law as it is written.

© 2010 FAMN LLC (MI)

The Mount Vernon Statement

On February 17, 2010, a number of well-known and influential people met at President Washington's home, Mount Vernon, to sign The Mount Vernon Statement, billed as Constitutional Conservatism: A Statement for the 21st Century.

Liberal groups, said the Vancouver Sun, dismissed the Mount Vernon Statement as a rehash of right-wing ideas better suited to the 18th century than the 21st.

"The Mount Vernon Statement," reported the Sun, "appears to be yet another recitation of the same tired dogma we've seen for decades," said Michael Keegan, president of People For the American Way.

No explanation was given for why the U.S. Constitution is "better suited to the 18th century than the 21st". But it appears clear that the signers have comitted themselves to one error. Throughout the Statement they refer to the Constitution as a "conservative" document.

"At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution," reads the Statement. "The conservatism of the Constitution limits government’s powers...A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives...It reminds economic conservatives [and] social conservatives [and] national security conservatives [that] Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda."

The error is in the attempt to label and to categorize the U.S. Constitution as a conservative document. It was not a conservative document in 1787. It was not debated nor established in a conservative atmosphere.
A "radical act occurred when 55 representatives of the 13 colonies gathered to improve on the Articles of Confederation and instead locked the doors, posted sentries, and proceeded to discuss, debate, and develop the most unprecedented document ever created as a blueprint for governing a nation.

"This radical document we know today as The Constitution for the United States of America. Never before in the history of mankind had such an approach been suggested, and then ratified....This was truly revolutionary, radical, bold in vision, and bolder in application." Gary Wood

So, "why does the New York Times label Ron Paul as the most radical congressman in America for calling for a return back to our constitutionalist ideals?" Through the Magnifying Glass

Because the American people have no idea what freedoms they would once again own as individual, sovereign entities under Federalist principles governed by the ideal of a republic. To roll back the clock to such a moment when men were again "Citizens of their several States" instead of "citizens of the United States" under the 14th Amendment; to go back to a time when the Interstate Commerce Clause did not give the Federal government the power to control nearly every aspect of industry and commerce, would be radical in and of itself. It would require legislators in every State and in Congress who understood Originalism. It might require a Constitutional Convention, because to right some wrongs would require Amendments. We cannot simply "go back" without unintended consequences. Laws that put legitimate criminals in prisons are sometimes not legitimately "laws" according to Originalist interpretations of the Constitution, and yet we cannot let dangerous people out of prison.

President GeorgeW. Bush was not the first to declare certain captured enemy soldiers by the title of "enemy combatants"; Lincoln did so during the Civil War, and there are those who would perhaps be correct to say that both Presidents were wrong to do so. Yet there are men detained at Gitmo who would kill another 3000 Americans (or Spaniards or Malays or French or British or Germans) if they were released.

The Constitution is not the "conservative" document the Republicans would like us to believe. It is more important than that, more primary, more principled, more limited than most Conservatives would want to see.

We got into this messy situation of ignoring and going around the Constitution because Republicans as much as Democrats and Progressives wanted the power to control the forces of law.

We don't need "conservatives", Tea Party or otherwise, controlling our nation. We need the radicals who will state without equivocation, "I swear to abide by the Constitution as it was given to us, not as I would have it through subversion."

© FAMN LLC (MI)

Tea Parties vs. Originalism

Tea Party language calls for "smaller government". Smaller government means nothing, because theoretically it could still include Medicare, Social Security, income taxes, death taxes, and other forms of government power over the individual that was never "originally intended."

Indeed, if the Founders had known then what they could not have known without omniscience, they would have crafted a Constitution that would not allow for the idea of a "living document."

Taken as a "living document" progressives and liberals have been allowed to abrogate the provisions of the Constitution that otherwise would cause the necessity for Amendments. A "living document" needs no Amendments. It can be twisted to meet the needs of whatever political party has power.

"Originalism is the view that the Constitution has a fixed and knowable meaning established at the time of its enactment." U. of San Diego School of Law The Tenth Amendment tells us that the powers not delegated to the United States nor prohibited to the States themselves are either reserved to the States, or to the people. In theory this means each individual ought to have the freedom to do whatever he or she pleases so long as it does not abrogate the sovereignty of any other individual within the definition of such sovereignty. 

Unfortunately, there is little in the Ten Amendments to guarantee such sovereignty.

"Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." wrote Joseph J. Ellis.

The separation of church and state came to be part of our law, not by being written in the Constitution, but by being a part of the national debate during the writing of the Constitution, by being accepted as a "common assumption of the day."

This is Originalism and that is how it operates; the Jurist behind the bench reaches back into the history of our Founding, discovers what the Founders wanted even if they failed as men to include it in the Constitution, and then he incorporates that Original thinking into his decision.

We cannot blame the Founders for their lack of omniscience. We must look to what their intentions were and accept them as the guiding principle behind the document being judged.

If the decision of the Jurist does not match the needs of the people or of society as it exists today, it is then up to our Legislative branches to write the laws that will meet our needs--but those laws must also meet the Original Intent of the Founders, or we must create an Amendment to meet the current need. 

© FAMN LLC (MI)