Dojiggy Standard

Four and a Half Steps to Victory

2010-03-16T12:14:00.002-05:00

“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”
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Obama speaking to the Illinois AFL-CIO, June 30, 2003.
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How Democrat "health care reform" will destroy private health care coverage:
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Step 1: Require all Statesiders to buy insurance that meets Federal standards; prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to customers with pre-existing conditions.
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Step 2: Put in place a fine for all Statesiders who refuse to purchase Federally approved insurance. Ensure that this fine will amount to less cost to healthy individuals than will the purchase of health care coverage. Healthy individuals will elect to pay the fine.
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Step 3: When healthy individuals become sick or injured, they will purchase health insurance from private providers, who must insure them despite their recently acquired pre-existing conditions. In this way, the insurance providers will necessarily operate at a perennial loss, as the only consumers of their product will be those who receive more from insurance claims than they pay in premiums.
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Step 3a: Add in a public insurance option, or expand eligibility for Medicare / Medicaid. Enact a fine for businesses who do not provide insurance for their employees, but insure this fine is less than the cost of providing health care benefits. Employers will drop their coverage, and their employees will be funneled into the public health insurance programs, or will elect to pay the fine on non-participants from Step 2.
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Step 4: One by one, private insurers will declare bankruptcy and go out of business. The government will then completely take over the provision of (nominal) health care coverage. Healthy individuals will then be unable to opt out of the system, and either fees / taxes and borrowing will increase to pay for the increase in entitlements, or claims payouts will be reduced. Debt to GDP ratio and budget deficit growth and will accelerate, leading to even more rapid insolvency, or the actual availability of quality health care will become more scarce - except for those who can afford to fly to Costa Rica for private treatment.
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Result: The vast supermajority of citizens are beholden to and reliant on the government for their health care. Under the guise of reducing health care costs, Federal regulation of individual behavior vastly expands. Opposition to Federal single-payer health care - the new third rail of politics - becomes impossible due to the new, expanded sense of entitlement. The debate shifts from whether the Federal government has the wherewithal or the authority to so regulate and provide health care coverage to what is the most efficient and effective way to do so. Businesses and wealthy individuals continue to move out of the United States to avoid confiscatory taxation until unemployment reaches untenably high levels. The Federal Reserve continues to print bank notes until runaway inflation renders the dollar worth less than the medium on which it is printed.

Playing By Your Rules?

2010-01-06T07:52:00.002-06:00

I believe that the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution was meant to place real limits on Federal power by reserving powers to the States and to the People. However, it seems that, in modern jurisprudence, the 10th Amendment has been relegated to "truism" status, and those who adhere to the notion of a search for "meaning" in the Constitution, so far as the intention behind a particular clause or section are irrelevant - because there is no monolithic intent behind the Constitution, nor any article or amendment thereof. In light of these, as I see it, unfortunate developments in our understanding of the Constitution, I have undertaken to draw up an argument against redistribution of wealth via progressive income tax and entitlements using the language of the Living Constitution. If you will not listen to an argument in the terms of the Enlightenment and the Founding, perhaps you will consider this one.

The "Due Process" clauses of the 5th and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution, according to the Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, when read in light of the 9th Amendment's assurance of unenumerated rights, give us the concept of Substantive Due Process. By this, we know there are fundamental rights, which are "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," which have "long histories" or are "deeply rooted" in American society, and among these is the much touted Right to Privacy, which no act of Congress may abridge without withstanding strict scrutiny. In order to survive strict scrutiny, the court must show whether there is a compelling state interest that is furthered by the violation of this fundamental right, and whether the law in question is narrowly tailored to address the state interest.

Due to its long standing role in the history of our nation and its extremely deep roots in our American society, manifest in such concepts as the “American Dream," the Right to the Pursuit of Happiness is a fundamental right according to Substantive Due Process. No act of Congress may abridge the right of the People to pursue their own happiness without withstanding strict scrutiny.

We, in the United States, are subject to a graduated, progressive income tax, authorized by the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution. In addition, because of this graduated status by which the matching segments of each tax payer's income are taxed equally, we know that this progressive income tax does not violate the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law. However, under our current system of taxation and entitlements, we know according to Internal Revenue Service data that in tax year 2007, the top 50 percent of wage earners - those who earned $32,879+ - paid 97.11% of Federal income taxes. When factoring in other Federal taxes, including the payroll tax, the top 50 percent was still responsible for 72% of the full Federal tax burden. The bottom 20 percent of wage earners paid only 0.4% of all Federal taxes, due to the Earned Income Tax Credit, by which up to 45% of payroll taxes may be refunded to a would-be tax payer. When considering entitlement payments - Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid - this bottom 20 percent of wage earners may effectively have a negative tax rate.

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution was enacted to end slavery in the United States. However, because we know that there is no monolithic original intent behind the amendment, nor the Constitution as a whole, and because the amendment also prohibits indentured servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, then the meaning of "indentured servitude" may be interpreted in a new light according to our modern society and culture.

The top 80 percent of wage earners in the United States are effectively indentured to those in the bottom 20 percent of wage earners who take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit and who are also recipients of payments via Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid such that they receive more dollars from the government in entitlements than they pay to the government in taxes. The only way for the top 80 percent of wage earners to escape their servitude to these is to either exile themselves from the United States or to be divested of their fundamental Right to the Pursuit of Happiness by giving up their livelihood to become one of the very 20 percent whom they previously served. There is no compelling State interest in this divestiture of that right; in fact, its destruction serves the interests of less than one fifth of the population at the expense of the remainder. As such, the only supposed remedy to the condition of servitude must needs that the wage earner gives up one fundamental right for another, and to ask the wage earner to live without either cannot withstand strict scrutiny.

By this argument, it is unconstitutional for the Federal tax system to take money from the economically productive in order to give to those with no stake in the system.

Griswold_v._Connecticut

Earned_Income_Tax_Credit

archive/2007/november-december-magazine-contents/guess-who-really-pays-the-taxes

org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?DocID=36&Topic2id=40&Topic3id=42

Do This to Remember Me

2009-12-06T23:33:00.000-06:00

Luke 22:19-20

[Jesus] took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this to remember me.” After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.

Do This to Remember Me

Once per week – one a month for many, perhaps even so seldom as once per year for some – we come together to celebrate that phenomenon that we call the Lord’s Supper, a commemoration of this very supper on the night of Passover before Good Friday, when Jesus Christ was put to death. Our Lord named these two things – the bread and the fruit of the vine – as the symbols of his body and his blood, and he asked us to remember him by these things. What we often fail to realize is, the men who ate with our Lord that night did not enjoy bread and wine only at the first day of the week, or only at the High Holy Days; these were staples of their every meal. The Lord has given us a much more profound symbol through which to remember him than an occasional ceremonial supper.

To us, “bread” is not just grain – it is the very thing that sustains us; it is food. Through it, we remember the body of Christ, given and broken for us once and for all, but also that Christ Himself is the Bread of Life, the very substance of our sustenance. He is the Word that proceeds from the mouth of God, and it is not by bread alone, but by Him that we live.

To us, “fruit of the vine” is not just wine – it is the liquid that quenches our thirst; it is drink. Through it, we remember the blood of Christ that washes us clean, but also of the New Covenant between God and his Church, the promise of Living Water, a wellspring of the Spirit dwelling within us, through which we may never thirst again.

It is good for us to come together as the Body of Christ to share this supper together, but this is only the surface of the symbol. Whenever food fills our bellies – not just when we break our little bit of unleavened bread – we should remember and give thanks for the Bread of Life, and the Word of God. Whenever we touch drink to our lips – not just when we take a tiny cup of juice – we remember and give thanks for the Blood of the New Covenant, and the spring of Living Water. When we hunger and thirst for food and drink, we should remember to hunger and thirst for righteousness, and we will be filled!

Having Cake and Eating It, Too?

2009-09-21T21:10:00.002-05:00

September 20, 2009
"This Week", ABC News

George Stephenopoulos interview with President Barack Obama

Stephenopoulos alleged that to require individuals to purchase health insurance and then to impose a fine on those who refuse to purchase insurance amounts to a tax increase. Obama countered with the following.

OBAMA: "No. That's not true, George. The -- for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase.

People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I'm not covering all the costs."

"What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore."

This is important - perhaps even more important than how Merriam Webster defines a tax. How can the President claim that he is not willing to permit you to continue to require others to carry your burden when he is one of the United States' strongest proponents of redistribution of wealth - when his administration has provided for the country's most productive to be taxed more heavily while the least productive have an effective negative tax rate, financed not only by the most productive, but by borrowing billions - even trillions - of dollars on the credit of the United States? I don't buy for one second that the President believes in his own argument here.

"Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase."

There are two important differences between a requirement that every automobile be insured against liability and that every individual's health be insured.

First, automobile liability insurance is required in order to ensure that should you cause damage with your vehicle to another's person or property that you have the means to cover those damages. This provision is to protect the persons and property of others from you, not to protect your property or person. No one is required to purchase full coverage insurance. In the case of health insurance, a similar provision would require each individual to be insured in order to cover injury or sickness that they may cause in another person, not to insure their own good health.

Second, automobile liability insurance is required by STATE governments, not by the federal government, and the federal government has no Constitutional authority to require you to buy either automobile liability insurance or health insurance. Similarly, it has no Constitutional authority to levy taxes to pay for programs it has no authority to operate.

September 9, 2009
President Obama's Address to Congress Concerning Health Care Reform

OBAMA: "Now, my health care proposal has also been attacked by some who oppose reform as a "government takeover" of the entire health care system. As proof, critics point to a provision in our plan that allows the uninsured and small businesses to choose a publicly sponsored insurance option, administered by the government just like Medicaid or Medicare. (Applause.)

So let me set the record straight here. My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. That's how the market works. (Applause.) Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90 percent is controlled by just one company. And without competition, the price of insurance goes up and quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly -- by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest, by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage, and by jacking up rates."

As proof, critics point to a provision in our plan that allows the uninsured and small businesses to choose a publicly sponsored insurance option, administered by the government just like Medicaid or Medicare.

Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are our country's three largest entitlement programs. The United States borrows trillions of dollars every year to pay for them. What precedent has the federal government set that gives anyone the gall to say with confidence that a publicly sponsored insurance option, administered by the government just like Medicaid or Medicare, will benefit this country? If there exists somewhere billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse in these government run programs with which President Obama intends to pay for these programs, why not find that money now and use it to pay for the entitlement programs to which we are already obligated and which we cannot afford?

My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. That's how the market works. (Applause.) Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90 percent is controlled by just one company. And without competition, the price of insurance goes up and quality goes down.

Bravo, Mr. President. You are absolutely right. However, you are absolutely wrong to suggest that a government sponsored health insurance option will create this choice and competition you so ardently support. The primary cause of lack of competition in the health insurance market is regulation that prevents the sale of health insurance across State lines. It is absurd to suggest that the only way to create competition is not only to provide government sponsored health insurance at below market rates, but to require that every individual be insured and to mandate what all health insurance providers must cover to conform to government standards.

What incentive do businesses have to continue to offer employer-provided health care? They will have every incentive to drop it. They will not have to worry about their employees being without coverage; the government will provide it for them, and they no longer have to shell out the funds. One by one, private health insurance providers will go out of business as they lose clients to the government option.

Health insurance costs will go down if we remove barriers to the sale of insurance across State lines, if we institute a "loser pays" tort reform to reduce the practice of defensive medicine, if we offer tax deductions for the purchase of health care insurance, and if we promote non-taxable individual health savings accounts coupled with catastrophic health insurance. When patients pay out of pocket, health care costs are appreciably less than when they pay with insurance.

A health savings account is linked to a debit card that can be used to pay for qualifying medical expenses, effectively allowing a patient to pay for most routine medical expenses out of pocket, thus lowering the cost of doing business with that patient, and lowering the cost of medical care. It may also somewhat reduce the burden on the health care system, as patients will no longer feel as though someone else is paying for their care - as they do when they are responsible for nothing more than a co-pay. They will use the system less frequently and only when necessary.

2003, Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama to AFL-CIO: “I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health care plan.”

2007, US Senator for Illinois, Barack Obama, while campaigning for President: “I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out, or 20 years out.”

I do not believe that President Obama is entirely concerned with choice and competition as he so frequently repeats. I believe that President Obama is and will always be a proponent of single payer health care, and I believe that he intends to place the country on a nigh-irreversible track toward that system. I believe that his government sponsored insurance option is one of the first steps in that direction.

President Obama, despite his words, has demonstrated a continual disdain for the private sector, private profits, and market capitalism through his nationalization of two-thirds of the domestic automobile industry, 90% of the home mortgage industry, and the student loan industry among others - and now his attempt to begin the nationalization of the health care industry.

There are problems with the United States' health care system - problems that should be addressed. But despite these problems, our health care system is the highest quality health care system of any on the face of this planet, and it does not warrant another historically enormous expansion of the federal government to dismantle that system and replace it with something far inferior. This would be a more than a disservice to this country and her people; it would be disastrous.

The Morality of Liberty

2009-09-04T21:53:00.004-05:00

In response to the claim that the United States has a moral obligation to do anything, I offer this scenario:

Suppose I were to encounter a homeless person on the street, suffering from a dire illness. It would be immoral for me to ignore that person's plight and leave them to die on the street. The moral thing to do would be for me to do what I could to provide that person with the medical care that they need in order to regain their good health. Now, suppose I don't have the money. Would it be moral for me, then, to put a gun to the head of the nearest passerby and demand from them their money? Even if I were to do some good with that money - provide medical care to the ill, homeless person - to obtain the money through theft by force is immoral. I would go so far as to say that to knowingly accept the money that was obtained through theft by force is also immoral. You see, it does not matter what ends I have when I steal the money; stealing is still wrong.

Now, suppose that ten people were to band together to steal that money. One hundred people? One thousand people? Three hundred million people? No matter how much of a consensus you have behind you, to steal is still immoral and wrong. If it is wrong for three hundred million people to take up arms and steal money from those who have rightfully earned it, is it any less wrong for those three hundred million people to elect 525 people to steal it for them?

Perhaps you might suggest that we have all agreed by tacit consent to give those 525 people our money to do with as they please. I would counter, however, that we have hired those 525 people to do a specific job, a list of tasks, and it is for those tasks that we have chosen to give them our money. If I were to hire a contractor to build a house for me, I would be obligated to pay for all services rendered under that contract. But suppose that contractor were to build a house twice as large as the one I contracted him to build? Would I then be obligated to pay him for the services performed, which I did not authorize him to perform? Would it be moral for him to take the payment from me by force?

Suppose the contractor were to claim that the contract that I signed was a living document whose meaning changes according to the whim of a board of nine legal experts appointed by the contractor himself. Would you stand for that if it were your contract, or would you expect that contract to be interpreted according to its original meaning and intent on the day that you signed it?

In the same way, we have enumerated by contract in the form of a Constitution those things which we have hired the federal government to perform. It is for those things that we are contractually obligated by tacit consent to pay. At least three-quarters of the signatories to the Constitution - the States - must request and agree to pay for any additional services by the federal government. The federal government does not have the authority to expand its purview by a simple majority vote among its own members, or even a simple majority vote among the people. Power at the federal level does not lie directly with the people, but with the sovereign States, and it is the States that must agree by super-majority in order to amend the contract. To suggest that "we won an election; therefore, we have the authority to do as we please and tax accordingly," is the same as suggesting that "we were awarded a contract; therefore, we have the authority to do as we please and charge accordingly."

There is a word for a government that exercises arbitrary power: a tyranny.

Obamacare

2009-08-20T18:16:00.002-05:00

Let's pretend, for the purposes of this exercise, that we know for sure that the current proposal for government funded health care insurance is a great idea and that it will solve all of America's health care woes. Let's further pretend that we know for sure that fifty per cent plus one of American citizens approve of the plan.

Pursuant to which clause of Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution does the Congress propose to enact this legislation? Let's take a look:

US Constitution, Article I

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

The most obvious answer seems to be that government funded health care is necessary and proper for the provision of the general welfare. So, we must, then, ask is government health care necessary or proper for the provision of the general welfare? Let's see what the authors of the Constitution have to say about what, exactly, they meant by this clause.

From Federalist 41, by James Madison, Father of the Constitution:

It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare.

''But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.

So, we see that the limits on the power to provide for the general welfare are enumerated and expounded upon by the list of powers following the first general description of Congress's power. Then, is the power to provide health care insurance to the general public enumerated in the following powers? It seems we might make the case that Congress has such power over the citizens of the District of Columbia, but in all other cases, the 10th amendment must reserve the power of the purchase of health care insurance either to the States or to the People.

Therefore, Congress has no authority to pass this health care reform bill without the assent of three quarters of the States to a Constitutional amendment granting them this very authority. Some might argue, "If Congress has no authority to buy health insurance for all, then have they the right to buy it for some? If they have passed Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, then are not all of these programs under the same auspices as government funded health care for all?" To them, I would respond that these programs, too, are beyond Congress's Constitutional mandate, and they should be phased out and relegated to the States or the private sector as necessary. These programs have bankrupted the United States of America, and yet, the government seeks to spend more money - money that we do not have.

The federal government has demonstrated their inability both at funding health care insurance in the cases of Medicare and Medicaid and at providing single payer health care in the cases of Indian Health Services - a program that cannot adequately provide health care for 1 million American Indians. Yet we presume that the government has the capacity to provide health care insurance for 300 million American citizens. The citizens of industrialized nations with public health care flock to the United States for simple procedures for which, in their home countries, they must wait years or for which they may never be eligible. Who will provide health care to the rest of the world when our government destroys our health care system?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk

Moral Equivalency

2009-04-27T13:49:00.008-05:00

Is every given action absolutely good or absolutely evil? Are there some actions for which the motive is an important determining factor in whether that action is good, morally neutral, or evil? Are there some actions for which the result is an important determining factor?

Essentially, can the reason justify the means; can the end justify the means?

Take the following situation into account:
Person A shoots Person B; Person B dies.

Without knowing more about the situation, is it possible to determine the morality of this action?

Let's say that Person A is a police officer. Person B is a man committing armed robbery of an innocent Person C. By shooting Person B, Person A has saved Person C from harm. In this circumstance, was the action morally justified? However, suppose instead that Person A is a criminal committing the armed robbery of Person B. The morality of the situation becomes entirely different, yet the action itself was the same.

In the first scenario, the reason - the motive was to protect Person C. The end was the rescue of Person C. In this scenario, although Person A killed Person B, Person A has not committed murder. Murder is, then, defined as an unjustified killing, a killing with an unjust motive and an unjust end. In the second scenario, the reason - the motive was to exploit Person B, to gain some material benefit - ostensibly, Person B's property. The end was the theft of Person B's property and the loss of Person B's life. In this scenario, Person A has killed Person B, and Person A has committed murder.

Now, consider this:
Person A waterboards Person B.

Suppose Person A's reason for doing so is to punish Person B, to gain pleasure, or even to gain information. Suppose also that Person B divulges information, and the end use of that information is to facilitate the commission of murder. Has Person A tortured Person B?

Suppose Person A's reason for doing so is only to gain information. Suppose also that Person A has taken medical and physical precautions to prevent permanent harm to Person B. Suppose that Person B divulges information, and the end use of that information is to facilitate the saving of one life. The saving of one hundred lives. The saving of one thousand lives. Has Person A tortured Person B?

It may be helpful to know - in order to make your decision - that waterboarding, according to the memos released by the Obama Administration, is a technique specifically designed to cause no lasting physical or psychological damage. The subject, even though he knows that he is not actually drowning and that no real harm will befall them, experiences a sensation of drowning. At no time do they actually believe that they will drown or that they will die. They merely experience an uncomfortable sensation that they cannot avoid. Specific medical precautions are taken to ensure that the subject is not physically harmed.

Countless attendees of the Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape (SERE) military course - where military personnel are trained to resist divulging sensitive information to captors if taken as a prisoner of war - have been waterboarded. If our own servicemembers can be waterboarded with no lasting psychological damage, then we cannot go so far as to label waterboarding as "torture" simply by virtue of its severity.

Edit, 07:55 28 APR 2009:

If waterboarding met the legal and moral definition of torture, could we, under any circumstances - whether for training or not - apply that technique to our own servicemembers? My argument is that if it were so horrendous and severe as to be labeled torture, it would be illegal and immoral to use in every circumstance, including for training and regardless of consent. Do our servicemembers fire real bullets at one another to train for combat? No, they use blanks and laser gear. Do our servicemembers torture one another to train for the possibility of capture? No, they use waterboarding. Since we may obviously use it as a training aid, it must not be torture.

End edit, 07:55 28 APR 2009

Edit, 16:35 27 APR 2009:

In response to the claim that the definition of torture is "prolonged physical discomfort," I offer this counterclaim:

US CODE: Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C, § 2340

As used in this chapter—

(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—

(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;

(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;

(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality

As I previously stated, waterboarding was devised specifically so as not to meet the standard of torture. To water down the definition of "torture" to include discomfort is your prerogative, but you simply cannot claim that this definition is the legal definition according to US law.

End edit, 16:35 27 APR 2009

It IS always wrong to murder. It IS always wrong to torture. But is it always wrong to kill? Is it always wrong to waterboard? You decide.

Edit, 09:25 28 APR 2009

Every person maintains a certain standard that determines the lengths to which they are willing to go to save lives. There is a legal and moral definition of torture, and that definition does not comprise a list of techniques that you, as an individual, are unwilling to perform.

If we are not willing to make the self-declared enemies of our culture, our people, and our state extremely uncomfortable in order to save the lives of our people, that is our prerogative as a polity. However, to retroactively prosecute an administration that was willing to use calculated, enhanced techniques on certainly knowledgeable, high-value individuals when the conventional interrogative process failed is unacceptable.

End edit, 09:25 28 APR 2009

No Taxation Without Enumeration

2009-04-15T13:18:00.003-05:00

"In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." - Federalist Papers, No. 14, November 30, 1787

"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution." - Federalist Papers, No. 39, January, 1788

According to James Madison, Founder and author of much of the original document that would go on to become the United States Constitution, our government is NOT a national government. We are, in fact, NOT one nation, under God, nor anyone or anything else. We are not, essentially, a republic, but rather a federation of republics with a republican federal governing authority.

The United States federal government does NOT have the plenipotentiary and extraordinary power of the fifty States combined - instead, to it have been enumerated through the Constitution ratified BY those States, very specific and limited powers. This government was never meant to have power to govern the individual's behavior, but rather, the power to govern interactions between States and between foreign powers and the States in their collectivity.

No matter what power the 16th Amendment may provide the federal government to tax the income of the individual without apportionment and without regard to an enumeration or census, the federal government simply DOES NOT HAVE THE POWER to appropriate funds from the treasury in order to finance ANY act, resolution, or order that exceeds the limits of its enumerated powers.

The federal government continues to raise taxes on business and individuals in order to fund rapidly expanding programs THAT IT HAS NO BUSINESS CONDUCTING. Federal entitlements (to include Medicare, Medicaid, and social security) as well as most discretionary spending in the realm of agriculture, labor, health and human services, housing and urban development, energy, and education are simply outside the realm of the federal powers enumerated by the Constitution, and are therefore unconstitutional. All of these powers - powers not delineated for the federal government - are specifically reserved for the States and the people by the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Therefore, because the federal government has no constitutional authority - and therefore no need - to appropriate funds for these programs, the federal government is needlessly taxing the American people.

According to the Congressional Budget Office's projection for FY 2010, the federal government will spend 1 trillion 463 billion dollars on Medicare, Medicaid, and social security alone. That's 1,463 million times a million dollars. On average, if the government simply did not levy these taxes, each American man, woman, and child would keep about $4,800 of their own money per year - and that's just the three biggest entitlement programs.

We can't cut all of these programs all at once. But for starters, we should stop withholding all taxes. The American people should see - all at once, every April 15th - just how much money Uncle Sam is pilfering, instead of receiving a refund check in the mail that makes them think they're receiving something instead of losing it. Maybe then, people will finally start to wonder just where all this money is going.

Keep Dreaming

2009-01-23T17:18:00.002-06:00

The general consensus in the media seems to be that the election of President Barack Obama signifies the realization of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. I say, "Keep dreaming."

Barack Obama is a black man, and he was elected president. That is a tremendous leap forward for a nation that only fifty years ago still struggled with racism and segregation. There is a very clear reason why this does not realize Dr. King's dream. It matters that Barack Obama is black. Until the day when a black man elected president is not a black man, but just a man, keep dreaming. Until the day when Americans look at one another and truly see Americans - and not African Americans or Latino Americans or Asian Americans - but Americans, keep dreaming.

Beyond this, when a man takes no issue with forging relationships with dubious characters or distancing himself from friends for political expediency, or with seeking to disqualify his political opponents rather than defeating them in a free and fair election, I find it hard to believe that more than half of Americans are judging their leaders by the content of their character. Keep dreaming.

Concerning Homosexual Marriage

2008-10-15T10:24:00.002-05:00

In 2005, the Texas Legislature proposed an amendment to the Texas Constitution defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman. It also prohibited the state and any subdivision thereof from creating any legal status identical or similar to marriage. In doing so, the State of Texas has made a grave error concerning the nature of marriage and its relationship to the law and thereby arbitrarily violated US Constitution's fourteenth amendment: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." (Section 1, Amendment XIV, US Constitution)

Marriage is a religious institution. According to Jesus Christ, quoting Moses, and thereby according to Christianity and Judaism in concert, "But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." (Mark 10:6-9; Gen 1:27, 2:24, 5:2; NKJV) For this reason, marriage, according to the church and synagogue is between one man and one woman.

But what is marriage according to the State? It is hardly a religious commitment made before God between one man and one woman. It is no holy covenant in the eyes of the law; it is merely a legally binding contract that joins the rights and property of two individuals under the jurisdiction of the State - a civil union. In any case under the law, the State has no religious authority and therefore cannot grant a marriage in any form or fashion, nor does it have the authority to define what marriage is or is not. The entire conundrum of homosexual marriage in the United States has arisen because the States have meddled from their beginnings in the religious affair of marriage. We have created a false synonymity between religious marriage and legal, civil union. We have called a marriage what is no marriage after all. There is no legal basis to deny any two individuals this same legal status of junction simply based on the genders of the individuals in question. A State is not legally required to grant civil unions to any of its residents, but if it does grant civil unions to heterosexual couples, it must grant them also to homosexual couples, or else it denies persons within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. There should be no religious compunction against doing so.

All this having been said, a State also has no authority to require religious institutions to grant marriages, just as a church has no authority to require a State to legally recognize with a civil union any marriage they grant. The State may choose to recognize with an accompanying civil union any marriage ceremony performed by a religious institution, and a religious institution may choose to perform a marriage ceremony in concert with a recognized civil union; however, neither the Church nor the State has the authority to require one to recognize the acts of the other. Similarly, a State has no authority to require public school students to be taught that homosexuality is either correct or incorrect, good or evil, right or wrong, as this is a moral judgment, and the State has no moral authority. Therefore, the State has no business making moral judgments. The State can (and should) teach that homosexuality is different and that homosexuals should not be physically or legally treated differently according to their sexuality.

Angels and Demons (Working Title)

2008-07-12T23:30:00.000-05:00

http://www.webook.com/project/Angels-and-Demons

Articles V & VI, Hypothetical New-World Constitution

2008-07-10T11:36:00.001-05:00

Article V. Amendments.

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several semi-autonomous regions given the formation of no fewer than three of the same, or, on the petition of no fewer than three quarters of the citizens of the State, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in any case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified through referendum by the no fewer than three fourths of the citizens of the State.

Article VI. State Supremacy.

Section 1. This Constitution, and the laws of the State which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the State, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges of the State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any semi-autonomous region to the contrary notwithstanding. Those who first subject to themselves to these articles by their ratification shall be considered natural born citizens of the State and of the district wherein they reside.

Section 2. The Councilors, Senators, and Board members before mentioned, and the members of the legislatures of the several semi-autonomous regions, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the State and of the several semi-autonomous regions, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution, but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the State.

Article IV, Hypothetical New-World Constitution

2008-07-02T11:07:00.004-05:00

Article IV. Territory.

Section 1. The Congress shall have the power to annex, by the concurrence of two thirds of the members of both Houses, any unclaimed land or territory, or any land or territory whose inhabitants have, by the authority of their government, consented to their annexation. Inhabitants of such new territories shall be made citizens of the State, granted equal rights to representation in the Congress, and to election of the several Executive officers, and shall be counted in the Census for the purpose of apportionment and redistricting of Senate districts.

Section 2a. The Congress shall have the power to create mutable administrative districts within the State and to devolve such power as they deem necessary to any republican governments as may be established within by act of Congress. The government of an administrative district shall have no power but those powers devolved to it by act of Congress. If such mutable administrative districts be created, they shall be apportioned according to population as prescribed by law. They may conform, but they shall not be required to conform to the boundaries of the districts from which Senators shall be elected. These mutable administrative districts shall be reapportioned and the boundaries redrawn after each enumeration of the Census. The State and the People may refer to mutable administrative districts by any designation as may be determined by law.

2b. Power devolved by law to the governments of mutable administrative districts may be rescinded by law. Such power may be, by law, made concurrent or exclusive. Concurrent powers may be exercised by both the mutable administrative district, and by the State. In devolving exclusive power to the mutable administrative district, the Congress lays down its own authority to exercise that power until it may again by law take it up.

Section 3a. The Congress shall have the power to make permanent any mutable administrative districts within the State. Upon the petition of no fewer than three quarters of the inhabitants of a mutable administrative district, Congress shall be compelled to make permanent that district. Permanent districts may not be reapportioned, and their boundaries may not be altered except upon the concurrence of three quarters of the legislature of the district or upon ratification by referendum of three quarters of the inhabitants thereof. Upon the reapportionment and redistricting of Senate districts, neither Senate district lines nor Independent School District lines shall cross the boundaries of a permanent administrative district. Senate districts within the permanent administrative district shall be apportioned as equally as is possible as those Senate districts without. The State and the People may refer to permanent administrative districts by any designation as may be determined by law.

3b. All powers devolved to a mutable administrative district are retained once such districts are made permanent. Further power may be devolved to a permanent administrative district; however, power devolved by law to the governments of permanent districts may not be rescinded by the Congress except upon the concurrence of three quarters of the legislature of the district.

Section 4a. Upon the concurrence of three quarters of the legislatures or upon petition of no fewer than three quarters of the inhabitants of no fewer than three contiguous permanent administrative districts, the aforementioned districts may form a semi-autonomous region. The inhabitants of the semi-autonomous region shall create by constitution a republican institution to govern the whole region, and the relationships between this government and any governments of the permanent administrative districts therein shall be determined by that constitution. Once created, Senate district lines and Independent School District lines may cross the boundaries of the permanent administrative districts within the semi-autonomous region, but may not cross the boundaries of the region itself. Senate districts within the semi-autonomous region shall be apportioned as equally as possible as those Senate districts without. No semi-autonomous region shall be denied representation in the Congress. The State and the People may refer to semi-autonomous regions by any designation as may be determined by law.

4b. The governments of semi-autonomous regions shall be granted police power within their borders and shall be charged with the provision of the general welfare within the region and to protect the individual liberties of its inhabitants. Such governments shall have all legislative, executive, and judicial power within their borders except as otherwise prohibited herein, and the powers of the State shall be supreme over the powers of the semi-autonomous regions.

4c. A person charged in any semi-autonomous region with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another semi-autonomous region or otherwise within the State, shall on demand of the executive authority of the semi-autonomous region from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the semi-autonomous region having jurisdiction of the crime.

4d. Full faith and credit shall be given in the State and each semi-autonomous region to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of the State and every other semi-autonomous region, and the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. The citizens of each semi-autonomous region shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the State and the several semi-autonomous regions.

4e. No semi-autonomous region shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

4f. No semi-autonomous region shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any semi-autonomous region on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury of the State; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.

4g. No semi-autonomous region shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another semi-autonomous region, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

4h. No semi-autonomous region shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the State, nor any other semi-autonomous region; nor shall any semi-autonomous region deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

4i. Upon the concurrence of the legislature of a semi-autonomous region and three quarters of both Houses of Congress, a semi-autonomous region may secede from the State and form in and of itself an independent state with all the powers and sovereignty thereof. Inhabitants and officials of any semi-autonomous region shall not be considered in rebellion or insurrection should they peacefully consider or implement this clause. Citizens of the newly independent states shall no longer be citizens of the State, will be freed from all oaths of loyalty to the State and to this Constitution, and will be considered by the State to be foreign born.

Article III, Hypothetical New-World Constitution

2008-06-19T20:33:00.002-05:00

Article III. The Judiciary.

Section 1a. The civil judicial power of the State shall be vested in a Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. Judges of civil law shall be styled arbiter. Arbiters, both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

1b. The civil judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the civil laws of the State, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under its authority; To all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; To all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; To controversies to which the State shall be a party; To controversies between two or more inferior governing bodies; between the citizens of the State and foreign states, citizens or subjects.

1c. In all civil cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which the State shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact.

1d. In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed an amount to be determined by law, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the State, than according to the law.

Section 2a. The criminal judicial power of the State shall be vested in a Court of Criminal Appeals, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. Judges of criminal law shall be styled magister. Magisters, both of the Court of Criminal Appeals and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

2b. The criminal judicial power shall extend to all cases in, in law and equity, arising under the criminal code of the State, and the Court of Criminal Appeals shall be the final court of appeal for all those indicted and charged under the same. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury, and such trial shall be held in the district where the said crimes shall have been committed, but when not committed within any district, the trial shall be at such place or places as Congress may by law have directed.

2c. In all criminal cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, the Court of Criminal Appeals shall have original jurisdiction. In all other cases before mentioned, the Court of Criminal Appeals shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact.

2d. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

2e. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

2f. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

2g. The enumeration within these articles, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the People.

Section 3a. The power of review shall be vested in a Court of Review. Judges of review shall be styled justice. Justices of the Court of Review shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

3b. The power of review shall not be construed to extend to any cases but those bills referred to the Court for review by the several Executive officers. The Court of Review shall be the final arbiter of matters concerning the conformity of these bills to the articles herein. Upon request by the Chair of the Common Council, the President of the Senate, or the President pro tempore of the Senate, the Chief Justice of the Court of Review shall issue an advisory opinion concerning the conformity of any proposed legislation to this Constitution, but that opinion shall not be construed to be final arbitration in this respect.

Section 4a. Treason against the State shall consist only in levying war against it, or in adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

4b. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

4c. No person shall be a Councilor or Senator in Congress, or elector of Governor General and Lieutenant Governor, or hold any office, civil or military, under the State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the State, or as a member of any inferior government, or as an executive or judicial officer of thereof, to support the Constitution of the State, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Concerning Rights

2008-06-18T23:36:00.002-05:00

The United States Constitution does not grant the citizens of the United States a single right. The Constitution grants nary a human soul a single right. To suggest that "granting" Constitutional rights to terrorists is absurd is, in and of itself, a prime example of absurdity. It is not for the Constitution, nor the government of the United States, nor the People of the United States to grant anyone their rights, for it is, by the very language of the Founders themselves, God who grants to us our rights, and no document or government has the power to take them away. Indeed, the Constitution does not grant rights; it merely protects them. Even if you will not accept the notion of rights as God given, you cannot escape the fact that the Constitution is worded specifically to prevent the government from abridging rights it acknowledges every human being already has.

Amendment I, U.S. Constitution: Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II, U.S. Constitution: ... [T]he right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment IV, U.S. Constitution: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...

Amendment VI, U.S. Constitution: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed ... and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

In every case in which the Bill of Rights enumerates a right enjoyed by the People, it does not thereby grant that right, it merely prohibits Congress from passing laws to abridge it. Nowhere does it suggest that these are rights to be enjoyed only by U.S. citizens. Nowhere does it suggest that criminals who commit a certain magnitude of atrocious crime are not protected by these prohibitions. All human beings have these rights, and the Constitution prohibits the government from violating them.

Terrorists are no more than atrocious criminals. They attack illegitimate, soft targets in order to inculcate fear among the populace. They murder people and destroy property. Does the magnitude of or motive behind that attack affect the government's capacity to ignore the Constitution when it says, 'In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial...?' For example, was Timothy McVeigh locked away in a military base some hundreds of miles from U.S. soil? Was Timothy McVeigh tried by military tribunals for fear that the civilian courts could not give him an objective trial or that civilian judges and juries could not be trusted with classified information? Was Timothy McVeigh held for years without a trial? No. McVeigh committed the single most deadly act of terrorism on United States soil up until the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, yet all of his rights as a human being were protected by the United States Constitution and respected by the United States government. If Timothy McVeigh had claimed religious motive for his attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City, would that have changed his conviction or the protection of his rights?

Why, then, should we ignore human rights violations being committed by our own government? Even if you support the War on Terror as I do, there is no reason to treat our prisoners of war as anything less than human beings. If we allow ourselves to think of them and to treat them as if they were less than human, then we have become just like them. Once they are no longer of intelligence value, if there is insufficient evidence to hold them accountable for what they did, then they should be released. If we retain them and charge them with a crime, we should then presume them innocent until proven guilty just as any we would any other criminal, because if we do not, then they cannot have a fair trial. If we cannot give them a fair trial, then how can we maintain our vicegrip hold on our moral high ground? If we cannot extract information from them without convincing them that they are about to die, how can we claim that we do not torture our prisoners?

Nothing is worth becoming that which we seek to destroy.

Clarifying Christian Terminology

2008-06-09T13:12:00.005-05:00

The following is addressed to those who claim to be Christians who use the terms 'evangelical' and 'born again' to disparage or to classify believers as radical or apart from the "main-stream" of Christianity.

Christian: The word 'Christian' comes from the Greek word 'Χριστός' (Christos) which in turn is a translation of the Hebrew word 'מָשִׁיח' (Mashiah), 'annointed one.' This a title applied to Jesus of Nazareth by his followers. A Christian is a follower of Jesus of Nazareth who is called Jesus the Christ. To be a Christian is to accept the words of Jesus as truth and to obey his commands to the best of one's ability. Because Jesus claimed to be the Son of Man to whom the Ancient of Days would give an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, one cannot be a Christian unless one accepts the whole of Jesus's teaching as authoritative. (There is no middle ground here. Because of the things that Jesus claimed for himself, he was either a lunatic or a deceiver, or he was the unique Son of God. There is no third option. If you believe he was a lunatic or a deceiver, then everything he said is suspect, and you cannot trust any of it. If you believe he was the Son of God, then everything he said is authoritative.)

Matthew 26 (New King James Version)
63 ... And the high priest answered and said to Him, “I put You under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!”
64 Jesus said to him, “It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Daniel 7 (New King James Version)
13 “ I was watching in the night visions,
And behold, One like the Son of Man,
Coming with the clouds of heaven!
He came to the Ancient of Days,
And they brought Him near before Him.
14 Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom,
That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
Which shall not pass away,
And His kingdom the one
Which shall not be destroyed.

Bottom Line: Christians strive to obey the commands of Jesus Christ.

Evangelical: The word 'evangelism' comes from the Greek term εύαγγέλιον (euangelion) or 'good news'. [Eύ (good) + Άγγέλλω (I bring a message)] The term evangelion is also the Greek term translated as 'gospel' in the English New Testament. Therefore, to be evangelical is to spread the good news of the Gospel. Jesus Christ himself commanded his disciples to spread the Gospel to all nations.

Matthew 28 (New King James Version)
16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. 17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

Not only did Jesus command his followers to make disciples, he also singled out for us the two greatest commandments, the second of which was, love your neighbor as yourself.

Mark 12 (New King James Version)
28 Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered [the Sadduccees] well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?” 29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 30 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

This is important foremost because Jesus also declared that apart from him, no one comes to the Father. Jesus made it abundantly clear that those who did not come through him could not come to the Father at all. Jesus told many parables that consigned those who did not take his message to heart to outer darkness, where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

John 14 (New King James Version)
1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

So, if a Christian believes that Christ's words are summarily authoritative, then a Christian believes that Christ has commissioned his followers to make disciples of all nations. Further, a Christian believes that the second most important of God's commandments is to love your neighbor as yourself - second only to loving God with all of your being. Next, a Christian believes that no one can come to the Father except through Christ, and if they do not come to the Father, then they will be consigned to a place of darkness and sorrow. If a Christian truly loves his neighbor and truly believes that without Christ, they are doomed to an eternity of wailing and gnashing of teeth, then will that Christian not at least make an attempt to share with his neighbor the good news of Jesus Christ? How can that Christian be considered to be a follower of Christ if he ignores the second greatest commandment of God and sacrifices evangelism on the altar of tolerance?

The object here is not to force your beliefs onto anyone: no one can be made a Christian by the sword any more than they can be made to believe anything else by force. The object is to spread the Gospel. If your neighbor refuses to hear or rejects what you tell them, then you have still fulfilled your obligation to love them and to teach them. However, a Christian's efforts to proselytize cannot and must not be stifled under the guise of freedom of religion because evangelism is essential to the practice of Christianity.

Bottom Line: In order to fulfill Christ's commands, a Christian must make disciples.

Born again: This terminology arises from Christ's teaching of the Pharisee Nicodemus.

John 3 (New King James Version)
1 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”
10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? 11 Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

Here, Jesus makes the claim that no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. To be born again is made synonymous with immersion in water and with immersion in the Holy Spirit - with baptism.

A baptism is a conversion of the heart, a repentance, sparked by the Holy Spirit, which is then followed by obedience and submission to Christ through the outward proclamation of immersion in water, which symbolizes sharing in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. It is a symbol of the cleansing power of Christ's blood shed on the cross for the remission of our sins.

To be born again has nothing to do with radicalism, and the term should not be disparaged nor used disparagingly. If we believe that Christ's words are true, then all Christians must be born again in order to see the kingdom of God.

Bottom Line: Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

Article II, Hypothetical New-World Constitution

2008-06-05T08:12:00.002-05:00

Edit: 1. Changed instances of "appoint all other officers" in the enumerations of powers to the Comptroller and Auditor General, Commissioner General, and Attorney General to "appoint all other principle officers."
2. Added a provision allowing the Governor General to temporarily fill Executive positions vacant due to non-consensus in the Congress concerning qualifications of nominees for Executive candidates.

Article II. The Executive.

Section 1. The powers to execute the laws of the State will be vested in the State Executive Office, which shall be divided into four offices: the office of the chief executive, whose chief executive shall be the Governor General, the department of the Treasury, whose chief executive shall be the Comptroller and Auditor General, the department of State, whose chief executive shall be the Commissioner General, and the department of Justice, whose chief executive shall be the Attorney General. The executive power of the State shall be constrained to the powers herein enumerated and shall not be construed to extend to any powers not herein enumerated. Each of these Executive Officers shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which they shall have been elected, and they shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the State.

Section 2a. All executive power not otherwise delegated to an officer of the Executive shall be vested in a Governor General. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Lieutenant Governor, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:

2b. The People in each Senate district will choose from among themselves, in such manner as the Congress may direct, one elector. No Councilor or Senator, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the State, shall be appointed an elector.

2c. The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be the same throughout the State.

2d. The electors shall meet in the Capital and consider among themselves the Candidates for Governor General and Lieutenant Governor. Once considered, the electors shall vote by ballot for Governor General and Lieutenant Governor, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same Senate district as themselves. They shall name in their ballots the person voted for as Governor General, and in distinct ballots, the person voted for as Lieutenant Governor, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as Governor General, and of all persons voted for as Lieutenant General, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the President of the Senate.

2e. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Common Council and the Senate, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for Governor General shall be Governor General, if such a number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person having such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as Governor General, the Common Council shall choose immediately, by ballot, the Governor General. A quorum for this purpose shall consist of two thirds of the whole number of Councilors, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. And if the Common Council shall not choose a Governor General whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them before noon on the twentieth day of the year next following, then the Lieutenant Governor shall be Governor General. No person except a natural born citizen shall be eligible to the office of Governor General, neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have been fourteen years a resident within the State. No person shall be elected to the office of the Governor General more than twice, and no person who has held the office of Governor General, or acted as Governor General, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected Governor General shall be elected to the office of the Governor General more than once.

2f. The person having the greatest number of votes as Lieutenant Governor shall be Lieutenant Governor, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Lieutenant Governor. A quorum for the purpose shall consist of two thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. No person ineligible to the office of Governor General shall be eligible to that of Lieutenant Governor.

2g. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Common Council may choose a Governor General whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Lieutenant Governor whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

Section 3a. In the case of removal of the Governor General from office or of his death or resignation, the Lieutenant Governor shall become Governor General.

3b. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Lieutenant Governor, the Governor General shall nominate a Lieutenant Governor who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

3c. Whenever the Governor General transmits to the Chair of the Common Council and the President pro tempore of the Senate his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Lieutenant Governor as Acting Governor General.

3d. Thereafter, when the Governor General transmits to the Chair of the Common Council and the President pro tempore of the Senate his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Lieutenant Governor and a majority of either the chief officers of the executive or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the Chair of the Common Council and the President pro tempore of the Senate their written declaration that the Governor General is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two thirds vote of both Houses that the Governor General is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Lieutenant Governor shall continue to discharge the same as Acting Governor General. Otherwise, the Governor General shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

Section 4a. The Governor General shall be commander in chief of the military forces of the State, and of the militia, when called into the actual service of the State; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive offices, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the State, except in cases of impeachment.

4b. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur. He shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law. The Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the Governor General alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

4c. The Lieutenant Governor shall nominate, and by and with the consent of the Senate, shall appoint judges of the Court of Review.

Section 5. The Governor shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the State, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. He may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in cases of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper. He shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers. He shall take care that laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the military forces of the State.

Section 6a. The power and responsibility to fully and faithfully execute the State tax code shall be vested in the Comptroller and Auditor General. He shall hold his office during the term of four years and be elected as follows:

6b. The Governor General shall nominate no fewer than three qualified candidates for the office of Comptroller and Auditor General, and upon the approval of no fewer than three qualified candidates by both Houses of Congress, the People shall elect one of the several candidates by popular vote. If the Congress shall not approve at least three qualified candidates before noon on the twentieth day of the year next following, the Court of Review shall determine the qualification of the nominees. No person except a natural born citizen shall be eligible to the office of Comptroller and Auditor General, neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have been ten years a resident within the State. Congress may prescribe further qualifications for the office of Comptroller and Auditor General to include academic degree and years of relevant work experience; however, Congress may prescribe no additional qualifications until the population of the State shall exceed one million persons, and Congress may prescribe no additional qualifications that would reduce the number of qualified citizens to less than one half of one one-thousandth of the population of the State.

Section 7a. Any bill concerning the appropriation of funds, which shall have passed the Common Council and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the Comptroller and Auditor General. If he approves, he shall sign it, but if not, he may strike out individual appropriations as he deems necessary until he approves of the bill. If he so strikes any appropriations, he shall refer the bill with his objections and a list of appropriations stricken to the Congress. Upon a two thirds vote of both Houses, the stricken appropriations will be restored, and the bill shall become law. If a two thirds consensus to restore the bill cannot be reached, the bill shall become law excepting those appropriations stricken by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

7b. The authority to regulate the value of State currency, and of foreign currency shall be vested in a State Reserve Bank, which shall be governed by a Board of directors. The State Reserve Board shall be charged with the responsibility of limiting inflation of the State economy and of limiting unemployment. They shall have all necessary and proper powers to regulate the monetary policy of the State in order to execute this charge and may do so according to their good judgment. The size and composition of, and qualifications of members of the State Reserve Board shall be determined by law. The Comptroller and Auditor General shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint all principle officers of the State Reserve, who shall hold their offices in good behavior. The State Reserve may lend no monies to the Government.

7c. The Comptroller and Auditor General shall, by virtue of his office, be the Secretary of the Treasury and may exercise any executive power devolved to him by the Congress and the Governor General in this capacity. He shall have the power to nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all other principle officers of the Department of the Treasury.

Section 8a. The power and responsibility to fully and faithfully execute State election law shall be vested in the Commissioner General. He shall supervise, and by affixing his seal, he shall certify the fair and equitable administration of elections. He shall hold his office during the term of two years and be elected as follows:

8b. The Governor General shall nominate no fewer than three qualified candidates for the office of Commissioner General, and upon the approval of no fewer than three qualified candidates by both Houses of Congress, the People shall elect one of the several candidates by popular vote. If the Congress shall not approve at least three qualified candidates before noon on the twentieth day of the year next following, the Court of Review shall determine the qualification of the nominees. No person except a natural born citizen shall be eligible to the office of Commissioner General, neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have been ten years a resident within the State. Congress may prescribe further qualifications for the office of Commissioner General to include academic degree and years of relevant work experience; however, Congress may prescribe no additional qualifications until the population of the State shall exceed one million persons, and Congress may prescribe no additional qualifications that would reduce the number of qualified citizens to less than one half of one one-thousandth of the population of the State.

Section 9a. Any bill concerning the regulation of elections, qualifications of the electorate, and redistricting of Senate districts according to the apportionment of the population by the Census, which shall have passed the Common Council and the Senate shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the Commissioner General. If he approves, he shall sign it, but if not, he shall refer it with his objections to the Court of Review. If after such consideration of the Court, the bill is ruled to conform to the articles herein, it shall become law. If any bill shall not be referred to the Court by the Commissioner General within ten days, after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it.

9b. The Commissioner General shall, by virtue of his office, be the Secretary of State and may exercise any executive power devolved to him by the Congress and the Governor General in this capacity. He shall have the power to nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all other principle officers of the Department of State. He shall commission all civil officers of the State.

Section 10a. The power and responsibility to fully and faithfully execute State law concerning law enforcement, criminal justice and corrections shall be vested in the Attorney General. He shall represent the State in all suits, pleas, and cases in the High Courts in which the State may be a party. He shall hold his office during the term of four years and be elected as follows:

10b. The Governor General shall nominate no fewer than three qualified candidates for the office of Attorney General, and upon the approval of no fewer than three qualified candidates by both Houses of Congress, the People shall elect one of the several candidates by popular vote. If the Congress shall not approve at least three qualified candidates before noon on the twentieth day of the year next following, the Court of Review shall determine the qualification of the nominees. No person except a natural born citizen shall be eligible to the office of Attorney General, neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have been ten years a resident within the State. Congress may prescribe further qualifications for the office of Attorney General to include academic degree and years of relevant work experience; however, Congress may prescribe no additional qualifications until the population of the State shall exceed one million persons, and Congress may prescribe no additional qualifications that would reduce the number of qualified citizens to less than one half of one one-thousandth of the population of the State.

Section 11a. Any bill concerning the administration of law enforcement, criminal justice and corrections, which shall have passed the Common Council and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the Attorney General. If he approves, he shall sign it, but if not, he shall refer it with his objections to the Court of Review. If after such consideration of the Court, the bill is ruled to conform to the articles herein, it shall become law. If any bill shall not be referred to the Court by the Attorney General within ten days, after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it.

11b. The Attorney General shall, by virtue of his office, be the Secretary of Justice and may exercise any executive power devolved to him by the Congress and the Governor General in this capacity. He shall have the power to nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all other principle officers of the Department of Justice.

Section 12. The Congress may determine the day on which the People shall give their votes for the offices of Comptroller and Auditor General, Commissioner General, and Attorney General, which day shall be the same throughout the State.

Section 13. In the case of vacancy in the offices of Comptroller and Auditor General, Commissioner General, or Attorney General, the Governor General may issue writs of election to fill the vacancies. Until such time as the vacancies may be filled by elections as prescribed herein, the Congress may provide by law for acting Executive officers to be chosen from among the officers of their respective Executive departments to fill the vacancies; or, if three qualified candidates for the offices of Comptroller and Auditor General, Commissioner General, or Attorney General are not approved and duly elected within thirty days after the Governor General takes office, he may appoint acting Executive officers to hold these offices until such time as the positions may be filled by elections as prescribed herein.

Section 14. The Governor General, Lieutenant Governor, the Executive Officers, and all civil officers of the State shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Individual Freedom and Responsibility

2008-05-28T14:13:00.009-05:00

There are two sets of powers in any government. Though these powers may overlap in some areas like a Venn diagram, in others, these powers are mutually exclusive. They are the powers that may be exercised by the government, and the powers that may be exercised by the people.

　　All of those powers which may be exercised by the government are ceded to the government from the people by an agreement among the people in a society whose governing structure is supported by rational-legal legitimacy - a social contract. The people may decide which powers are ineffective on an individual basis, such as the power of national defense or the power to protect rights, and grant those powers on a collective basis to the government in order to ensure their effect.

　　The most important of these powers of government to the individual is the power to protect rights. We give this power to the government to avoid the tyranny of the strong over the weak, or the many over the few. We also limit the powers of the government to ensure that it does not then become that strong or majority force from which we sought to protect ourselves.

　　The more power we grant to the government, the less power we then have unto ourselves. The stronger we make the government, the weaker we become. The more we submit to government mandate, the less choice we have for ourselves. In a country where we claim liberty to be one of our most sacred rights, we ought to ensure that the government has as little power over our personal choices as is possible.

　　Therefore, the power of the government concerning the restriction of the behavior of its citizens ought to be extremely limited, and the responsibility for success should then be on the shoulders of each individual. The government should have no power to make our choices for us, for this inhibits our right to liberty and impairs our right to the pursuit of happiness. Because we are each unique, no universal set of solutions will ensure success on an individual basis. Because we each have different abilities, talents, needs, and desires, the government cannot effectively direct each of us on the best path to success. Neither have they the cognizance nor foresight - being a group of men themselves - to predict what set of solutions will effect an overall collective success, nor should we trust them to do so.

　　Given that the government has the power and responsibility to protect our rights and should have no power to interfere with our free will and an obligation to refrain from doing so, the government should avoid in all cases legislating on the basis of morality. This includes any perceived moral obligation to universal health care as well as to preserve the sanctity of marriage or any other one might name. In both the social and the moral, the government should allow for each of us to make our own decisions, our own successes, and our own failures, and it should hold each of us accountable to the consequences of those decisions. In this way, the government may ensure that each of us maintains completely our right to choice and our liberty.

Article I, Hypothetical New-World Constitution

2008-05-23T11:20:00.008-05:00

Suppose that men have colonized some distant planet. This planet parallels Earth in almost every way, but there is no intelligent life. The men who have colonized this planet have broken or lost all contact with Earth and have set about attempting to create the best governing system for the thousands of colonists, expecting that someday, they will grow to a population of millions, perhaps even billions.

This is Article I of my attempt at a constitution to create this best governing system. I would appreciate any suggestions that might improve it. I have obviously borrowed quite a bit from the U.S. Constitution, as this is the system of government I am most familiar with. Many of the changes are similar to those I made in my Revised U.S. Constitution.

Edit: 1. Removed qualifications for office on the basis of age as proposed by Nelson Blaha.
2. Elaborated on the Lt. Governor's role as President of the Senate.

Article I. The Legislature.

Section 1. The legislative power of the State will be vested in a Congress of the State, which shall be divided into two Houses: a lower house, styled the Common Council, and an upper house, styled the Senate; and in a State Board of Education. The legislative power of the State shall be constrained to the powers herein enumerated and shall not be construed to extend to any powers not herein enumerated. All powers not delegated to the Congress of the State nor to the State Board of Education and not expressly prohibited to the same shall be reserved to the People and may be exercised by such inferior governments as may be ordained and established by the People.

Section 2a. The Common Council will be composed of no fewer than one hundred fifty members styled Councilor and elected by the People of the State at large. The People will propose for the ballot, in such manner as may be determined by law, a number of slates of candidates for the office of Councilor ranked in the order of preference. Each slate will list candidates equal in number to the number of seats on the Council, and each slate may be named according to the preferences of the People. Each person will cast his vote for one slate of candidates, and the most preferred candidates on each slate, according to their slate ranking and their proportion received of the popular vote, will be awarded seats on the Council.

2b. No person not having been a citizen of the State for less than seven years shall be eligible for the office of Councilor. No Councilor may hold any other office of honor, trust, or profit under the State. Councilors will serve terms of two years, and the whole of the Council shall stand for reelection every second year.

2b. The Council shall choose their Chairman and other officers and shall have the sole power of impeachment. The Common Council shall, before the first election of Senators only, be solely responsible for the enumeration of the first Census and for the creation of the first Senate districts. Until the first Senate is seated, the Common Council shall have no other power but to provide for the conduct of the first Census and to create the first Senate districts according to the articles herein.

Section 3a. The Senate will be composed of no fewer than fifty-five members styled Senator and elected by the People of single member districts apportioned by population. At the start of every period of ten years, there shall be conducted a Census in order to determine the total number of the population. Upon the conduct of the Census, the Senate districts shall be apportioned and district lines be drawn by act of Congress in order to ensure that the population is divided as equally as is possible among the several districts. Each person will cast his vote for one candidate, and the most preferred candidate in each district, according to the actual enumeration of the popular vote, will be awarded a seat in the Senate.

3b. No person not having been a citizen of the State and a resident of the district from which he will be elected for less than nine years shall be eligible for the office of Senator. No Senator may hold any other office of honor, trust, or profit under the State. The first Senate shall be divided as equally as possible into three classes. The first class shall serve two years, the second shall serve four, and the third shall serve six. Thereafter, Senators will serve terms of six years, and one-third of the Senate, divided as equally as possible, will stand for reelection every second year.

3c. The Lieutenant Governor shall by virtue of his office be President of the Senate, and shall have, when in Committee of the Whole, a right to debate and vote on all questions; and when the Senate is equally divided to give the deciding vote. The President shall decide all questions of order subject to appeal by any member. The President shall have control of such parts of the Capitol as have been or may be set apart for the use of the Senate and its officers. The President shall have the right to name a member to perform the duties of the chair, but such substitution shall not extend beyond such time as a majority of the Senators present vote to elect another member to preside, and if a majority of the Senators present so vote, the member called to the chair by the Lieutenant Governor or by the President pro tempore of the Senate shall vacate the chair, and the member elected by a majority shall preside until the Lieutenant Governor or President pro tempore shall take the gavel and preside.

3d. The Senate shall choose their officers and also a President pro tempore to serve in the absence of the Lieutenant Governor or when he shall exercise the office of Governor General. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the Governor General is tried, the Chief Justice of the Court of Review shall preside. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present.

3e. Judgment in the cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the State, but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law.

Section 4a. The Board of Education will be composed of a number of members equal to the number of Senators. One member of the Board of Education will be elected from each of the Senate districts. Each person will cast his vote for one candidate, and the most preferred candidate in each district, according to the actual enumeration of the popular vote, will be awarded a seat on the Board of Education.

4b. No person not having been a citizen of the State and a resident of the district from which he will be elected for less than five years shall be eligible for the office of member of the Board of Education. No Board member may hold any other office of honor, trust, or profit under the State. The first Board of Education shall be divided as equally as possible into two classes. The first class shall serve two years, and the second shall serve four. Thereafter, Board members will serve terms of four years, and one half of the Board of Education, divided as equally as possible, will stand for reelection every second year.

Section 5. The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Councilors, Senators and members of the Board of Education, shall be prescribed by the Congress. Congress shall assemble for six months each year, and the session shall begin on such day as may be appointed by law.

Section 6a. Each house of Congress and the Board of Education shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each house and the Board may provide.

6b. Each house and the Board may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.

6c. Each house and the Board shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting, in the case of Congress, such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy, and the ayes and nays of the members of either house or the Board on any question shall, at the desire of one fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.

6d. Neither house, during session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two houses shall be sitting.

Section 7a. The Councilors, Senators, and members of the Board of Education shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the State. No law varying the compensation for the services of the Councilors, Senators, or Board members shall take effect until an election of Councilors shall have intervened.

7b. The Councilors, Senators, and members of the Board of Education shall in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective houses, and in going to and returning from the same, and for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

Section 8a. Every bill not otherwise herein provided for, which shall have passed the Common Council and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the Governor General. If he approves, he shall sign it, but if not, he shall refer it with his objections to the Court of Review. If after such consideration of the Court, the bill is ruled to conform to the articles herein, it shall become law. If any bill shall not be referred to the Court by the Governor General within ten days, after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it.

8b. Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Common Council and the Senate may be necessary, except on a question of adjournment, shall be presented to the Governor General, and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be considered by the Court of Review, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill.

Section 9a. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the State, but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the State; To borrow money on the credit of the State only during such states of emergency as declared by a majority of members of the Common Council and approved by the majority of Senators and the Governor General; To regulate actual commercial transactions with foreign nations, within the State, and among semi-autonomous regions, but this power shall not be construed to extend to regulation of persons, objects, or activities unrelated to commerce merely for their potential involvement in future commercial transactions;

9b. To police the State and to establish uniform rules for the establishment, provision, and conduct of a system of law enforcement;

9c. To fix the standard of weights and measures; To establish post offices and post roads; And the sole power to coin money;

9d. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals; To ensure that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the State, or any place subject to its jurisdiction; To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations; To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the State; To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the State; To secure for limited times to authors, inventors, and artists the exclusive right to their respective writings, discoveries, and works;

9e. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; To provide and maintain a navy; To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces; To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the State, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, governing, and disciplining the militia; To exercise exclusive authority over all places purchased for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;

9f. To determine the size of the Common Council, the Senate, and the State high courts; And

9g. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by these articles in the government of the State, or in any department or officer thereof.

9h. The Board of Education shall have the power to regulate the curriculum, acceptable standards, requirements, and operations of the State system of education; To establish Independent School Districts with such power to provide for and regulate the education of its residents as determined by the Board of Education; To budget funds appropriated by the Congress for use by the Board of Education; To regulate the salaries and pensions of teachers and school administrators; And to make all regulations which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.

Section 10a. Neither the Congress nor the Board of Education shall have moral authority, and shall pass no law or regulation which restricts the private action of the People, except to ensure that no individual may by actions infringe upon the rights of any other. The Congress shall have the power to ensure by law that the rights of the People are not infringed.

10b. The privilege of the writ of habeus corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.

10c. No law shall be passed which establishes an official religion of the State or prohibits the free exercise of religion. No law shall be passed which abridges the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

10d. No law shall be passed which infringes upon the individual freedom of the People to keep and bear arms.

10e. No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. No law shall be passed which infringes upon the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and no Warrants shall be issued but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

10f. No law shall be passed which infringes on the right of citizens of the State to vote on account of race, color, ethnicity, or gender, nor shall the right of citizens of the State, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote be denied or abridged. No law shall be passed which infringes upon the right of citizens of the State to vote in any primary or other election for by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

10g. No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular Statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.

10h. No title of nobility shall be granted by the State: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State.

10i. No citizen of the State having attained to the age of five years and having not attained to the age of nineteen years shall be denied access to the State education system, nor shall they be denied equal opportunity to education; No citizen of the State shall be denied access to a school based solely on residency within its Independent School District; No Independent School District shall be unequally funded on the basis of revenue from taxes within its boundaries in support of the State education system.

The Right to Choose

2008-04-04T12:30:00.000-05:00

Our three greatest rights are the rights to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness. Each of these progresses from the one before it, and the right to life is our greatest and most sacred right. The right to liberty – the right to choose – is, just as the right to life, given to us by our creator. Choice is essential to our human nature, as God has given us free will. As such, our right to choose can never be legitimately abridged by any government. However, as all men are created equal, our own right to choose can never infringe on the rights of any other individual, and just as God holds us ultimately responsible for the choices we make in life, so must a government hold its citizens responsible for their choices. For every action, there is a consequence, and the government must not be in the business of absolving its citizens from the consequences of their actions.

We can make several assertions based on these basic rights about what we can or cannot do without government interference. Among these, we may assert that a woman has the right to make choices concerning her own body. We may assert that a woman has the right to choose when she wishes to reproduce. However, to make the assertion that a woman has the right to an abortion does not logically follow from these conclusions. First, though a woman has the right to choose concerning her own body, a child, no matter the stage of its development, is a life distinct from its mother’s with all of the characteristics thereof. Therefore, the mother may make no decision that infringes on the child’s right to life. Second, a woman absolutely has the right to choose when she wishes to reproduce, and she makes that decision the minute she decides to have sexual intercourse. It is absolutely fallacious to claim or even to imply that rational human beings are incapable of making the choice to refrain from sexual intercourse merely because it is common in our society to engage in intercourse. Having made the decision to have sex, a woman has made a decision that may result, no matter the precautions taken, in the formation of a life distinct from her own, and she and the man involved in the act both bear the responsibility of that decision should it result in a pregnancy.

There are situations, however, in which a woman may be put into a situation in which she is made pregnant against her will. In situations of rape, a man has made a decision that infringes on a woman’s liberty, and therefore, the woman is not responsible if a life is formed. However, it remains true that the child itself is innocent and has the right to life. In this situation, a State may allow the woman to choose to terminate the pregnancy; however, it is still a heavy choice to make with dire moral implications. Though no one can have the right to mandate in this situation, the woman should be encouraged to bear the child to term, and then, if she is not capable of raising the child for whatever reason, to give it up for adoption.

There is one situation in which an abortion is completely absolved from moral question. If the mother of the child absolutely will die if she bears the child to term and gives birth, she absolutely has the right – but not the obligation – to terminate the pregnancy. No one life is any more precious than any other. Though the child is innocent and has the right to life, so does the mother have the right to life, and she may make the decision to continue to live.

To be pro-life does not imply that one is anti-choice. Quite to the contrary, to be pro-life is to also be both pro-choice and pro-responsibility.

Questions Concerning Hell (feat. Jeffrey Dill)

2008-04-01T12:26:00.000-05:00

Jeff and I, once, during an outing to eat at a most wonderful hibachi and sushi restaurant, had a brief discussion concerning the notions of an eternal Hell and of annihilation. From his point of view, for God to punish unbelief with an eternal Hell would be the equivalent of placing a gun to one's head and demanding that this person love you or die. I, on the other hand, argued that without consequences for our actions - without Hell, free will is meaningless. We broke off the argument upon entering the restaurant, but to illustrate my point that Hell is not quite equivalent to a gun to our heads, I created a parable and sent it to Jeff via e-mail. That e-mail began the following dialog.

[Aaron] "Long ago, a young man and his father became estranged when the young man, refusing to follow the strict rules of his father's household any longer, left his father to live according to his own way and his own means. Though the land outside of his father's homestead was harsh and the dangers of the wilderness were extreme, the young man wandered on his own throughout the land with no power or wisdom to see what lay ahead of him.

Knowing the dangers that his son faced, the young man's father, even immediately after his departure, began to send a messenger to him so often as he could find him. The messenger implored the young man to return home to his father's house, warning him of the danger of the wilderness and the evil creatures that lurked there.

For long years, the young man refused to listen to the messenger's pleas, and he remained a wanderer, skirting danger by chance alone. But after a time, the young man grew weary of the meager living he could find for himself in the harsh land, and he longed once again to live in his father's household. However, he could no longer remember the paths he had wandered, and he did not know how to find his way home.

Soon, the messenger found him again, and the young man heeded his message. The messenger bade to the young man to follow behind him, and he would lead him on his return to his father's house. The messenger described to the young man the path they would follow, and though the directions were long, complex, and specific, the messenger warned the young man not to deviate from them, for the way to return to his father's house had grown even more perilous since the young man's departure, and there was only one safe way to reach home.

The young man gratefully accepted the instructions from the messenger and began to follow him back to his father's house. Soon, however, the young man grew weary of the difficult path and decided to stray from the narrow path in favor of a broader, more easily trod path. The messenger once again warned the young man that only one path could lead him home to his father's house, but the young man would not listen, and immediately struck out on the easy path.

Knowing that the young man would find death, the messenger quickly returned to his master's house and told him all of the things that happened. Fearing for his son's life, the young man's father immediately set out to find him. When he came to the place where his son strayed, the young man's father found him there, struggling to pull himself up from a sandpit - a pit from which he could never hope to escape. The young man's struggling only pulled him more deeply into the pit.

The young man's father reached out his hand to him and said, "My son, take my hand, or you will die." Hearing this, the young man took his father's hand, and he pulled the young man from the pit and carried him safely back to his homestead where he washed him, gave him new clothes, and restored him to his former position."

[Jeff] "The way you illustrate it seems to imply that the dangers outside the father's estate are naturally occurring hazards, unrelated to the father himself. The way I understand it, our understanding, is that all that is has either been created or designed by God. Translating this into the parable, it would be as if the father laid death traps or released wild, carnivorous animals around this safe haven of his house, then warned his son not to go out, because it was dangerous out there. In this way, it seems more like imprisonment. I suppose the only possible alternative does not translate well into a parable: nothing has been created beyond the boundaries of the father's land, and to wander too far would chance walking into oblivion. Like I said, kind of weird and much less concrete, but it strikes a middle ground.

What I'm saying is more of a question regarding the concept of Hell. Is it a state of being, or is it simply nonbeing? If it is a state of being, then it would follow, based on our understanding of the universe that it has been created by God, as all that is was. Such a concept does not seem to follow, given the omni-benevolence that we suppose God to embody. If it were a state of nonbeing, it would be easier to accept given our current assumptions, considering the fact that sin is considered not a positive concept but a negative concept, one of absence, such as shadow. Hell as nonbeing would seem to be a logical conclusion to these sets of assumptions, then. Or so it seems to me. Talk about eternal torment, thus, always seems strange. It's either that, or our concepts of the universe and/or God are flawed, which is possible.

My second question has more to do with the nature of humanity rather than the nature of Hell, so it's naturally a bit more complex, due to the fact that we actually have experience that relates to it. Basically, I understand that God desired humanity to have free will, so as part of our free will, we have a propensity to sin, for some reason. We could debate the intricacies of that until we find the eventual answer to these questions with our own deaths, so for now I think we can accept this basic, rudimentary framework and move on.

So it is part of the human condition that we are inclined to sin, to some degree or another. So then I have an illustration. A new mother is holding her infant son in her arms. As babies are wont to do, the baby spits up all over himself and his mother's clean clothes. Clearly, this is generally unacceptable among adult humans, but quite normal among infants. Nevertheless, the mother casts her baby from her arms and, what the heck, into a small building that is on fire. The baby wails, confused in its new and horrible predicament. The door into which the mother threw the infant is still wide open and the only way out, and the mother stands in the doorway calling for the child to return to her, as she is genuinely concerned for the child's welfare. The baby, however, is confused, terrified and clumsy and the roof is quickly burning, threatening to fall on the child before long. Only when it becomes apparent that the child will not be able to escape in time does the mother quickly enter, scoop up the child and exit with hardly any effort or risk at all.

So it's a little extreme, sure, but perhaps this better illustrates the difference between the abilities of God and Man, and even then understates it. A man as compared to his grown son is negligibly more powerful. A grown person seems almost omnipotent when compared to a fragile infant. Wouldn't that mother be arrested after a scenario like that?"

[Aaron] "The whole point I'm trying to make is that Hell and its hardships aren't a place created by God to punish unbelievers. It's the state that humans put themselves in when they choose to live apart from God. Apart from God, there is darkness. So if you choose to live apart from God, you'll be in darkness. It's not as if there's some cavern of fire somewhere that God is going to cast them into; he will merely allow them to continue existing apart from him just as they wanted. He is ratifying their own decisions. As for annihilationism, God is a god of creation, not of destruction. He's not in the business of unmaking the things that he has made, because the things that he created are good - that is, they are well made. So, God isn't going to destroy you because you chose to live apart from him; he's going to give you what you wanted. On the same token, he isn't going to drag you kicking and screaming into his presence against your will, because he did give you choice.

Sin isn't really a concept that has a positive or negative attribute. Sin is very simple, really; it's merely choosing your own will over the will of God. Any time your choices are not in concert with God's will, you are sinning. We and God are similar in the regard that we both want what is best for us. The difference between us and God is that we think we know what we need to do in order to achieve what is best for us, and God actually knows what is best for us. There's no way that we can achieve it on our own, because we just don't know enough. God does. So, in aligning our will to God's, we will have what is best for us - anything apart from that just can't be the best.

See, it's not that we have a propensity to be bad. We don't make decisions on the basis of what is bad or evil. We make decisions on the basis of what we believe is best for us, often in disregard to what is good for others. The only thing that makes our nature sinful is that we have a propensity to want to do it our own way, because we believe that we know what is best for us.

The illustration doesn't conform to the reality of our situation. God does not condemn us for choices we make before we understand what choices are. The nature of a child is the clear example that Jesus gives us to be the nature necessary to enter the kingdom of Heaven. So, until we come of the age when we gain understanding, we do not yet truly have free will. Once we have that understanding, we are fully capable of making our own decisions (such as not throwing up on our mothers) and bearing the responsibility for and consequences of those decisions. It is when we gain that understanding and then discard the wisdom of God in exchange for the wisdom of men that we sin and bear the fault of those sins.

The issue at hand is not that there is not enough light in the world. The issue is that men love darkness rather than light, because in the light, the darkness of their deeds is made known. People don't like being dependent on God. People don't like being in the presence of a being so holy that we look like the vilest of the vile beside him. We like to think that we're good people, and we like to think that we know what's best."

[Jeff] "No disagreement [concerning Hell as a state, rather than a place]. And, that sounds simple, but that makes it pretty tough to actually determine [what sin really is]. I wasn't speaking literally. As I stated, it was designed to demonstrate the vast gulf in understanding and ability between divine consciousness and mundane consciousness. You mention coming of age and gaining understanding, but since your definition of sin was that which deviates from the will of God, we can never have an effective understanding, since we do not know the will of God."

[Aaron] "But we can know the will of God. That's the whole reason why God gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit. When you pray, one of the goals of your prayer is to bring your will into alignment with that of God. 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' 'Not my will, but your will be done.' There is a gulf of understanding between man and God, but God has made all of these things plain to us through scripture and through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

In any case, it's not about whether you're successful in this regard in the first place. The point to be made here is that you are making the effort to conform your will to God's, that you have actually made the decision to rely on God's understanding over your own. That's the choice that God wants us to make. To say, 'Not my will but yours.'"

Reformation of the Electoral College

2008-02-19T19:15:00.000-06:00

The elecoral college is made up of five hundred thirty-eight electors selected by one of two ways by the people of the several States and the District of Columbia. Each State receives a number of electoral votes equal to their number of members in the House of Representatives plus their number of Senators. Each State, therefore, appoints at least three electors. The District of Columbia also receives electoral votes equal to the number of Representatives and Senators it would have if it were a State. These electors meet in their respective State capitals and cast two votes each - one for president, and one for vice president. A complete tally of votes in each State is signed by the electors and certified by the Secretary of State (or its equivalent) and then sent by post to the President of the Senate (the U.S. vice president) to be counted in the presence of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The two winners of the majority of these votes, at least two hundred seventy votes each, become the president-elect and vice president-elect. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the elections are decided in contingent elections by the House of Representatives, in the case of the president, and the Senate, in the case of the vice president.

Electors are appointed in whatever manner the legislatures of the several States deem proper. In most States - all but Nebraska and Maine - electors run en bloc with a pledge to vote for a particular presidential and vice presidential candidate. This means that the people, though they may believe they are voting directly for a candidate and his running mate, are actually voting all at once for a group of people who have been chosen by the candidate's party or the candidate himself. The slate of electors receiving a plurality of votes State-wide is chosen, winner-take-all, as the State's electoral college. Effectively, this could give the electoral college to a candidate who did not receive a majority of the State popular vote. Suppose party one received thirty percent of the popular vote, and party two received twenty-one percent. Party three, then, receives forty-nine percent. In this case, as unlikely as it may seem, party three's candidate wins all of the electoral college votes for the State, even though a majority - fifty-one percent - of the population of the State does not want party three. Even in cases where a party does receive a majority, the remaining minority receives no voice in the election of the president. Suppose party one receives fifty-one percent of the vote, and party two receives forty-nine percent. Party one receives one hundred percent of the State's electoral votes despite winning only fifty-one percent of the popular vote. Not only does this provide for cases in which significant minorities receive no voice, it may also create situations in which the winner of the popular vote nation-wide does not win a majority of electoral college votes - such as was the case in the 2000 election between then Governor George W. Bush and former Vice President Al Gore.

In Nebraska and Maine, two electors are chosen based on the winner of the State-wide popular vote. Then, an additional elector is appointed for each Congressional district based on the winner of the popular vote in that district. Nebraska and Maine each have four electoral votes - two for the State-wide election, and one for each of the two Congressional districts. The district-by-district method used by Nebraska and Maine has never resulted in a split delegation in the electoral college. However, this method is demonstrably more majoritarian, more fair than the winner-take-all system practiced by the forty-eight remaining States and the District of Columbia.

Presidential hopefuls now must, if they expect to be a serious contendor for a presidential nomination, raise and spend millions of dollars on campaigns that target the most influential States based on the dates of primaries and caucuses in those States. Once they have secured the nomination from their party, they must then spend more millions of dollars on campaigns in the most influential swing States - that is, States in which there is a strong possibility of a close election, where both candidates have a near-equal chance of winning that State's electoral votes. In the end, the presidential candidates are usually chosen by relatively few States who have early primaries, and candidates are only concerned with campaigning in States where they know they might lose. Even so, only the very few who have the capacity to raise millions of dollars have the slightest chance of winning the presidency, providing for charismatic candidates rather than necessarily competent candidates to be elected.

Given these circumstances, I would overhaul the mechanism of appointment of electors completely, though following the Nebraska-Maine model to a certain extent. Like the Nebraska-Maine model, most electors should be appointed on a district-by-district basis with two electors being appointed on an at-large basis. However, elections are not necessarily the best mechanism to choose these important political figures. Today's elections for electors mean very little given that the parties or the candidates actually choose the people who will be included on an electoral slate, and most individuals believe they are voting specifically for a candidate. Alternatively, the people in each Congressional district should actually directly choose their elector from among their own residents through a caucus system. This method is to provide that the people in each district actually choose an elector as a real person who best represents the way that the people of the district would vote. Rather than selecting the elector based on the person they would vote for, the people should select their elector based on the kind of person, their ideal persona, the people want to hold the presidency. The remaining two electors should then be appointed by the State legislatures. This gives the States, as sovereign entities, the power to affect the election of the president, though not power to decide it.

In addition to providing for a system of presidential election that more closely represents the wishes and ideals of the people of the States, this system will also provide for a larger number of viable candidates for the position. No longer will candidates for president be required to campaign at large to the entire nation; rather, they will only be required to explain their platforms to the five hundred thirty-eight electors whose opinions of the role of the president mirror the opinions of the people of their district. This provides that each and every one of the electors actually choosing the president can be intimately familiar with the candidates and informed of their best decision based on the ideals of the people of each elector's district.

Proportional Representation in the Texas Legislature

2008-02-15T20:47:00.000-06:00

The Texas legislature is made up of two houses in parallel to the U.S. Congress; that is, it has a House of Representatives, the lower house, and a Senate, the upper house. The House of Representatives is apportioned by district based on population, and each member represents a smaller number of people per district than members of the Texas Senate. The Senate originally represented the counties. Each county was represented by one Senator. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, however, that this violated the fourteenth amendment provision ensuring equal protection under the law. It is unconstitutional for the States to mirror the federal principle with the counties as their subunits because the counties are mere administrative districts under the law, rather than sovereign entities. So, to give people in less populous counties the same representation as those in more populous counties was deemed in this way to be unconstitutional. After this decision, the Texas Senate began to represent districts apportioned by population, albeit larger ones than the House of Representatives.

As such, the Texas Senate and the Texas House of Representatives effectively represent the same constituencies, even if each Senator represents more of the people than each Representative. There is no real point to a bicameral legislature in which both houses represent the same constituencies. The purpose of a bicameral legislature is either to ensure equal representation for two different constituencies, or it is to slow or complicate the legislative process. One could make an argument that the Texas legislature is an attempt at the second; however, if the two houses represent the same constituencies, then how can it possibly offer any protection?

So, then, the Texas legislature should either be reduced to a unicameral system or one the two houses should be made to represent a different constituency. In the first case, we would be removing one of the barriers to passing legislation, and the entire thrust of the Texas Constitution is to ensure that power is divided as much as possible and that the government governs as little as is possible. Therefore, removing one of the two houses is out of the question. If we are to attempt the second, and county-by-county representation in the Senate is also out, what should we do?

We could implement a system of proportional representation in the House. Proportional representation essentially means that each voter would cast his or her vote for a political party instead of for a particular candidate. Once the votes are tallied, the percentages of votes for each party are calculated and seats in the House are awarded at the same proportions. For example, if the Republicans received sixty percent of the popular vote State-wide, they would be awarded sixty percent of the seats in the House of Representatives. This would ensure that the voices of each individual voter are heard and their votes actually matter. In the single member district system - the system both houses of the Texas legislature currently use, nearly half of the population in any given district could go without representation if that district is highly competitive. Proportional representation also weakens the two-party system, allowing for third parties whose supporters may not ever have received a single representative in the legislature in the single member district system to have seats, if enough of the population State-wide supports them.

Political parties are already regulated by the State, so there would be no need to adopt any new laws concerning them. Some might balk at the notion of voting directly for a political party in lieu of specific candidates, especially in the State of Texas. To alleviate this concern, instead of voting for a party per se, each party could nominate, in convention or primary election, from among their members one hundred fifty candidates, ranked in order from one to one hundred fifty, most preferred to least. A citizen who votes in an election for the Texas House would then be voting for a slate of representatives en bloc, just as we now vote for electors for President. Seats would be awarded to the slate based on the principle of proportional representation. If a slate received, for example, ten percent of the popular vote State-wide, then the top fifteen candidates on the slate would be awarded seats in the House.

Because each citizen who votes in the election actually has representation, citizens could contact any or all of the representatives, who were elected from his or her chosen party, in order to express his or her wishes to the House on issues concerning the State at large. At the same time, citizens would still be free to contact Senators, who would still be elected through the single member district method, concerning issues in their district specifically.

Notes and a List of Changes, Revised U.S. Constitution

2008-02-13T19:01:00.000-06:00

A list of alterations from the original contained in my revised Constitution. For the most part, the inclusion of the text of amendments will not be mentioned here unless those amendments were subsequently altered or deleted themselves.

Article I, Section 1. Here, I included the text of Amendment X. I intended it to show that the idea of enumerated powers applies directly to the Congress; that is, to say that all legislative power is granted to the Congress without qualifying that statement with an enumeration of actual powers is to give the Congress near-unlimited power to work its will on the People and the States at large. As such, in order to maintain power for the States and the People, the tenth amendment text is specifically included here.

Section 2. I changed the wording here from "Indians not taxed" to "citizens of dependent nations not taxed." All other instances of Indians were also changed to citizens of dependent nations.

Section 3. I returned the power of appointing Senators to the State legislatures. However, unlike the original Constitution before Amendment XVII, I allowed for the State legislature to choose the method of appointment. That is, the State legislature could provide for a popular election, if it so desired, but it would not be constrained to doing so. The Senate is meant to be a delegation from the States whose purpose is to work the will of the State from which its members are appointed, not the People thereof. The People are represented in the House of Representatives.

Section 7. I removed the Senate's power to propose amendments to appropriations bills. Because the Senate does not represent the People, it should have no power in determining how their tax dollars ought to be spent. The Senate may approve or disapprove of the budget, but they may not change it.

I significantly altered the President's power of veto. The President was never meant to be a legislator, though he is in this way a part of the legislative process. To overturn the will of the Representatives of the People and of the States merely on ideological grounds is too great of a power for one person to hold. Therefore, the President, if he believes the bill to be unconstitutional, may refer that bill to the Supreme Court for a judgment. If the Court rules for its constitutionality, it becomes law; if not, it is defeated.

Section 8. I removed the Congress's power to borrow money except in cases of emergency declared by the House and approved by the Senate and President. This requires the budget to be balanced in all other cases.

I added artists and their works to Congress's power to protect intellectual property.

I clarified the language of Amendment I to avoid misunderstanding concerning the establishment clause.

I clarified the language of Amendment II to ensure the individual right to bear arms. A collective right to bear arms in the militia is meaningless. All males having attained to the age of eighteen years and all members of the Army and Air National Guards are members of the militia. However, the President has complete control over the National Guard as each member must swear to obey his orders. National Guardsmen train with regular Army and federal Reserve troops and serve under the same officers. The National Guard is no protection against the Federal government should such a need arise. This is the entire purpose of the right to bear arms.

Article II, Section 1. I clarified the power of the President to comprise the power to execute the laws of the United States.

I altered the mechanism of the appointment of electors for President and Vice President to a district-by-district method, as determined by State law, coupled with an at large appointment. This is to say that each Congressional district will choose one elector from among themselves, and the State will choose two from the People of the State at large. This is meant to ensure that the electors for President and Vice President will be more representative of the People at large. It may also reduce the cost for Presidential campaigns, as the People will be specifically choosing electors rather than voting for them en bloc based on their pledge to vote for a particular Presidential candidate. As such, the People will choose an elector who most closely represents their own views on the qualities they desire in a Presidential candidate, and the candidates themselves need only campaign among their party for the nomination and among electors once nominated.

I also altered the process of contingent elections of the President in the House should there be no majority in the electoral college. Previously, the delegation from each State regardless of the number of Representatives therein received one vote, effectively giving each State one vote. In the revision, the House will vote as usual, with each member receiving one vote.

Section 2. This section is completely composed of text from Amendment XV which clarifies Presidential disability and succession. As such, all subsequent sections in Article II are numbered one greater than their original numbers.

Section 3. I added the Air Force to the list of military bodies for which the President shall be commander-in-chief.

Article III, Section 2. I raised the minimum dollar amount for trial by jury in civil cases from twenty dollars to one thousand.

Article V. I changed the process of ratification of amendments to allow for the People of each State to ratify the amendments by referendum. It seemed unreasonable to me that thirteen houses of legislature in as many States could block popular amendments or inflict unpopular amendments contrary to the will of the People at large. By the same token, State conventions would be made up of a small number of persons, and only thirteen of the conventions would be required to affect the amendment process.

Article VII. I changed this provision to allow for approval of three quarters of States to put the Constitution into effect among all of the States, rather than only those who have yet approved it, just as the current amendment process allows.

Amendments I & II. I clarified these amendments as aforementioned.

Amendment X. I clarified this amendment as aforementioned.

Amendment XI. I deleted this amendment, thus allowing States to be sued by individuals in federal court.

Amendment XIV. I deleted the provision for children born on U.S. soil to be U.S. citizens. This provision was included to ensure citizenship for freed slaves, and it is no longer necessary.

Amendments XV, XIX, & XXVI. I combined most of the text of these amendments into one clause in Article I, Section 4.

Amendment XVI. I deleted this amendment, thus removing the Congress's power to tax income.

Amendment XVII. I deleted this amendment, as aforementioned, to return the power of appointment of Senators to the State legislatures.

Amendments XVIII & XXI. I deleted these amendments, which concerned the prohibition of alcohol and its subsequent repeal.

Articles IV - VII, Revised U.S. Constitution

2008-02-12T17:52:00.000-06:00

This is my effort to revise the Constitution for the modern day. The text of the amendments is included in the main body of the text.

Article IV

Section 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

Section 2. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.

Section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union, but no new States shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States, and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and on application of the legislature or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.

Article V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified through referendum by the People of three fourths of the several States; provided that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

Article VI

All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution as under the first.

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution, but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Article VII

The ratification of the conventions of three quarters of States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the several States.

Article III, Revised U.S. Constitution

2008-02-11T17:52:00.000-06:00

This is my effort to revise the Constitution for the modern day. The text of the amendments is included in the main body of the text.

Article III

Section 1. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at Stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

Section 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; To all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; To all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; To controversies to which the United States shall be a party; To controversies between two or more States; between citizens of different States; between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States; and between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign States, citizens or subjects.

In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a State shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury, and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed, but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as Congress may by law have directed.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed one thousand dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Section 3. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Article II, Revised U.S. Constitution

2008-02-09T12:04:00.000-06:00

This is my effort to revise the Constitution for the modern day. The text of the amendments is included in the main body of the text.

Article II

Section 1. The power to execute the laws of the United States shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:

The People in each Congressional district within the several States, as determined by apportionment of the population in the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken, will choose from among themselves, in such manner as the Legislature of the State may direct, one elector. Each State shall appoint, in such a manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, two electors. No Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be the same throughout the United States.

The electors shall meet in their respective States and consider among themselves the Candidates for President and Vice President. Once considered, the electors shall vote by ballot for President and Vice President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State as themselves. They shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots, the person voted for as Vice President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate.

The District of Columbia shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct a number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State. They shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the Constitution.

The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be President, if such a number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person having such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. A quorum for this purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Representatives, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them before noon on the twentieth day of January next following, then the Vice President shall be President. No person except a natural born citizen shall be eligible to the office of President, neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice President shall be Vice President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice President. A quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. No person constitutionally ineligble to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States.

The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

The President shall, at Stated times, receive for his services, a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of the several States.

Section 2. In the case of removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President. Otherwise, the president shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

Section 3. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army, Navy, and Air Force of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur. He shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law. The Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.

Section 4. He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. He may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in cases of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper. He shall receive ambasssadors and other public ministers. He shall take care that laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.

Section 5. The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Preamble and Article I, Revised U.S. Constitution

2008-02-08T20:07:00.000-06:00

This is my effort to revise the Constitution for the modern day. The text of the amendments is included in the main body of the text.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article I

Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. The legislative powers not delegated to the Congress of the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the legislatures of the several States, are reserved to the legislatures of the several States respectively, or to the People of the States.

Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.

No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the number of persons in each State, excluding citizens of dependent nations not taxed. The actual enumeration of Representatives shall be made within every term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. Each State shall have at least one Representative.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers and shall have the sole power of impeachment.

Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators appointed from each State, in such a manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, for six years. Each Senator shall have one vote.

Divided as equally as may be, one third of Senators will be chosen every second year, and if vacancies happen by resignation, or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature of any State, the executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies.

No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present.

Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States, but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law.

Section 4. The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof, but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3rd day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Section 5. Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.

Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy, and the yeas and nays of the members of either House on any question shall, at the desire of one fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.

Neither House, during session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

The Senators and Representatives shall in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same, and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time, and no person holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office.

Section 7. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives, and the Senate may propose no amendments.

Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States. If he approve, he shall sign it, but if not, he shall refer it with his objections the Supreme Court of the United States. If after such consideration of the Court, the bill is ruled to conform to this Constitution, it shall become a law. If any bill shall not be referred to the Court by the President within ten days, Sundays excepted, after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it.

Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary, except on a question of adjournment, shall be presented to the President of the United States, and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be considered by the Supreme Court of the United States, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill.

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States only during such States of national emergency as declared by a majority of members of the House of Representatives and approved by the majority of Senators and the President of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with dependent nations;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To secure for limited times to authors, inventors, and artists the exclusive right to their respective writings, discoveries, and works;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To ensure that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over the District of Columbia, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings; And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Section 9. The privilege of the writ of habeus corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.

No law shall be passed which establishes an official religion of the United States or prohibits the free exercise of religion.

No law shall be passed which abridges the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

No law shall be passed which infringes upon the individual freedom of the People to keep and bear arms.

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

No law shall be passed which infringes upon the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and no Warrants shall be issued but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

No law shall be passed which infringes on the right of citizens of the United States to vote on account of race, color, ethnicity, or gender, nor shall the right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote be denied or abridged.

No law shall be passed which infringes upon the right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State.

No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another, nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another.

No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular Statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State.

Section 10. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.

No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Baked Potato Soup

2008-02-02T20:50:00.000-06:00

Baked Potato Soup

This is a soup recipe I've modified based on a recipe my friend Stephanie found in a city cook book from San Pedro, California.

4 - peeled, diced baking potatoes
2 - large, chopped or diced yellow onions
2 - large, chopped or diced white onions
2 cloves - minced garlic
1 pkg. - lean, center cut bacon

1 pint - chicken stock
1 pint - heavy cream
1 tbsp. - salt
2 tsp. - ground black pepper

Cut the bacon into bits, and then brown it. I usually go ahead and brown it in the same large stock pot in which I simmer the soup. If the bacon is lean enough, and lean, center cut bacon should be, you will not need to drain the fat from the bacon. The soup will taste better if you don't. Add the onions and garlic and stir until the onions are caramelized. Add enough water to the stock pot along with the chicken stock to cover the onions. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the potatoes and enough water to cover the potatoes. Stir until the onions and potatoes are evenly distributed. Add the salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 3 hours.

Add the heavy cream and stir. Allow the soup to cool, and enjoy.

Virginia's Texas Chili

2007-12-18T20:01:00.000-06:00

Virginia's Texas Chili

This is a chili recipe that I put together using an ingredient list sent to me by my friend Virginia Meeks. Ginny lives in Mississippi, but I couldn't figure out a clever way to put the third state into the name of the recipe...

2 lbs. - ground beef or turkey
3 - diced bell peppers (1 each of red, yellow, and orange)
2 - chopped or diced onions (white or yellow)
2 cloves - minced garlic
2 cans - tomato sauce
1 can - diced tomatoes

¾ cup - flour
1 ½ tbsp. - chili powder
1 tbsp. - baking cocoa
1 tsp. - ground ginger
1 tsp. - cumin
1 tsp. - ground cayenne pepper
1 tsp. - crushed red pepper
1 tsp. - ground black pepper

Brown the meat, and drain the grease if you are using beef. If you are using turkey, it helps to add flavor if you toss in a bit of soy sauce, garlic powder, chili powder, and cumin while you brown it. Add the onions, bell peppers, and garlic and stir until the onions are carmelized.

Transfer the meat, onions, peppers, and garlic to a dutch oven or crock pot. Add the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and the spices and stir until the chili is evenly mixed. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 20 - 30 minutes in the dutch oven or about 8 - 12 hours in the crock pot. Stir in the flour as a thickening agent, and then serve the chili over steamed rice with cheese. This should feed about four to six.

If this isn't hot enough for you, you can increase the chili powder and ground cayenne to taste. I wouldn't add any more than 3 tbsp. of chili and 1 tbsp. of cayenne, but feel free to set the place on fire.

Line-Item Veto, Balanced Budget

2007-12-10T14:41:00.000-06:00

As determined in Clinton v. City of New York, 1998, Congress is outside of its Constitutional authority to grant to the President the power of line-item veto. That is, the President cannot be permitted by Congress to strike out appropriations within bills authorizing the expenditure of government funds. Congress attempted to give the President this power because they knew that deficit spending is bad for our present and future economy. They wanted to allow the President the authority to remove unnecessary spending from the budget while, at the same time, retaining the ability to point out to their constituencies (primarily to the interest groups that donate large sums to their campaigns) where they voted to fund their special interest projects. In the line-item veto, the President can avoid this kind of spending, and Congress can still appear to support the lobbies that fund their campaigns.

Given from the start that the line-item veto is an unconstitutional solution to this problem, it still escapes me how Congress has not simply enacted budget appropriations in such language that gives the President the discretion over whether to spend the alloted money. Simply stated, Congress should, when enacting budget legislation, provide for a minimum amount that must be spent on each item, and also a maximum amount which cannot be exceeded. In the case of pork barrel spending, the Congress can merely set the minimum at zero dollars. They can then put the authority in the President to choose some amount between the limits set by Congress to spend. Thereby, the President can ensure balanced budget spending, Congress can avoid the problem of losing their funding from their lobbies, and best yet, the money which Congress appropriates and the President chooses not to spend may be returned to the people or the Treasury.

It may seem, to some, unwise to entrust this power of discretion solely to the President, but the power should rest with one person. If it were left to each of the department heads to spend what they would on their own projects, each of them would choose the maximum amount, and deficit spending would continue. The President is responsible for each of the executive departments equally and should be able to make a decision as to which departments will receive what funding within the limits set by Congress without bias. Some measure must be taken to prevent or alleviate deficit spending. No entity can survive forever spending more money than it takes in.

Foreign v. Domestic Affairs, Con Law Final

2007-12-03T16:36:00.000-06:00

The Supreme Court of the United States has recognized distinct lines between the domestic and foreign powers of the President and the Congress. In general, the Court tends to check the Congress when statutes enacted exercise power the Court finds to belong to the Executive or Judicial branches. Also, the Court invalidates Congressional statutes when they exceed the Constitutional mandate of legislative power in Article I. The Court’s treatment of key issues of Congressional authority is as follows.

Article I states that “[a]ll legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” Thereby, the Court decided that Congress may not delegate its legislative power to either of the coordinate branches of government, nor to any other institution. However, according to the judgment of Chief Justice Taft, the legislature can request the assistance of other branches of government in the interest of government coordination. “In determining what [Congress] may do in seeking assistance from another branch, the extent and character of that assistance must be fixed according to common sense and the inherent necessities of the governmental coordination” so long as Congress “shall lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to [exercise the delegated authority] is directed to conform.” (J.W. Hampton, Jr. & Co v. United States, 1928)

Congress is within its Constitutional authority to delegate power in this manner simply because of the dynamic nature of the society of the nation and the ever-evolving status of its technology. Congress could not do its job if it were not permitted to broadly delegate authority under the intelligible principle standard. In order to determine whether a statute appropriately delegates authority according to the intelligible principle standard, the Court must examine the statute for at least three primary factors. First, the Congress must be sufficiently specific and detailed as to the exact authorities delegated. Second, the Congress must charge the recipient institution with specific purpose and goals they must meet in the execution of the grant of authority. Third, the Congress must prescribe a specific mechanism or method with which the institution may execute of the grant of authority. In addition to meeting the requirements of the intelligible principle, the Congress may only delegate authority which it has in itself to delegate. That is to say, the Congress may not bestow authority on any institution which it itself may not constitutionally exercise, even if it meets the intelligible principle standard. (Mistretta v. United States, 1989)

If Congress is to delegate its authority, Congress may not then retain the ability to review and invalidate decisions made by the institution to which they delegated their power unless the delegation is rescinded by the same method of legislative act with which it was first delegated. To alter the delegated authority is, in effect, the same sort of legislative action as was the first delegation of that authority. According to Article I, all legislation must be considered and approved by both chambers of the Congress and signed into law by the President – or passed by a super-majority in the Congress. The Framers considered very carefully the mechanism of enactment of Congressional statute and specifically provided for the bicameral requirement and presentment of the bill to the President. The President’s involvement in the process of lawmaking was included in order to protect the Executive from the Congress and the whole of the people from inappropriate legislation. To remove the president and the bicameral process from the legislative process, as is the case in the legislative veto, is to alter the legislative process beyond the mandate of Constitutional authority. . However useful it may be for the Congress to make unilateral, one-house decisions concerning the use of the power they delegated, usefulness, efficiency, and convenience cannot cause an invalid exercise of Congressional power to become valid. The restrictions placed on the Congress which cause it to seem slow, clumsy, or inefficient were put into place deliberately in order to ensure that arbitrary government action does not go unchecked. (Immigration and Naturalization Services v. Chadha, 1983)

Furthermore, officers to whom the Congress delegates power must not exercise Executive power if the Executive branch does not hold the authority to regulate or remove those officers – if the officer is not a member of the Executive branch. If an officer of the United States is subject only to the authority of Congress, that officer is an employee of the Legislative branch. For the Legislative branch to take unto itself the authority of the Executive branch is to exceed its constitutional mandate of authority. (Bowsher v. Synar, 1986)

The Court tends to be very strict in limiting Presidential power within the borders of the United States to those powers expressly enumerated in Article II and to those powers delegated to the Executive under the intelligible principle standard. The Court is adamant in its interpretation that the President has no unilateral authority to arbitrarily alter the legislative or judicial processes. The Court’s treatment of key issues of Presidential authority is as follows.

Just as the legislature may not arbitrarily alter statute by a simple one-house majority resolution, the President also must conform to the mechanism of legislation as enumerated in Article I of the Constitution. To line-item veto – to strike out individual appropriations within the budget – is, in effect, to repeal portions of congressional statute. The Constitution assigns lawmaking powers to the President to initiate and influence the passage of legislation and to veto or return entire bills to the Congress, but no part of the Constitution authorizes the President to unilaterally enact, amend, or repeal statutes. The difference between a line-item veto and the constitutional veto is significant. A constitutional veto is to return of the entire legislation to the Congress unsigned before it becomes law, and the Congress has the power with a super-majority to override this veto. A line-item veto occurs after the bill has been signed into law and is a cancellation of only part of the bill without allowing the Congress the opportunity to override the alteration. (Clinton v. City of New York, 1998)

The President has sole power to remove Executive branch officials appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate. A legislative check on the removal of officials is a much greater check on Executive authority than is the power to approve or disapprove of the officials’ appointments, and it is a much greater invasion of the Legislature into the sphere of the Executive. The Senate has the power to reject new appointees in order to avoid the appointment of incompetent or incapable men to positions of principal authority in the United States government and, the Senate has ample ability to come to know the suitability of a nominee as well as the President when the nomination is made. However, the President and his subordinates are necessarily better informed about the continuing suitability of an officer of the United States than is the Senate because of his or her service under the President. The officers appointed to the Executive, in their highest duties, act in the name of the President and do his will, not exercising their own judgment, but the judgment of the President. If these officers cease to do the President’s will or he loses complete confidence in their ability, loyalty, or judgment, he must have the ability to remove them at once from their positions. The power of removal is tied to the power of appointment, not to the power of advice and consent to an appointment. (Myers v. United States, 1926) However, those officials who are appointed to quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial roles without any executive power or function are intended to be independent of the Executive and cannot be expected to maintain their independence if they are subject to removal at the whim of the President. It is unquestionable that the maintenance of freedom from coercion or control of one branch of government on the next is necessary and implied by the nature of the separation of powers of co-equal and coordinate branches enumerated in the Constitution. Therefore, the President has no power to arbitrarily remove officials outside of the Executive branch. (Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 1935)

Concerning the exigency of immediate Executive response to national emergency, if some nation or group makes war on the United States, the President is not only authorized, but required to respond swiftly and decisively without the need to wait for legislative approval. Though Congress declares war, that declaration of war in no way creates the war – the war is created by the hostile act of the foreign nation or domestic insurrection, and as Commander in Chief, the President has the duty to defend the nation against this threat. This power is both domestic and foreign as it applies to the quelling of organized rebellion and to response to international acts of war. (The Prize Cases, 1863)

In regard to wholly foreign affairs, the Court tends to allow the President a much greater leeway. The Court contends that the Constitution does not restrict or proscribe the powers of the Sovereign because the Constitution merely provides for a carving out of powers from among the States for the Federal government. The powers of a sovereign nation, however, were never held by the States, but always by the United States collectively, and the national government has always held the powers of foreign relations. As the sole representative of the United States on the world stage, the President maintains broad powers in the international sphere. The Court’s treatment of the President’s authority in regard to foreign affairs is as follows.

Federal power in external affairs is inherently different in character and origin from domestic powers, and participation in the exercise of these external powers is limited to the Executive. “The President is the constitutional representative of the United States with regard to foreign nations. He manages our concerns with foreign nations and must necessarily be most competent to determine when, how, and upon what subjects negotiations may be urged with greatest prospect of success. … The nature of transactions with foreign nations … requires caution and unity of design, and their success frequently depends on secrecy and dispatch.” (The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 1816) The President has the power to make treaties, and though the Senate must approve those treaties, the President himself has the sole power of negotiation, and the Congress has no power to invade this process. The power of the President to act in the external sphere does not derive from any act of Congress and is in harmony with the provisions of the Constitution. “As a government, the United States is invested with all the attributes of sovereignty. As it has the character of nationality it has the powers of nationality, especially those which concern its relations and intercourse with other countries. We should hesitate long before limiting or embarrassing such powers.” (Mackenzie v. Hare, 1915) Therefore, the President may act broadly without fetters of statutory restriction in the case of foreign affairs where he may not be accorded so free an authority in the case of strictly domestic affairs. (United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp, 1936)

In addition to these broad powers as Sovereign, the President has power over the military as Commander in Chief, and this military authority applies to the law of war and to enemy combatants overseas. The President is further authorized by statute to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against “nations, organizations, or persons” associated with the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. (Authorization for Use of Military Force, 2001) The capture and detention of lawful combatants and the capture, detention, and trial of unlawful combatants, by “universal agreement and practice,” are “important incident[s] of war.” (Ex parte Quirin, 1942) Detention of enemy combatants prevents those combatants from returning to war against the United States, and this is a clearly permitted use of necessary force. There is no bar against the President’s holding a United States citizen as an enemy combatant if that citizen fits the description of a combatant so defined. “Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts, are enemy belligerents within the meaning of … the law of war.” (Quirin, 1942) The President’s authority in this case, however, is not unlimited. Detention may last no longer than active hostilities, but so long as active hostilities continue, the United States may, for the duration of these hostilities, detain individuals who “[engage] in an armed conflict against the United States.” Unless constitutionally suspended, the writ of habeas corpus remains viable for any and all who are detained within the United States, and it may be suspended only in the rarest of occasions. It is a check on the Executive which ensures individuals are not illegally detained. A system of detention with unchecked power can easily become a tool of oppression and abuse of those who present no threat. Every citizen retains the right to be free from involuntary confinement without due process of law and retains the right to counsel even in cases concerning enemy combatant status. A citizen who wishes to challenge his status as an enemy combatant must be informed of the factual basis of the claim against him and a fair opportunity to rebut the government’s claims before a neutral arbiter. However, there is no Constitutional provision against a prejudice in favor of the Government’s evidence against an enemy combatant so long as that individual was given the opportunity to rebut the Government’s claim, albeit with more persuasive evidence than was provided by the Government. This process will have no great effect on the Executive’s capacity to wage war. (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 2004)

In regard to Constitutional approach, the Court differs greatly between domestic and foreign affairs questions. The Court requires strict adherence to Constitutional standards, especially for the Executive, whose powers are not so greatly widened with a necessary and proper clause, in the case of domestic affairs. The Court does not allow, in general, for exigencies, conveniences, or efficiencies to override Constitutional mandates or statute except in such times of conflict or war when the President must act swiftly and decisively in a situation where timeliness is of the essence of the interests of the United States. The Framers wrote the Constitution in order to create a slow-moving government with coordinate branches, each checking the others’ powers in order to prevent quick, arbitrary action by one power. However, these checks apply only to domestic actions. In regard to foreign affairs, the Sovereign does not derive its power from the Constitution, rather merely from the United States’ status as a sovereign nation. In this arena, the Sovereign is checked not by the power of a written Constitution, but by international law and the law of war.

The line between foreign and domestic affairs is this. Those situations involving action within the borders of the United States concerning United States entities, citizens, and domestic states are domestic affairs. These domestic affairs are governed strictly by the Constitution, and statute and executive action must be aligned within these provisions. Those affairs concerning the United States’ relations with foreign nations and its regulation of United States entities’ relations with those foreign nations are foreign affairs. These foreign affairs are largely the realm of the President as sovereign of the nation, and Congress has little power to interfere in their execution. Few checks are provided in the Constitution against Presidential foreign policy powers. The line between the Executive and the Legislature is this. All legislative power is vested in the Congress, and the Congress may not delegate that power except under the intelligible principle standard. The Congress and its officers also may not wield any executive – or enforcing – power. The Executive has authority over its own officers and procedures, but must follow and enforce Congressional statute.

The Constitution provides the Court with ample division and separation between the powers of branches, and the sovereign status of the United States, the Constitution, Congressional statute, and international law provide the Court with even stronger separation between domestic and foreign affairs.

The previous is a take-home examination for GOVT 3322 at the University of Texas at Dallas, and the material is my interpretation of case briefs contained in the text.

Epstein, Lee and Thomas G. Walker. Constitutional Law for a Changing America, Institutional

Powers and Constraints - Sixth Edition. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2007

Equal Opportunity in Education

2007-11-26T19:09:00.000-06:00

Our three most basic rights are the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness or in more concrete language, of self-determination. These truths were held by the founders of our nation to be self-evident. From these three stem each of our other rights. The State has five basic responsibilities: to establish Justice, to insure domestic Tranquility, to provide for the common defense, to promote the general Welfare, and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our Posterity. In order to determine our course of action in each of these responsibilities, we must consider the rights of the people.

In order to establish Justice in the State, the State must ensure a state of equal opportunity. While it is not just to enforce egalitarianism in distribution of wealth, for not all are equal in ability, effort, and merit, there must be an equality of opportunity to ensure that success or failure of an individual is his or her sole responsibility. The most basic, and sure way to ensure equal opportunity to wealth is to ensure the State's protection of the right to equal opportunity to education. Because authority over education is reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment, the states must recognize their responsibility in this. The right to equal opportunity to education does not necessarily mean to ensure that each student receives an equal education, for this is at odds with a parent's right to choice and determination for their children. Instead, the State must ensure that each student can receive an equally valuable education from each, the State public education system, the private sector education system, and from home school education. It is important to recognize that parents have broad rights of determination over their children; however, a parent has no right to cause his or her children harm. To deprive a child of a valuable education is one of the greatest harms that can be done to that child.

In order to equalize value of the public education, the State must ensure that each independent school district is funded equally and that strict spending guidelines be placed on the schools to prevent waste. While dollars spent per student is not the only factor in determining the effectiveness of education, it is a primary factor. Property taxes assessed and collected for the public schools should be equally distributed per student to the students of the public school system. This will allow each school district the ability to ensure they are able to fairly compensate their teachers, to hire enough teachers, and to construct ample classroom space for each student. Parents, also, should be permitted to allow their children to attend any public school to which they are willing to provide transportation to their children. It may seem undesirable to some that their children should not receive the full benefit of the tax dollars assessed on their properties, but in all actuality, an equalization of school spending will encourage competition among schools for attendance. If schools are paid by number of students in attendance and students may attend any school their parents choose, they will work to produce the best educational environment in order to attract more students. Caps on students from outside the school district may be required in order to ensure that schools do not grow too quickly, but these caps should be slowly relaxed as school attendance increases. Most importantly, the State must never lower the standard of public school education in order to bring more children above the standard. Rather, the State must work to bring more children above the existing standard. The State does our children no favors by decreasing the difficulty of their education.

In order to equalize value of the private sector education, the State must enforce strict guidelines for certification of private school curriculum and teachers. While they must be free to exceed the standard of the public education, they cannot be permitted to sink below it. In addition, a school voucher system should be put into place in order to allow a broader access to the private sector education system. By this, I mean that should parents decide to remove their children from the public school system and place them into private education, the State will provide a fixed monetary sum toward that child's private school tuition. This will further broaden parents' right to choice in their children's educations -- parents who may have been unable to afford private school education without vouchers could then afford it with them. In addition to allowing broader access to a higher standard of education, vouchers will remove students from public school classrooms, increasing the number of dollars spent per student and reducing the number of students per classroom in the public schools, thus further increasing the value of public school education for those students whose parents are still unable or unwilling to place their children into private education.

Most importantly, in order to equalize value of home school education, the State must enforce standards just as strict in home schooling as in the public sector. Parents wishing to home school their children must select a curriculum provided by an institution certified by the State and the student must be required to demonstrate proficiency in that curriculum. All effort must be made to prevent scholastic dishonesty in the home school system, for it is all too easy for a home school student in today's system to cheat his or her way to a diploma equal in value to that of a public or private school. It cannot be stressed enough that to allow our students to do this is to do them great harm.

No one can force a student to learn; that is the student's choice. However, the opportunity to learn must be provided to each student, and to each student equally in order to ensure that justice is maintained -- and not only this, but in order to ensure that our future is secure. We must not allow our standard of education to continue to decline. The solution is not to lower the passing score, but rather to increase our students' opportunity to achieve and succeed.