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Too Many Freedoms

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Maybe Wee Need to Stop Desiring “Freedoms” That Were Never Guaranteed to Us

Look what happened to our Second Amendment. Somehow, the original text—“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”—became in the minds of our dimmest and most criminally inclined citizens an invitation to accumulate military grade weapons for non-militia use.

As school children, we all heard that we didn’t have the right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Now I think almost half the population would disagree with this.

The outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic has created a whole slew of crypto-freedoms, such as the freedom to refuse Covid-19 vaccination or to wear a mask to protect oneself and others from the virus.

I have just finished reading a collection of Franz Kafka’s shorter works that were published during his lifetime. In one of the stories, entitled “A Report to an Academy,” we find this very germane discussion in a speech given by a talking ape:

I deliberately do not use the word “freedom.” I do not mean the spacious feeling of freedom on all sides. As an ape, perhaps, I knew that, and I have met men who yearn for it. But for my part I desired such freedom neither then nor now. In passing, may I say that all too often men are betrayed by the word freedom. And as freedom is counted among the most sublime feelings, so the corresponding disillusionment can be also sublime.

Take a look at the above picture of the January 6 insurrection by Trump’s followers at the Capitol in Washington. This insurrection was conducted by people who have decided to take a lie (that Trump won the 2020 election) and make it into a cause for revolt. Repeating a lie at the top of one’s voice, even when accompanied by violence, is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution.

Such freedoms I can do without!

Disunited States

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We Created a Situation in Which the States Are at War with One Another

The words of the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution seem innocuous enough:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The United States of America didn’t suddenly come into being as a harmonious united country. Before there was a constitution, there was a document referred to as the Articles of Confederation, which were in force from 1781 until replaced by the Constitution in 1789. That initial document didn’t work out all that well because of some serious problems, such as:

  • Congress could not regulate trade
  • There was no uniform system of currency
  • The Federal Government (such as it was) had no power to tax
  • There was no independent judiciary, foreign affairs head, and no ability to deal with internal or external threats

In other words, the various states had all the power, and the Federal Government, virtually none. It seems to me that, even with the Constitution ratified by all the states, that some states still think they are in charge. That’s one of the major causes for the Civil War of 1861-1865—a conflict whose resolution has been partial at best.

Although I am a Citizen of the United States, there are some states which I would think twice before visiting; as I doubt but that my rights would be abridged.

When it comes to issues such as abortion, one can see clear cultural fault lines:

Foreigners visiting the United States are often surprised that, in some states, there is a different set of laws. If one is traveling from ocean to ocean, one could find oneself in a different legal situation not only from state to state, but sometimes from county to county—especially if you are trying to buy alcoholic beverages or marijuana products.

When traveling in Europe or Latin America, I faced no such situation, even in areas where there were strong cultural differences, such as in some of the islands off the coast of Scotland where the Wee Frees form a large part of the population.

It Doesn’t Even Require Impeachment

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It’s All There in the 25th Amendment

It’s All There in the 25th Amendment

Read the following four sections of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and consider the possibility that Donald J. Trump is mad:

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. 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.

Section 3. 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.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit 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, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office 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 the 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.

Our Ratty Old Constitution

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How Can These Bewigged Lawyers and Farmers Understand What We Have Become?

How Can These Bewigged Lawyers and Farmers Understand What We Have Become?

Oh, I have nothing against the Constitution per se. Except it was just peachy for a rural slave-owning society. It always amuses me that certain people who don’t profess to read anything but their Bibles have suddenly started sporting tricorne hats and taking on the appearance of the men in knee-breeches in the above patriotic painting.

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 could not have imagined what was to follow: Manifest Destiny. The Civil War. Immigration. Two World Wars bracketed on either side of a global Depression. The atomic bomb. The Cold War. Global warming. A completely deadlocked congress.

Our Founding Fathers did not trust the people, so they opted for a form of representational government in which there were “buffers” between the rabble (that’s us) and power. The States forming the Union were all important—particularly in the U.S. Senate, where Wyoming’s 0.5 million people has as much political power as California’s 38 million. Now I like Wyoming a lot, but for all us Californians to have to kowtow to a mere handful of them cowboys is a bit of a stretch to me.

The whole system of checks and balances was a brilliant invention, but when a majority of ultra-conservative Supreme Court justices appointed by past Republican presidents can make their own law in the face of the will of the people, the result is chaos. Now corporations are being treated as people, and money rules supreme in elections (cf. Citizens United).

There are a number of ways that things could have gone, but they didn’t. The political stasis of the last decade will be how this era will be remembered. Look at the faces in the news: You can start drawing mustaches on them, because they will be the villains of the future.

In the meantime, all we can do is try to keep the ship afloat while the Three Stooges pound holes in the keel so that the water coming in can flow out easier.

 

Guess Who’s Missing from the Constitution

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And He’s Not in the Declaration of Independence Either

And He’s Not in the Declaration of Independence Either

With all the Evangelical hoo-hah about the United States being a Christian nation, you will not find any of the following words in the U.S. Constitution: “Jesus,” “Christ,” “God,” “Deity,” “Christian,” or “Christians.” And the word “God” appears only once in the Declaration of Independence in a phrase that is not quite the way it would be used in an American suburban megachurch:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Note that the word “God” appears only after the phrase “Laws of Nature.” (Sounds like something the Sierra Club would write.)

If you don’t believe me, search these two documents yourself. You can find them at http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html and at http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html. We have so many misconceptions about the Founding Fathers of our country, especially those tricorn-hatted imbeciles who go by the name of Tea Party, that we don’t realize that the particular brand of Christianity practiced then was too remote and intellectual for most of today’s Holy Rollers. I am referring specifically to Deism. You might want to follow the link to learn for yourself in what they believed.

Note in particular the phrase “rejection of revelation and authority.” In other words, the Founding Fathers were not big-time Bible-readers.

I would like to see someone like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck explain this curious omission.