Memorial Day 2011

“In order to form a more perfect union…”

Memorial Day falls during this week and as such a much needed refresher on this holiday should perhaps be the order of the day.

Memorial Day is the moment in time in which we pause to honor those who have fallen in battle in defense of this nation and its people. There is no way to properly thank these true American heroes, so we choose to honor their memories on this day. We should never attempt to diminish their sacrifice or ever forget their ultimate sacrifice made on our behalf. Their families and friends have an empty chair at the family dinner table this holiday because a solider did not feel their service insignificant and we as a nation must stand up and acknowledge that. Once we forget the true meaning of this date we diminish ourselves as a people, as a society.

Yet, sadly, this is what has been occurring for these past forty years.

The National Holiday Act of 1971 took this day of solemnity and assigned it to a permanent Monday occurrence to insure a holiday three day weekend. It has now become what is called the ‘official start of the summer season’. Memorial Day may mean different things to different people, but it should never be heralded as an ‘official’ seasonal start. We must not allow it to be afforded such disrespect.

The American populace as a whole understands the somberness of this holiday, but we have also collectively allowed ourselves to diminish its significance by moving the traditional May 30 observance to a date more ‘convenient’. Those who willingly gave up their lives in defense of democracy and freedom did not do so at a date that suited their holiday schedule.

Would we consider moving the Fourth of July to a Monday for extended weekend expediency? Is September 11^th destined to be moved to a more schedule conducive date?

There should be absolutes in this country relative to those in uniform, who, in what is now an all voluntary military, accept the responsibilities of defending this nation because of their belief that a free nation can only remain so if defended from all enemies. There exists a special compact between Americans and her military. What does it say if we alter that compact for nothing more than an extended weekend of barbeque?

Memorial Day should be restored to its rightful date of May 30, any ridiculous claims of calendar inequities be damned.

Teddy & Woodrow Had it Right

“in order to form a more perfect union…”

The accepted maxim amongst responsible politicians and other such elected officials once held that commentary or criticism of this nation’s foreign policy ended at the shoreline. Critique abroad of an American administration could not be seen or interpreted as being a nation divided as such perceived division could be manipulated by our adversaries; abroad, we were all Americans and spoke with one voice. The internet has rendered that stance unrealistic, as any speech or Twitter/Facebook post is automatically transported around the world and filtered back to us with any manner of interpretation.

The issue today is given that media and world interconnectivity reality, exactly what should our national policy be and how should we present our united version of democracy abroad?

History has presented us with what should be the over-arching policy and presentation standards.

President Theodore Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize for his use of American standing and status in the pursuit of peace. He brought together Russia & Japan to resolve their war and utilized the bully pulpit of American democracy to bring about a peaceful resolution to their conflict. He did not posture to resolve the dispute by demanding an American accepted resolution. He did not attempt to overlay American political sensibilities to the combatants. He did not seek to impose American democratic values upon either party, but rather through skillful negotiations brought about the realities of peace to both sides. There is a lesson to be learned regarding our recent attempts to prescribe preconditions to those attempting to resolve the decades old peace process for the middle east. We should not try to force American reasoning on two socities that do not share our understanding of their realities.

President Woodrow Wilson, having led America through the first world war had hoped to bring to fruition his League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations. He understood that there was indeed strength in numbers and that the peaceful nations of the world could, if united, thwart the possibility of another world war by demonstrating mutual resolve to peace. Herein lies another lesson in geopolitics to be gleaned by our administration with respect to recent events in Egypt & Libya. We cannot use our bully pulpit to try and enforce our governmental choices on peoples who have not experienced such freedoms. They must first witness it in action by the free countries of the world in unity and then choose their own path forward. It is folly to believe that democratic self-rule can be achieved merely because we wish to impose it.

We have lost that perspective as of late. It appears that American administrations have begun to opt to deal with world crises by attempting to impose American democratic sensibilities upon nations and peoples who have no real understanding of a working democracy. Many societies are based upon different criteria that do not hold that all men are created equal.

We as a nation need to demonstrate our freedom, our American democracy by example, not by well intentioned fiat or edict.

The American Peer

“in order to form a more perfect Union…”

The founders and the constitutional framers understood and held dearly the fact that justice would by necessity be a hallmark of their new fledgling democracy, the ‘grand experiment’ of self-rule. There were many well reasoned arguments, memorialized within the federalist papers and personal correspondence, to secure the right of trial by jury, save for the crime of treason. Of particular note was the debate between those who wished to preserve the right of trial by jury but disagreed as to the locale of said jurisprudence. Many felt that transgressions that occurred within one state would need to be tried by a court in another state, as  it was believed that this would be the only way to protect the rights of the accused to as impartial a trial by his peers as would be possible.

Those who argued against this theory ultimately won because a trial of peers would have to be peers who knew the defendant yet who could remain impartial. Their belief was that knowing the character of the accused would help to bring about a more reasoned approach to the jury deliberations.

The example held that surely the man was guilty, but he was known to be a man pf principle and honor, and that his penalty must be weighed with that knowledge. A so principled judicial process would allow for justice to be meted out and allow the citizen to return to his community knowing that his sentence was imposed by a fair and impartial selection of his neighbors. Surely, they knew him to be a good man, but he needed to accept responsibility for his actions.

The desire to preserve the right to a fair trial was so important to the founding fathers that four of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, dealt with specific issues related to the rights of the accused - (the 5^th, 6^th, 7^th & 8^th).

The need to preserve the right to trial by a jury of ones peers has sadly become an almost vestigial concept in American democracy The implications over this trend have gone far beyond the citizenry as a whole looking upon jury duty as a major inconvenience and a responsibility that should be avoided and shirked at all costs. The loss of this fundamental tenet of democracy has become an infection on the body politic.

No man is perfect, and so we should hold his entire adult life of conduct in balance should he need to be judged by the community at large. Yet it is because of this fact that many talented and valuable members of the public opt not to serve in public life. Their political opponents will seize upon these mortal imperfections and attempt to paint the landscape of ones life with that one broad brush in that one distinct hue. The media will not attempt to give context to the issue but will merely trumpet the alleged crime. Once the negative narrative has been written, it is almost impossible to undo the damage to a career or a character.

We must make a stand and return to the principle of gauging the entirety of a life before passing judgment on a crime.

None of us would be able to publicly defend each and every aspect of our lives; a reasoned explanation is all the public deserves of those looking to serve.

The Death of Osama

Justice, not vengeance, was served upon Osama Bin Laden this week. It was delivered not by missile or automated drone. It was presented personally by the finest fighting force ever assembled. It was enforced by members of the United States military.

As our nations’ commander-in–chief, President Obama acted with full constitutional authority in his deployment of the mission.

Yet there are politicians and media outlets that are questioning both the legality of the act and the political  advantages to be garnered as the result of this military action.

Such queries are obscene, for they show both an ignorance of the history and the constitutionality of our war against those who have attacked us.

Osama bin Laden was not solely an enemy of the United States for the acts of horror committed against this nation on September 11th, 2001. He had already perpetrated a wanton act of war almost a year previously.

On October 12, 2000 the U.S.S. Cole, a United States naval vessel on active duty was attacked and seventeen United States naval personnel were murdered by members of bin Ladens’ terrorist group of cowards. What is considered an act of war if it is not an attack on a countries active duty military? The debate can be held whether the American administration in power at the time was either cowardly or treasonous in their failure to appropriately respond to this aggression, but an act of war it was; that fact is undisputable and any defense that attempts to classify it as an act that  requires litigation is both ignorant and treasonous. The constitution denotes that the president shall be the commander in chief of the armed forces.  In the aftermath of September 11^th, we may have begun our assault on those who had attacked us, but we were undeniably already in a state of war. For the first time in our history, however, we were not engaging an enemy that held a flag, an opponent that could sign an armistice. The war on terror, despite euphemisms to the contrary, is indeed a war. All the obfuscations attempted to deny that are ludicrous on their face. We must remember that  the events of this week that led to the death of Osama Bin Laden were set in motion the moment the explosion rocked the USS Cole and the lives of our servicemen were taken from us.

The mission to bring justice to bin Laden was not an assassination, it was not murder, as many in the political and media realms would want us to believe. He was a casualty of war, a combatant in the conflict that he initiated.

To the more insidious point of calibrating the political gains and losses, those perpetuating such discussions should be ashamed. The American losses to terror were not marked as being associated with any particular political affiliation. They were killed because they were Americans, and our outrage was based not on losing any members of a political party, but because our fellow citizens were taken from us, and we understood the random nature of that fact and collectively knew that it was only  but for the grace of God that it was not us who were innocent causalities of a deranged group of anarchists.

We can act upon those political purveyors of this kind of trash by voting them out at the next election. We can act upon those in the media who are peddling this filth by turning off the TV and letting the sponsors of those programs know we do not support the ideology that allows for the politicking of death and the undermining of our constitutional right to self defense.

Vote!

“In order to form a more perfect union…”

There is little disagreement or debate that from the time of its inception and implementation that the United States Constitution was flawed, and did not completely or accurately reflect the intent of the framers and the founders.

What is also not in dispute was that the men who wrote our founding documents held a firm belief that the American citizen would understand their fundamental constitutional rights and exercise them at will- the thought of abdicating them was anathema to them.

Today, either through ignorance, self serving political motivations or outright stupidity politicians and media commentators are trying to hoist the canard that somehow fringe elements from throughout the political spectrum will try to suppress the vote of the American electorate by creating nefarious scenarios that cannot exist.

This is not possible if the electorate has even a cursory understanding of and an understanding of the history behind the right to vote under the Constitution.

Initially the Constitution afforded the right to vote only to white men. This was based upon the mores of the time; it was not an attempt to disenfranchise the populace.

The march towards that more perfect union then began with amending the constitution.

The fifteenth amendment extended that right to all men, regardless of race, color or condition of servitude, language specifically written to allow for the right of former slaves to vote. That right did not effectively become inclusive until almost 100 years later, with the Civil Rights voting Act of 1964.

The nineteenth amendment further expanded the right to vote to women, forbidding exclusion based upon gender.

Certain areas of the nation attempted to circumvent the federal protections afforded the electorate by imposing poll taxes upon the citizenry. This ridiculous attempt to suppress the free exercise of the fundamental tenet of a democracy was permanently removed by the passage of the twenty-fourth amendment. It strictly forbids any type of poll tax or any financial encumbrance in order to vote.

The most recent constitutional amendment to extend the inclusive nature of the vote was the enacting of the twenty-sixth amendment, lowering the age to participate in the electoral process to those who have attained the age of eighteen.

These four amendments have by their design had the intent of expanding the size of the electorate and insuring that the right to vote cannot be limited by anything other than the Constitution.

The health and well being of a thriving democracy lays solely within its populace exercising their democratic rights. There can be no suppression to vote unless by an individual choice of apathy.

Recent legislative activity has diminished the sense of responsibility that comes with United States citizenship. Attaching the enrollment to vote with the department of motor vehicles is absurd on the face of it yet it is now the accepted norm. Once a fundamental right is so diluted, it can be manipulated at will and we as a nation must not allow the voting booth to become a vestigial organ in the body politic.

We must as a nation stand up and declare that each and every citizen has a right to vote, and that they must exercise that responsibility at every opportunity, be it for dog catcher or president.

Debt

As the debate begins anew in Washington on the federal budget, it may be an appropriate time to revisit and clarify the more salient points that are driving the issue: the debt limit, the deficit, and the national debt.

Politicians are making self serving public statements that they will not support raising the national debt limit without some manner of nebulous budgetary  concessions and so the question arises what exactly is the national debt limit, and why would our elected officials choose to either raise the limit or allow the nation to go into default.

The national debt ceiling is exactly like the credit limit on a bank issued credit card. The amount you are allowed to spend is a predetermined number and you are not able to spend more than that without the issuing bank raising your credit limit. You must show the bank that you are of a sufficient credit risk with sufficient collateral resources to warrant elevating your limit.

Suppose you have automatic payments registered with that credit card account – if you exceed your limit and the bank does not raise it, you will not be able to meet those financial obligations and you will go into default. Should you default on enough different accounts, or default an excessive amount of times, your credit rating will suffer, making any further borrowing almost impossible. If you are able to secure financing, the interest rate will almost border on the usurious.

This is the situation facing congress at this moment – raise the national debt limit or risk default. It is irresponsible for lawmakers to threaten default; insuring budgetary restraints and responsibility are necessary, but allowing the credit rating of the United States to slip into that of a third world potentate is absurd. The United States must honor its financial obligations; the debate must center on how to do so, not if to do so.

The first step in that debate must center on the deficit, the annual number that delineates the negative budgetary shortfall discrepancy between what the government takes in on receipts and what it expends in the course of its business. This is where a balanced budget must be written  and passed. Those politicians who cry for a constitutional amendment mandating that congress pass a balanced budget are abdicating their most basic fiduciary responsibilities. There are several valid and responsible reasons for having a budget deficit - war, national disaster, economic downturn, etc.- but  altering the constitution to avoid doing so may sound popular but is inherently dangerous for the future financial health of the nation.

What ultimately may be of the greatest harm to the country is the national debt, which in a thumbnail description is the accumulation of all current and previous budget deficits. Included in the debt are such things as Treasury bonds and other such monetary instruments, so the reality is that there will never be a zero sum of national debt. The crushing aspect of the debt however is the interest that must be serviced upon it, which at its current rate makes it impossible to properly manage. Simple arithmetic demonstrates that, if left unchecked, one hundred percent of the money the government receives in tax receipts will go not to bring down the debt but merely to pay the interest on that debt.

The reality is that such inevitabilities are unsustainable and so the hard choices must be made in managing the national debt ceiling, the deficit must be eliminated by a balanced budget, and the debt must be brought into a manageable format so that this nation can thrive and flourish without the debilitating financial strains put upon it by our current leaders and their unwillingness to act in the national best interest.

The Sixteenth Must Go

“In order to form a more perfect union”.

The founders and the framers knew that the Constitution they had written was not perfect and thus this specific phrase contained within the preamble is testament to their belief that subsequent generations would need to amend it and so they created the constitutional mechanisms necessary to do just that.

Throughout our history the overwhelming majority of the amendments to the Constitution have been instituted in the pursuit of that elusive goal of a more perfect union. There have been two specific amendments however have been so ill conceived that one has been repealed and one must be rescinded for the country to fully prosper as it moves well into its third century of being.

One of these two aforementioned amendments passed was intended to regulate conduct by passing legislation aimed at outlawing the creation of a specific item of commerce – alcohol. This led to a decade (1920 -1933) known popularly as Prohibition. The folly of using the United States Constitution for this type of social engineering was repealed and to date there have been no further attempts to amend the Constitution based upon personal conduct.

The second of these amendments is the only one that directly contradicts the intent of the framers and the founders and has become such a blight upon the nation that it must be repealed.

The founding fathers wrote the following very specific language into the Constitution ( Article 1, section 9 )

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

Their intent was clear: to distribute the required and necessary financial needs of government evenly amongst the states via their respective population. There was never a thought to taxing income, which mandates that the government will first attach your earnings and decide how much of what you have earned you may keep. This is not how the founders intended to fund the cost of democracy. In no way intended to be presented here as the definitive or thorough discussion on the arguments encountered during the debate on the Constitution, the following quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson nevertheless best encapsulates the founders’ firm belief on the nature of how their fledgling nation should be construed:

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

In an act of legislative malfeasance which best exemplifies the dictum of unforeseen consequences, the Congress passed the sixteenth amendment which reads, in its entirety as thus:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

This completely reversed the intent of the framers of the Constitution. It has led to allowing the government to be first in line to take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned, and for generations to believe that such actions are a de facto part of American democracy.

This is not the American way.

There is no argument amongst the populace that there needs to be proper funding of the government, but an income tax is not the vehicle for that need.

The sixteenth amendment must be repealed.