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Part 148: Summary Six:
April 4, 2005:
In my last essay I wrote of the changes we need to make in our law and our government. I said to do that and be effective we must replace our current government at all levels. Once we do that, we will be in a better position to deal with the other issues. The major issues are to restore our constitution, make the necessary constitutional changes, and begin to enforce law in America.
Lets get very clear on why the government must change. The government must first of all provide uniform justice for all people. Besides the unnecessary war and the total disregard for ethical behavior, there are some basic things, having to do with equal justice that we are not doing. We must see to some of the basic rights of our people that have been too long set aside for too many people. If we cannot fix these things, we will and should go the way Rome went.
Here are a few of the things we need to address. No one should be hungry. No one should be afraid. No one should be cold. No one should have to choose between medicine and food. Everyone should have the opportunity to give meaning to their life. Every child should have equal access to the best educational opportunities we can offer. And, no child should ever be made to feel ashamed of himself. Right now, I feel ashamed because I know we are not addressing these things effectively. I think every one of us should feel that shame. We should feel it so deeply that we will be compelled to do something about it.
I can get more specific about some of the other needed changes. One has to do with political parties. Party politics has evolved into a runaway machine which serves nothing but its own interests. The political party has become an end unto itself. Initially parties were thought to serve the public interest. That is no longer true if it ever was. It's all about bribery now. So, we must supersede the political parties. We must get elected without special interests.
Once in power we must change how things are done at all levels of government. We must dissolve all of the departments, bureaus, and committees and start over again. We must also change the election process. This is particularly important in the case of the presidency. We need new laws governing the election of the president, the term of office, and campaigning. We need new laws limiting the powers of the executive. For example, the president may have cause to suspend Habeas corpus, but that should be very limited. In addition, the president should not be able to take us into war without a declaration of war. At the same time, we need to protect the executive from fools and people with an agenda. For example we need laws to prevent special prosecutors and other politically or personally motivated people from interfering with the president while he is in office.
We need to reform the Senate and the House. We need to stop the senate and house from voting without recording who voted and how they voted. We can have no more hiding behind phony procedure tricks. We must take a hard look at the balance between states responsibility and federal responsibility. We must stop state governments from violating the constitutional safeguards like those protecting us against illegal search and seizure. States cannot be allowed to violate civil rights. It is not the states that have rights. It never was. The people have rights. The governments have responsibilities. At the same time we must reverse the massive accumulation of power in Washington. That must be undone. To be clear, I am a Washingtonian type of federalist, however, I am not in favor of dictatorial power or any massive accumulation of power at the federal level.
As to religion, we must reaffirm the separation of church and state. We must stop giving tax moneys to religious organizations. The government must not, under any circumstances or guise, fund religious organizations in any way. If something needs to be done, the government or the people should do it. If a religious group wants to help people they may, but they may not be government funded. They will get their reward in heaven.
Along with that, we need to look very hard at closing some tax loopholes. We must reexamine the tax exempt status of religious organizations and charitable organizations in general. This is particularly important for the profit making activities of some groups.
We need to change the gun laws and put congress in charge of the distribution rules. We can define two classes of weapons. First is recreational which anyone may have and use within limits. The states and local communities must have a right to determine the limits of use. The other class of weapon is non-recreational. The use of these is limited to police or military organizations. We must try to stop people from forming and arming private armies. We must have strict laws to punish the illegal possession or use of such weapons. Along with that, we need to strengthen and clean up our police at all levels. We need to have enough good cops to enforce the law.
We also need uniform laws from state to state. We need to work to achieve this. Concerning laws, we need to make some laws much stronger, like the stalking laws. We may need new criminal justice laws. We need to start really punishing criminals. Our court systems are overloaded. We need to fix that. Attorneys taking case on consignment tie up our system with frivolous suits. We need to do something about that. One way is to limit attorney's commissions. We can at least cut them from obscene to outrageous.
Another issue to look at is freedom of speech. Recently the federal government has been trampling all over our right to peaceably assemble and protest. Our president does not like protest you see, so protesters are herded into holding areas by the police so he cannot see them.
Free speech is just one constitutional issue. For sure, we
need to repeal and revoke all of the laws which have been passed
that contradict and are in violation of the constitution. At the
same time, some of the necessary reforms will require constitutional
amendments. There is a legal way to change the constitution. That
is how we should do it. We should not make laws which contradict
the constitution, ever.
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