How To Fix Everything PDF Version
How To Fix Everything
The United States exists under the guidance of the United States Constitution, ostensibly. Do you remember the Tea Party movement? Back in the day, I attended a number of Tea Party meetings but never joined. At any meeting you could just about count on at least one well thought out rant about the constitution. You would hear a similar rants about imposing term limits. With that, how close is the country to abiding by the constitution now? What progress has been made in imposing term limits?
The problem with enforcing the constitution is that there is honestly no way to do it. The writers of the constitution did not include a method of enforcement. Any law can be passed. It is deemed constitutional unless someone challenges the law and spends countless dollars struggling through the legal system, to have the issue settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court has no natural authority to decide constitutional issues. It is only assumed and accepted that it does. As long as the Supreme Court decides if laws are constitutional or unconstitutional, there will be multitudes of laws that would be rendered unconstitutional otherwise.
As you know, employing the fantasy free advantage, requires studying people and institutions according to how they function and not how they are defined. The Supreme Court genuinely is a political institution. Justices are picked because of their political views. The logic of the court fluctuates based on the political composition of the court.
In our system, which is based on democratic principles, only one institution has been successful in carrying out its intended purpose successfully . That is the jury system. Would folks who sit on a jury be sophisticated enough to understand legal arguments relevant to the constitution? The knee jerk reaction is to say. No! Legal experts who understand the law are needed!
Never mind that citizen jurors decide capital murder cases and cases that involve national security. Does anyone want to rely on verdicts handed down from the bench? Suppose there was either a constitutional amendment or federal statute establishing a citizen’s court. Any new law would have to be approved by a jury of ordinary people before it could go into effect. It would also be good if the citizens court could evaluate the constitutionality of any old law, if asked to.
A citizen’s court could also decide other important questions such as: Is it a worthy law? Is there a net benefit to the country as a whole or do the benefits go to a select few?
There would be prosecutors devoted to deeming laws unconstitutional or unworthy. Attorneys would argue that the law should go into effect.
If such a system was implemented, it would be necessary to have at least as many jurors as there are seats in the U,S. House of Representatives. It would also be necessary to pay the jurors very well. It would be necessary to pick them at random.
If the citizens forced congress to pass a citizens court law, there would be no reason to impose term limitations. Why? With the path to power and wealth removed from holding office, it would be hard to get candidates to run much less remain in office.
In a country where citizens have adopted government as their guardian, what are the chances, the same folks would insist on a path towards citizens governing
A Statute For The Media
Benjamin Franklin’s quote was that democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. The logic here is the concern that the poor would vote the treasury into their pockets at the expense of the rich. That was a genuine concern. As time has passed, it turns out that that is not a concern after all. While the poor are massive in number, they never organize and never have lobbied for benefits. The poor do get benefits. Benefits for the poor have all been brain children of their betters.
The founding fathers never fathomed that the media would be broadcast nationally. They certainly didn’t imagine ownership and control of the media would become so concentrated that the rich could control the thoughts and behaviors of the poor and everyone else. It turns out that by way of concentrated power, the rich are able to bleed the poor in ways early to fears that the poor would bleed the rich.
In order to have a well functioning free market system, the government must insure a fair even playing field.
The remedy to media manipulation to control others, is to pass a federal statute stating that a media company cannot be a subsidiary of another entity. In other words, the media must own itself. If that were the case, it would be hard to control media activities from a single or consolidated source.
themselves?
