Stop the Supreme Court

Should we pay our debts?

2011-09-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

Should we pay our debts?

On 7/15/2011, "Real Time With Bill Maher" described the debt ceiling issue as one party -- the republicans -- saying that we should not pay our bills.

I'm aware that this is humor. But that's a little extreme. Lets look at it better.

Both parties say "Pay our bills". One party says "And, lets increase our income so we can pay future bills". The other says, "And, lets reduce our spending so we don't have future bills to pay".

The problem? Those "future bills" are things that the U.S. government has promised to pay.

Democrats want to pay all bills, both those that we've already gotten the billing invoice for, and those that we owe but have not yet gotten the paper work for. This is pretty close to Accrual accounting -- you incur a debt when it happens, regardless of when it is due or when you get the paper. The republicans, on the other hand, want to treat things as cash accounting -- if you haven't gotten the bill yet, then it isn't a debt.

The problem? This has been going on, *in both parties*, since at least 1950. We've seen it in "Underfunded pension plans", where private employers were allowed to not pay people what they had promised to pay. Now we're seeing it in social security, where the government wants to say that we won't pay what we promised to pay.

And the democrats are finally saying "Enough".
The republicans want to keep on saying "We lied".

If you agree that promises to pay by the federal government are binding, then you have no other choice but to say we have to raise taxes.

If you say "Raising taxes will kill the economy", then you're looking at a different problem -- our money supply system is broken. That's a different problem, with a different fix.

Now, is there a long-term solution to government expense? Yes. Military spending is well beyond any reasonable amount needed for defense. But trying to find what you can cut and what you cannot is probably very hard at this point. Essentially, we need to audit the defense department, and that will be expensive. Yes, we need to spend a large amount of money to examine defense spending in detail, so that we can save a large, ongoing amount of money. So what's the problem?

You're trying to audit classified information. That's kinda hard.

And as long as the only solution to the biggest piece of government spending is to audit classified information, and that does not get done, then the only option available is to raise taxes. Or, say that we won't pay our bills.

Spy, or Whistleblower? Can something be classified to prevent its use as evidence of wrong doing?

2011-09-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Spy, or Whistleblower? Can something be classified to prevent its use as evidence of wrong doing?

If a document is disclosed, in a manner that results in someone being a whistleblower, do we have laws to protect whistleblowers from suits? (As far as I know, yes).

Now, what happens if that same document is classified? Do the same whistleblower protection laws protect the whistleblower? Or is the disclouser considered a "Spy", and subject to persecution?

Should Manning be persecuted as a "Spy", for giving classified documents to a foreign national? Should the laws be reviewed -- does "foreign national" really count as a valid distinction? Is it less damaging to give documents to a U.S. person, such as a U.S. newspaper, than to a neutral person such as Assage/Wikileaks? Is any disclosure bad no matter who?

Are people responsible for their actions? If someone is an accessory to a crime, are they held accountable? If a document includes the names of civilians that are part of a crime, and a whistleblower releases that document, can that be used to persecute those civilians? What if the document is classified? This paragraph of questions refers to the fact that Wikileaks was not able to redact all of the names out of the released Manning documents. Originally, Assange had the view that all of the people who were participating in what happened were accessories to the crime ("These people were collaborators, informants, they deserve to die". Source: "Frontline", "Wikisecrets", air date 5/24/2011) and should be punished for their crimes. That's not that different from existing U.S. law that allows people to be charged with criminal charges for aiding others in a crime. Two days before the publication, Assange changed his mind, and most -- but not all -- of the names were redacted. The result? Other news organizations data mined the released information to make all the unredacted names easy to access.

So who is the guilty party here -- the people that made it easy to find the names? The person that published the names in the mass of data? The people who were accessories to the crimes in the first place? The people who committed the crimes? Or the one person that blew the whistle on the actions of other people?

Should Bush administration officials be persecuted for disclosing the identity of undercover agents?

I don't have any good, or easy answers here. I do have some hard, tough answers. Answers that no one in government will like.

1. Classifying documents does not automatically protect them from other laws that would be applicable if they were not classified.
1b. No agency may freely classify documents without cause. Any classifying, or redacting, must be indicated as to why, and must be reviewed by a review board. Abuses of classification must be noted by the review board, and the agencies that do abuse the process must be investigated by the appropriate agency.
2. Classifying documents cannot protect them from court supoena.
3. Courts are automatically allowed full access to all classified documents. A proceeding in which a classified document is discussed may be regarded as classified. If a lawyer involved is not considered cleared for classified documents, and is not able to be cleared, then a valid, cleared lawyer must be added to the appropriate team. If an individual needs classified documents for their case, then the documents must be provided as follows:
A: Anyone for their defense against the government: Always. The government gave up its right to conceed when it asserted under penalty of perjury that the charge was valid. If there is a relevant classified document, it may not be kept out of the court record. The resulting record may become classified if full disclosure will harm someone not party to the case, but a redacted version must be disclosed publically, and the reasons and nature of any redaction must be revealed.
B: Anyone for their valid suit against the government: Unless the government will conceed the case.
C: Anyone as defendent in another (almost certainly civil) suit: See below. Classified/redacted as in case A.

4. A classified review board may review whether or not the documents are in fact relevant to the case. If they specify no, they must say why.
5. Appeals courts are *ALWAYS* granted access to any requested classified document, and may overrule the review board.
6. All senators and house representatives are always granted access to any classified document.

* Important: The board that reviews classification (1b) and the board that reviews the need for them in court (4) must not be the same board! There is a horrendous conflict of interest if they are the same.

Remember, Congress shall pass no laws preventing the petition of government for redress of grievances -- Amendment 1. Claiming that the redress is prevented because of "classified" is not constitutional.

Now, case "C" above is an interesting one. Can a civil suit force disclosure of related classified documents?

There is no easy answer here. None. Not even an easy hard answer.

I'll suggest the following. Note that this is NOT airtight; I can come up with loopholes. I don't think there's a good answer, and I'm not even sure what the goal here should be.

C-1: If a corporation is suing an individual, then the government can force the individual to be found not guilty, and prohibit release of information.

C-2: If an individual is suing a corporation for wrongdoing, then the government can force the corporation to be found guilty ("Redress of grievences" clause) and prohibit the release of information.

C-3: Suits between corporations, or against a corporation for other than redressing a grievence, do not have the right of automatic disclosure.

What makes for valid spending of Government funds?

2011-08-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

What makes for valid spending of Government funds?

Why is it ok to say that government funds can go to religious organizations? Should it? Maybe it's not ok?

Why is it ok to say that government funds can go to scientific research? Should it? Maybe it's not ok?

Why is it ok to say that government funds can go to foreign countries, as humanitarian aid? Should it? Maybe it's not ok?

What permits spending of government funds? Where do you draw the lines?

These are really, _REALLY_ tough questions. Probably the hardest ones to answer. Probably the rarest ones to ask. When did you last ask this yourself?

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

That's the bottom line. That's the statement of intent and purpose for the federal government. Authority to spend, by congress, is detailed in article one, but must fit the purposes specified in the preamble.

ALL government spending needs to be looked at through that filter.
1. Does it fit the intent and purpose of the preamble, and
2. Does it fit the "powers of congress" list and the "necessary and proper" clause?

Does defense spending fit? Yes.
Does offensive spending fit?

Does social security fit? Yes.

Does spending on social programs, charitable organizations, etc, fit? Yes.
Does favoring some programs and organizations over others? Probably.
Using a religious litmus test to determine which ones?

Does aid to foreign countries? Maybe -- does it aid domestic tranquility and general defense to improve other countries to the point that they don't want to cause us harm?

There's a LOT of wiggle room. There's a lot of grey areas to let the federal government spend.

But it's not a blank check authorization. There are things that are not valid spending.

2011-08-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Can faith-based groups discriminate? Should they be allowed to?

More accurately, What is a religion?

On August 14, PBS's "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly" had a story about faith-based groups that get public funds, but have discriminatory hiring standards.

Apparently, the 1964 Civil Rights act actually permits faith-based groups to have discriminatory hiring. Good? Bad? Proper?

What about federal funding? Is it fair, or appropriate, for federal funding to go to groups with this type of hiring? Should the federal funding come with a "you must not take advantage of a 50 year old law with flaws"? Should that law be fixed?

Well, what does the constitution say? Amendment one is pretty clear. The federal government has no authority to say "You are a religion" and "You are not". If someone says that they are a religion, and the federal government says "No, you're not", then the government is saying what is and is not a valid religion. That's a very steep, slippery slope that has no bottom in sight.

Yes, the IRS tries to claim that Scientology isn't a religion, and isn't entitled to religious tax exemptions. The IRS is wrong. But a better question: Why do religions get a tax exemption?

Why do religions get exemptions from laws? If the first amendment prohibits the government from deciding what is and is not a religion, then anyone can claim to be a religion -- for example, a fraternity that realizes that zoning laws permit 50% more people in a building classified as a religious building deciding to call itself a religion to have a bigger membership. (That's from memory; sorry if I have a few details off, but the basics are valid. I think it was in Texas.)

Well, frankly, There should be no religious exemptions of any kind. Period.

Want to give charity organizations a tax break? Fine. Give all charities, religious or not, that break. Scientology isn't a charity, and doesn't pretend to be one. It becomes a taxable, business-oriented religion.

Want to give some kinds of organizations a hiring exemption? Ouch -- what if it's a group that believes that white males are superior to anything else, and even quotes the bible as proof? Kantankerous Kalamities Kan follow such a determination. But if you allow faith-based exempions from the law, you have to permit such organizations.

Should tax dollars go to fund charitable organizations that are faith based? The real question is, should tax dollars go to fund charitable organizations? "Faith based" should not ever enter the picture.

The real answer is simple: Federal funds should go to people; people should give as they choose to various charities. If donations to charities are income-tax deductible, fine. Let that be the -- as in only -- source of public funds to charities. Instead of funding charities, the government should run similar programs itself.

Federal funds should go to people. That's a theme that I'll keep harping back on. Right now you have "Tax and spend", and "Don't tax, don't spend". Micro-economics teach that "Tax and redistribute" is better. Right now you have federal funds going to banks, and large companies that get federal contracts, on the theory that this will result in hiring people, and that will get federal funds to the people. That's a demonstrated failure. Federal funds needs to go directly to the people, and not indirectly through banks and companies that pay their boards/bosses big salaries and hire cheap foreign workers.

Does this mean no direct federal spending? Schools? Roads? Etc? What about the USA's bill for clean air? (Oh, that's right -- we currently don't pay for our air. No cost to just burn a ton of coal and put lots of CO2 into the air.) No. Government spending on things that are directly beneficial to society as a whole -- and that includes education, transportation, etc., and the infrastructures for those industries -- that's fine. See "Promote the general welfare" and "for ourselves and our posterity". Spending on things that help the next generation, before they have any chance to speak up, that's fine, at least as far as the preamble and overall scope of the constitution is concerned. Whether or not it satisfies Article one's list of powers of Congress? Schools almost certainly do not. Roads do.

What supreme court decision do I disagree with?

2011-08-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

What supreme court decision do I disagree with?

While watching an older recorded news program, I was reminded of a question asked of a congressional hopeful: What Supreme Court decision do you disagree with? That person didn't have an answer right then, but said that they'd have something tomorrow.

So what do I disagree with? Well, that's a bit of a toughie. I don't know the exact citation.

But somewhere, in our history, is a Supreme Court decision that says that not only are the decisions of one specific case valid for that one case, but also that the opinions of the one judge that wrote up the case are in fact just as valid in all cases.

It doesn't matter if it's a 5-4 decision on ideological lines; there is no need for compromise, no need for unanimous agreement (just imagine if a 7-5 jury could put someone away for life; we require those to be unanimous and they affect less than a supreme court ruling does), and no peer review or any fair appeal. Examples? Way too many to list. But an early one is McCulloch v. Maryland (*). These generally have something in common: The decision is valid (e.g.: The federal government has full authority to run a bank. E.g.: "Citizens United": The FEC's regulations are too restrictive and harm free speech), but the opinion is complete bunk (e.g.: There are NO restrictions of any kind on what the government does, as long as it is trying to fulfill the list of congress' powers. E.g.: Corporations have full first amendment rights of free speech, arguably stronger than normal people do, stronger than any right to an undistorted election.). And the opinion becomes binding. Why?

Somewhere there is a Supreme Court decision that says that the SC is the only agency able to determine what the constitution actually says, and that no plain text reading by ordinary people is valid. No jury can decide what is constitutional; only judges, and only supreme court judges. (Just like the holy pope, or in our case, the nine holy popes of the constitution in washington, imbued with infallibility whenever they are making determinations about the constitution.) Certainly not congress or any elected official. It's not like congress can say "Here, by law, is where we draw the line between two rights that are in conflict", and the courts then say "Yes, that's a valid line", or "No, it's not -- try again, take X into account". Oh, and the courts can arbitrarily change their mind with time. After all, the courts are not actually amending the constitution, right? Examples? You're kidding, right? Way, way too many to list. But recently, how about ruling that the first amendment triumphs everything else -- the right to free (interpreted as "unrestricted no matter the cost") speech by non-people entities is stronger than the right of people to fair elections, and doesn't restrict the "free" (interpreted as "no cost thanks to the internet") speech of poor people (who can no longer afford the normal limited speech channels). That's "Citizens United v. F.E.C.". Yep, even though poor people have unrestricted no cost speech -- must be true because the judges declared it so -- unrestricted no cost political speech is too restrictive on corporations.

Somewhere, there is a SCOTUS decision that says that when a judge makes an opinion that affects everyone, that isn't a law, even though it has the force of law -- it is only judicial precedent, binding on courts, altering what people can do -- but not a law, because only congress has legislative authority. Not courts.

Somewhere, there is a court case saying that courts are courts of law, not justice. This starts way back in British Common Law -- where it was valid, courts were courts of law. It did not matter if a decision was unjust, and even the judges said so -- there are recorded british cases where judges said "This is not just, but it is the law". And somewhere, there is a Supreme Court of the United States decision that hold that this is still true here, even though that ruling is directly in contradiction to the Constitution of the United States (Preamble: "Establish Justice". Amendment 1: Right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Amendment 9: Right to additional rights not explicitly listed, such as fairness and/or justice; right to a fully informed jury ruling against an unfair law; etc.).

Somewhere, there is a court case saying that the term "Corporate Personhood" or "Corporate Personage" -- which originally meant only that the East India Trading Company could sign documents and represent its interests in courts -- means more than just "This corporation is a legal entity" ("Corporate legal entityhood" is a better term), but that this corporation has all the rights of people, except voting. And sadly, it doesn't seem to be the well-known Santa Clarita v. Union Pacific tax case -- remember, the 9 judges in that case said that they were all too prejudiced in their belief on that point to even consider it. Somewhere earlier than that are cases where the ability to sign documents and represent interests in court are sufficient to give you full authority and rights of a person, because the name of the legal term contains "person" instead of "entity".

And finally, there is a Supreme Court decision that says that the 'more perfect union' clause of the preamble implies that the entire constitution is just an add-on to the perpetual union of the original government founded in 1776; hence, our 1789-based government has to follow the same 1776-government documents unless explicitly overturned. While that seems very strange -- just ask Rhode Island if they agreed under the "changes must be unanimous" clause (they did not) -- just ask any state after the original 13 if this is what they agreed to -- it was used recently when Texas tried to leave the union, only to be told "Sorry, you are now a prisoner".

What do I disagree with? That the courts have more power than congress, more power than the constitution, more power than anything or anyone else. And it's time to use the 14th amendment, section three, to have the Senate remove these jerks from the bench.

What do I think is a valid power of the SCOTUS? Simple. Issue rulings on judicial behavior and actions. Issue clarifications of law. They are an appeal court, not a court of origin. They do not have fact finding authority, they have legal proceeding authority. (Well, except for those few types of cases where the constitution grants them original jurisdiction. Those are the exception.)

They can tell other judges "You did X wrong", and send cases back to lower courts.
They cannot determine facts and truth on their own.

For example, "We disagree with the trial court, and the appeal court, both of which certified this class. We feel that X was not taken into account. The standard to be a class is now Y" -- must be followed with "Now go back to the lower courts and establish Y". Not "Sorry ladies, you cannot sue Walmart as a class".

Make a decision on the law, and send the case back to lower courts for final facts? Fine.
Have decisions be the highest law? Fine.
But not higher than the constitution. Unconstitutional laws can be overturned by any court.
Have the ability to arbitrarily affect everyone else in the country? No, that's Congress' job.

Have the ability to impose any ruling that they want, with no peer review, with no oversight, as a ruling body in violation of the "republican" clause of the constitution, in violation of the "legislative congress" clause, requiring people to not only write their legislative representative but also write briefs and letters to the court to have their opinion considered with no actual right to challenge what the court thinks? With nothing to defend the constitution from this?

Footnote:
(*): Aha!, I hear you say. McCulloch v. Maryland was unanimous by the supreme court. Why am I saying that this is a problem case?

McCulloch had three key points:
1. Decision: The Federal government has the right to run a bank; Maryland cannot tax it. Good.
2. Opinion, primary: The reason for this: The "Necessary and proper" clause is intended to expand the list of government powers, as it is in the list of what the government can do. Fine.
3. Opinion, supporting reason: Because anything that the government wants to do that is consistent with the goals of the stated powers of congress must therefore be valid. Err ...

Number three is questionable.

Imagine a circle, with a point at the center. The point at the center is the constitution, with its ambiguities. The circle is all the things consistent with it.

Now take a second point, inside the circle, but near the edge. Draw another circle, smaller than the first, but going outside of the first circle. This is a court decision like McCulloch #3.

Finally, take a third point, inside this second circle, but outside the original circle of the constitution. This is the problem -- "We shall rule consistently with previous court decisions", not "We shall rule consistently with the constitution". We've drifted, by bad case after bad case, outside of the constitution.

In other words, the real issue here is not McCulloch itself, but the decisions that came after it, building on it, citing the Supreme Court's supporting opinion as the basis for their claim. In the same manner, Citizens United isn't the problem (the FEC's regulations were a disaster, and deserved to be struck down), but the implications of the opinions, and the complete failure of logic in the reasoning (i.e., the FEC cannot regulate it at all.)

A quick example, from Wikipedia: Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942). "The Supreme Court upheld a federal statute making it a crime for a farmer to produce more wheat than was allowed under price controls and production controls, even if the excess production was for the farmer's own personal consumption. The Necessary and Proper Clause was used to justify the regulation of production and consumption.[8]". (Retrieved 08/20/2011). In other words, all actions ever taken by anyone, because it affects actions by others, and those actions are interstate in nature, are subject to federal regulation. Is that an unfair interpretation of the court ruling? No, it seems to be the interpretation that the courts use. One step, followed by another, following in the step of prior court rulings, without ever asking if we have left the sanity of the constitution.

An open letter to President Obama -- How to solve the national economy and debt limit

2011-07-29T11:12:00.000-07:00

An open letter to President Obama:

Mr. Obama:

I am writing to talk about the debt crisis. I understand that many programs are referred to now as "Entitlements", and that this has become a bad name.

I want to give them another name: Promises to pay from the government.

And yet another name: Just compensation for a past taking.

You are a lawyer. You know that the taking of private property (including money) for the public good (including retiring older workers to make sure that newer workers have job opportunities) without just compensation is unconstitutional. The federal government has engaged in a taking, and has undertaken a promise to pay. The federal government has no authority to reduce the payment without risking lawsuits about just compensation for a forced taking (social security is an example of a forced retirement and disability insurance program). For all the talk of forcing people to engage in private insurance, consider that if the federal government cannot keep its insurance promises, why would anyone expect private insurances to keep their promises? (And look at Katrina, Louisiana, and the private insurance companies there).

Based on this, I must ask you to reconsider any cut in payouts to people currently in the social security program. It may make sense to say that people that have not yet started will have lower payouts (and lower taxes). But you cannot change the payouts of those that are in the system already.

Nor does it make sense to talk about social security running out of money. As a promise to pay, with a constitutional backing, it becomes backed by the full faith and credit -- namely, the general fund. It cannot run out without the federal government going bankrupt.

When all the fancy talk is removed, the bottom line of the current dispute is this: The Republican party is saying that promises to pay should be honored for foreign banks, large companies, rich investors -- all of whom have promises in the form of "bonds" -- and ignored for the poor people -- who have promises in the form of "entitlements".

A promise to pay is a promise to pay. The federal government has debts to lots of people. The concept of running a large corporation on cash accounting instead of accrual accounting is considered silly -- yet that is what the federal government is doing here.

The only way out of this mess is to increase taxes. It happens that I consider the free trade agreements to be disaster number one (and we should have import tariffs based on the amount of labor in the products imported), and the effective deflation of the economy based on Federal Reserve practices to be disaster number two. Solving the deflated economy requires the federal government to create new money from nothing, instead of the current system that only creates new debt. The "punch line" (bottom line summary without the explanation of how it is developed) is: In out current system, bankruptcy is the only way that new money is added to the economy. Bank loans have to be priced high enough to pay for those bankruptcies. Banks have to treat themselves as loan insurance agencies, and by having "premiums" so low that the banks ran out of money is just one more proof that private insurance cannot work in serious disaster -- not natural hurricanes, not man-caused (see 9/11/2001), and not "Gotta cut prices to compete, now we can't pay our bills" (see everything from private pension funds, to the auto industry, to investment banks, to normal banks, etc.)

My recommendations to put on the table:

1. Pick a value for minimum wage, and keep it fixed. Raising it causes problems. If you don't believe this, consider what happens if you multiply it by 100. I would actually recommend rolling it back once -- we had a long (10 years?) period with no change in the minimum wage recently.

2. Recognize that "1099" workers need the same minimum wage guarantee. But because 1099-ers get significantly less benefits and protections, the actual "minimum wage" for 1099-ers needs to be 150% of the base minimum wage. Companies must take steps to ensure that at least _X_ percent (and I'd recommend 80%) of their 1099 employees make at least that level, and must either fire those that do not, or raise wages to bring people in compliance. Note that for many companies that use 1099-ers, it is near impossible for any significant number of employees to make even normal minimum wage -- as an example, a company that pays workers 10 cents to answer questions -- including internet research, searching, and documenting the answer.

3. Foreign job tax:

A - Any job moved overseas has a tax of 300% of the "1099" minimum wage.

B - Any U.S. based company that employes overseas workers has a tax of 200% of the "1099" minimum wage.

C - Any imported product has a tax of 100% of the "1099" minimum wage for the total labor hours in that product. (As a possible exception: Agricultural products that cannot be commercially produced in this country).

Basically, the idea of this tax is to say that if you are going to use the resources invested in the country by the government, by the people, etc, to benefit yourself at the expense of the workers and people of this country, then you have to pay those workers for that. See below.

4. The federal government becomes the employer of last resort. If you want a job, then the federal government can employ you at minimum wage. You may be a paper pusher. You might get on the job training. Etc.

5. Start suing companies for past problems. The idea of saying that regulatory agencies will not get involved in individual problems is crazy. If a company is breaking the law, then requiring individuals to bring lawsuits on their own is broken -- breaking the law is always the government's option to pursue. And if the lack of workers is a problem, see item #4 above. Lawsuits for punitive damages on behalf of individuals who cannot afford to sue on their own can be a big source of income, and will force companies to obey the laws.

Most important, and to solve the deflation problem, are these:

6. Recognize that the single best thing that can happen to the economy is a higher demand for a product than the current supply, as this is what causes increased employment. At the same time, the higher demand shows up as inflated prices -- so seeing price inflation is a good thing, as it is the first step in increasing employment. Note that the Federal Reserve's current action -- regarding inflation as bad and moving to slow down the economy -- is one of the worst possible reactions, and one of the main causes of the current economic disaster. This means that in the process of getting the economy running again, price inflation will happen.

7. Recognize that the only way to get money into the economy is for the federal government to just put money in, directly. The current system -- a private bank ("Federal Reserve") issuing both money and debt to privileged companies (ordinary banks) when those companies have already failed (see credit crisis; home loan robosigning; the failure of the home loan restructuring program; banks choosing to foreclose on homes that were in the restructuring process; banks deliberately going slowly on the restructuring to increase the amount owed; etc.) is itself a failure.

The idea is two fold.

First, the federal government gives direct payment to citizens of the United States that are subject to federal jurisdiction. The amount would start at $250 per person, would be adjusted up or down every quarter by $250 per person, have a maximum payout of $2,000 per month, and would have the target of saying that the typical(*) person sees an average income of _X_ per year. This is not a borrowing; this is direct creation of wealth from nothing. This is intended to remove "adding money to the economy" from the Federal Reserve (and note that it is impossible for the F.R. to actually add money; it can only add debt). Also note that it will probably be necessary to reduce the bank loan money multiplier factor -- currently 10 times -- as more base money is added to the economy. While this may seem strange, the ultimate idea is moving the economy to a "fountain and sink" model -- fountain money directly to the bottom of the economy, and then sink money out with taxation (see the foreign job tax item above). Fountain and sink model economies do work. See "EVE Online" for what is probably the best current such model. Consult with their staff economist (probably the only person in the world with the actual hands-on experience that this will require).

What is the value of X? A good guess would be around $36,000 per year. The better answer is: It depends on the minimum wage. If a normal yearly salary is 2,000 times minimum wage, then perhaps 4,000 times minimum wage is a good goal.

The real answer: It's a lot more complicated, and beyond my ability to tell. Total compensation is the key here -- and that's a lot more than just bare salary. Perhaps the real answer is something like 5,000 times the 1099 minimum wage. Perhaps putting the total compensation as some multiple of the 1099 minimum wage is the best answer. I have no clue as to what this should be. The idea of $36,000 per year is based on the fact that this is about the typical average wage seen at sites like salary.com over the last few years.

So what is a typical person? And what is a person? Does a 1 year old child get the same income as an adult? What about a 17 year old?

I'm going to give a tight, precise definition of typical, with one variable.

Take the total population, sort it by the item in question. Take the N-sigma distribution around the median (50% point). This subset is the set of "typical", and the average of this is the typical average.

Lets look at income. Take all the incomes of people in the country. Do not take the average. We might want to use the 1-sigma (66%), or the "1.5-sigma" (approximately 80%). So, we line them up. We find the median (50%) to be around 28,000. We look at the central 66%, or central 80%. This means that the bottoms (lots and lots of zeroes) are tossed out, as are the tops (all the rich, all the high income people).

The result is the typical -- depending on what percentage you are using, you'll look at 2/3rds, or 4/5ths, or some percentage of the american population, centered around the middle. What percentage do you use? I'd recommend around 80%. I'd recommend asking a graduate math professor about the 1.5 sigma level versus 80% (they are close, but not identical). I do believe that both 1-sigma (66%) is too few, and 2-sigma (95%) is too many.

How do you decide to include someone with a zero? Probably the simplest answer: If they want to work, and cannot find a job (includes disabled people), then they count. If they are full time students, then they may not have time for a job, and they count.

What income do you use? If someone works more than 40 hours, you only consider the amount earned in 40 hours -- the goal here is that as a society, we say that 40 hours is all you need to work (you may work longer if you want, but you are not required to). This is why full time students -- who put 40 hours or more into school work already -- count as zero.

Second, the federal government needs to provide loans to people. Right now it has a privileged corporation giving loans to privileged companies (federal reserve to normal banks). Loaning direct to people permits people to start up companies, etc. My recommendation here is as follows:

1. No loans to people that are also corporations. Examples: Most professionals -- doctors, etc -- are incorporated people. There are too many loopholes that I do not know how to close. No loans to people that control a corporation, that are on the board of a corporation, that have a controlling interest or influence in a corporation, etc.

2. No loans to people that are in a fractional reserve loan. The exception is that if you are going to pay off all your fractional reserve loans, then it is ok. Note that if you have one of these direct government loans, then you cannot take a fractional reserve (normal bank) loan unless that loan is going to pay off the direct loan. Note that house mortgages count -- people with a home loan cannot participate in this.

3. The maximum amount would be $50,000 per person. In most cases, two or three people would go into a partnership together to get the money needed to start up a business

4. Repayment would be based on 1% APR if you paid last month on time, or 1.5% APR if you did not pay last month on time. That's not that far off from what banks pay (zero percent). No punitive penalties, no 6 month penalty APR, etc.

While this may seem odd, consider what has been spent on all the various bailout programs. 700 billion here, 750 billion there, etc. As far as I can tell, three different program at about this funding level -- that's about two to two and a half trillion.

Of the 350 million people in the US, lets say that 50 million wanted to borrow -- that's $2500 billion (2.5 trillion). Of this, even if half was not paid back, that's a total stimulus spending of about 1.25 trillion -- or about what has been spent on large companies to try to stimulate them. Since people getting these loans are not borrowing from fractional reserve banks, banks now have money to lend, and a desire to lend -- suddenly, rates paid by people who do borrow goes down, just like the rates paid by banks have gone down.

There's a LOT in here that I don't have answers to. There's a lot of things in here for the two parties to argue about. But this is the framework needed to solve the problems of the economy:

1. A federal reserve that has deflated the economy in terms of hours of work that can be supported by money available compared to the population (if population increases, and wages do not change, then the total money needs to go up as fast as population. If wages go up, then money needs to go up faster. The actual increase in money has been slower than the increase in population times the increase in minimum wage.)

2. A shortage of money, to the point that the economic assumptions of both micro-economics and macro-economics are completely broken. Both of these systems assume that there is sufficient money in the system that money itself is not a scarce good.

Let me repeat that point. Economics assumes that scarce goods -- resources, labor, etc -- will go to the most valuable usage, and that everyone has money available to bid on those resources that they want. The current system has money so concentrated, and missing from so many, that this assumption fails completely.

3. The lack of demand that is the ultimate drive on hiring -- if there is no expectation of increase in demand, then there is no increase in corporate spending (both directly in labor, and indirectly in new machines that require labor to build); the lack of an increase in total wage income in turn means a lack of increased future demand.

I am a strong believer in that demand side economics is a better match to reality than supply side economics.

I do not believe that either is a perfect match for reality.

Thank you.

Michael Gersten

A California born citizen

The economy: Fixing the money supply: Introduction and initial questions

2010-11-21T13:02:00.000-08:00

On PBS's "Fixing the Future: NOW on PBS", this question was asked: Does the economy exist to serve the people, or do people exist to serve the economy?

Here's a better thought: The economy exists to allocate scarce resources in the best (or near-best) possible way, such that everyone benefits from a share of the better allocation.

Yes, the economy should exist to serve the people. At the moment, it doesn't.

What is the central flaw? It turns out that there is one, and only one, central flaw. But how to solve that central flaw ... not so simple, not so clear.

(To clarify: This is not the only flaw. It is not the only big flaw. If you are familiar with the assumptions of micro-economics at the base of economic theory, you know that they all have flaws and problems. You know that the flaws inherently introduce feedback into the equations, and equations with feedback are subject to chaotic behavior that cannot handle station analysis and needs simulation or dynamic analysis that is completely "hand-waved" out in normal economic studies. But this is, as far as I can tell, the single biggest, and most impactful / far-reaching flaw of them all.)

The central flaw: A scarce resource is used to determine the allocation of other scarce resources. Money is used to determine how resources are allocated. But money is scarce -- artificially. There is an artificial limit on how much money there should be, and it's less than what's needed to make things actually work. It's short because the planning for how much money there should be never took population growth into account. And it's been short since the baby boom -- the "stagflation" of the 70's comes directly out from this viewpoint as an expected behavior (and normal means of looking at the economy have trouble explaining stagflation).

But this means that inflation is a result of three different factors -- supply of money, supply/demand for goods, and population levels. Population levels are normally ignored in this analysis.

How do you solve this issue? How do you put more money in to fix the scarce-ness of money? Do you want to put more money in? Should you? Do you reduce the costs of things to let the buying power of the existing money increase to handle the increase in population?

I cannot say that I have "The" answer. But I do have "An" answer that works.

It requires the understanding that money has no value in and of itself. The pretense that a dollar should be about equal to one Spanish gold doubloon has to be completely abandoned.

Here's the "punch-line". You are not expected to understand this, any more than you'd understand a joke if you just heard the last line without the buildup.

It is meant to be something to think about, to wonder. Just like a joke's punch-line by itself might make you think about word meanings, sound-alikes, or similar, this is for you to think about.

The punch-line: The government needs to directly give cash to people as a source of money, balanced by taxes taken from those entities -- people and non-people -- that concentrate money. The "Fountain and sink" model from RPG's and online games is the way to re-build the real life economy.

If your first thought is, "That's crazy", then good. What's your second thought? Your third? If you're so sure it must fail, why?

Did home loans cause the financial crisis?

2010-08-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

Today, on Fareed Zakaria GPS, one of the guests was O'Neill. He was a treasury secretary during the Bush (2001-????) years.

O'Neill laid the blame for the housing crash on home loans with little or nothing down. According to him, the crash would not have happened if all home loans had required 20% down.

This seems silly to me. I saw many loans issued that only made sense if you assumed that the value of the house would go up, and then require you to sell or refinance to pay off the loan -- in other words, the loan assumed that the house would pay for itself. Loans that had a low interest rate during the first few years (5 to 7), and then either a large interest increase, or a balloon payment. Loans where your interest rate was higher than your payments (so your balance would increase; in theory, your house value would go up faster).

Why is this bad? If you require that a loan is only issued if it is likely to be paid off, then a high house price will not sell -- no one that wants it can afford the loan. If a house is priced so high that the loan is not likely to be paid off, and therefore cannot be issued, then the house needs to come down in price.

That's how a market makes sense. When prices go up, up, up, people stop buying, and the prices have to come back down. That's functional.

Instead, we had a market where prices went up, up, up, and bankers proceeded to make loans on the assumption that not only would they continue to go up, up, up, but someone else later would buy a loan thinking that it would continue to go up, up up.

Blaming the people who wanted a house loan with little or no down is crazy.
Blame the lenders who decided to issue loans that could only be repaid if the house was sold at a large profit.

Was this a valid drug case conviction? Or was this a denial of a fair trial?

2010-08-05T21:24:00.001-07:00

According to the AP news wire today, there was a court case in Cleaveland, where a federal judge refused to grant a new trial to three people convicted of dealing drugs.

(I'm not allowed to copy the actual story, so I'll just give a summary here.)

Apparently, U.S. District Judge James Gwin ruled that, while he did not approve of the way the government handled the case, the defendants failed to show prejudice in their original trials, and so would not be granted a second trial.

Now, this is, in a nutshell, exactly my issues with the federal court system. This country, alone, first, and (as far as I know) unique in the world, operates on the principal that the federal government is not all powerful, and cannot do whatever it wants. The 10th amendment makes it abundantly clear that the federal government is restricted. The 9th makes it clear that we start with the assumption of rights of people (and states). The preamble makes it clear that justice, rather than arbitrarily rulings, is the key. We've got the right of a jury trial stated multiple times.

Yet, rather than letting a jury hear this case, a judge said that, even though the judge did not like what was done, the people accused of a crime, and potentially convicted in error, could not prove that they were not given a fair trial. Not: The government must prove that they followed the rules. The accused, innocent until proven guilty, now have the additional burden of proving that the government failed to follow the rules. Not to a level of proof acceptable to a jury, but to a level that is more than required to convince a judge that something is wrong.

So what is the issue here? Get this. Sit down. Normally I cut these in my RSS feed; this time I'm not cutting this.

The DEA agent who provided testimony against them was on trial for putting false information in his reports.
He was aquitted.
The federal government withheld information/evidence that could have been used against this DEA agent.
The indication is fairly strong that had this evidence been presented, then either (A) the agent would have been found guilty, or (B) the evidence would have been considered tainted, and not permitted in this court case that found these three people guilty.

So, lets see if I understand this correctly:
1. DEA agent falsifies testamony. (a violation.)
2. Government has evidence that it refuses to turn over to the other side in a trial (a violation).
3. Government deliberately misrepresents the agent's work (a violation)
4. The judge agrees that the government did not act properly
5. The judge ruled that, because the prior trial was not proven to be in error, must be held acceptable.

So what possible standard of improper trial can possibly be held here?

Again: No jury was allowed to examine the question of "was this trial fair". The judge did not approve of the government's action. The government failed to provide a fair and unbiased trial. The government withheld evidence that would have harmed its case.

And the convictions were upheld.

A quick and dirty diary

2010-08-03T11:29:00.001-07:00

So where are my recent postings?

I just finished and submitted my EEO (equal employment) formal dispute against the commerce department. No action came from the first (informal) dispute. (If you're curious, I was training for the second stage of census work -- non-respondent follow up -- and was not hired despite a perfect score on the written test.)

I have to deal with Capital One (does anyone know how to sue a credit card company? I don't know the first step, and cannot afford any lawyer fees), the IRS, the FTB, etc.

Joy is "We are right, unless you first prove us wrong" that these all use.

A bunch of deep questions, and a bunch of light answers

2010-07-21T12:21:00.001-07:00

There are some very deep questions to be asked.

1. What is a government
2. What is a country
3. What is the goal of a government
4. What makes these people, and not those people, a government for this country

5. What is money
6. What is debt
7. What is inflation

8. What is a corporation
9. What is the goal of a corporation
10. What makes these , and not those , a corporation?

11. What is law? What is a court? What is legal punishment?

#11 is hard. To a large extent, the answers given in the first 4 define a big deal of #11. But perhaps this is the wrong approach -- perhaps #11 should be answered first, and from that work backwards to determine #1-4.

I don't expect everyone to agree with my answers. These are not "deep" answers that follow -- they are fairly shallow. Every one of these can be expanded into a long article.

But this gives a starting point. Lacking some sort of overview, nothing else that I say will make sense.

(WARNING: This is LONG. Every one of these points can be expanded into a full length blog. Consider this post an overview only; each of these will be examined, although not necessarily immediately, and not necessarily in this order. If you are going to skip this, please look at an excellent examination of this in fiction, "The Ungoverned".
Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ungoverned
Entire story online: http://www.webscription.net/chapters/1416520724/1416520724___4.htm )

As an example of not making sense? What is money today? Right now, money today is a bank lying about how much money it has to lend, artificially creating new money and new debt at the same time, while pretending otherwise. The so-called expansion of our economy is in reality nothing more than the expansion of debt. From a viewpoint of history, this makes sense; from a viewpoint of "Let me explain this to a 'off the shelf alien' -- a visitor to our planet that has never seen anything like this before", it makes no sense.

Equally odd, is inflation. Most people look at inflation as a function of money versus demand; I'll argue that it's a three-sided relationship between money supply, desire (not the same as demand), and population. Lacking all three sides, you are usually assuming constant population, which was relatively true only up to the early 1900's. (Oddly, that early 1900's was when the population really took off AND a major depression hit. Hmm...)

1. What is a government
2. What is a country
3. What is the goal of a government
4. What makes these people, and not those people, a government for this country

So what is the goal of government? I'll say that the goal is to protect the commons. Most of you should be familiar with "The tragedy of the commons" -- since everyone shares the commons, and no one has a reason to put effort into maintaining the commons, the commons gets destroyed while private property is maintained. Simply put, putting someone in charge of maintaining the commons, and funding that, is the goal of government.

So what then is a government? Many groups can maintain the commons. Historically, it has been "Whoever has the biggest force". Army, thugs, tax collectors, or police, the "force" has varied, but even in 1776 it really was "we had France" to help us fight England. The U.S. war of independence was really France vs. England, with our "army" being a way for France to fight. Lacking a French blockade fleet, the war would not have ended. Lacking some trade partner, we would not have been able to sell stuff made in this country for war goods to fight back.

What should a government be going forward from today? Should it still be "the biggest force"? Does "might make right"? In Afghanistan, do we really "control" more than a few dozen blocks? Is the "biggest force" the insurgents? What are "insurgents"? Would Washington's army of 235 years ago have been regarded as "Illegal combatants" today, insurgents without a country, not subject to the protections of international war prisoners?

Our country is founded on high treason, insurrection, and gorilla warfare; we celebrate this every year on July 4th.

What is a country? A group of people, and their lands, who agree that they are a common country, with the right to control their commons. Doesn't have to be adjacent -- Alaska isn't adjacent to the rest of the USA. If Texas and California decide to jointly split off into a new country, they aren't adjacent (and the pair do have a big enough economy to make a country.)

What is a government? Those that the people choose to put in charge of that commons? Maybe. Perhaps a better answer is "Those people that have (or control) a law system (courts, police, jail; or thugs, standing army, military presence, etc.) to enforce their declarations".

What makes this group of people, and not that group of people, the government? Maybe it's "We have the force in place". Maybe it's "The people of the country respect this legal setup and obey the rules". Maybe it's "We're fed up with this old setup, and we're making a force to fight back". And maybe it's "We're using the rules of change in the old setup to put in a new setup".

Should might make right? Or should approval of the people make right?
Should people have the right to declare independence without fighting for it? How many, how large a group?
Who determines who is in charge of what section of the commons, and for what goal of maintaining it?
How do you settle conflicts in answering these questions? How do you settle conflicts in answering "how do we settle these conflicts"? (See "Nomic": Wiki. See also "The paradox of self amendment", where Nomic originated.)

5. What is money
6. What is debt
7. What is inflation

Historically, banks "create" money by lending more than they have. The idea was simple enough -- bank B (think of a bank as a secure, protected place to store something of value, used by many people) would issue some assurance that person P has money to give to merchant M; P gives the money to M, gets something from M. The bank shows M some money, and claims it came from "that pile over there belonging to P".

But it's all one pile, in the bank. As long as not many people want to take money out of the bank pile, the bank can pretend to have money.

As crazy as that may sound, it worked, and worked well for many years. It worked because the banks didn't go overboard -- they didn't, as a rule, issue much more than they had. They made sure that people were able to pay them back.

Fundamentally, the fee for a loan is the cost of money, just like any other product. You want a loaf of bread? You pay X. You want a bundle of money? You pay Y. As long as money circulates, great. As long as bankers don't accumulate more than they can spend, great -- the money made from making loans is spent into the economy, and that is used by the people who borrow for business to repay the loan.

It works as long as money stays in circulation, and the "failure" rate of the loans is low. And, as long as a bunch of other assumptions stay the same.

One of those is that the value of money doesn't change much. But in this historical view, money and bank debt are one and the same. What about personal debt? Corporate debt?

Inflation is another oddball. Imagine a world where the economy is stable. Everyone has $1000. Everyone spends, works, earns. Some people earn more, and spend more; some people earn less, and spend less. Everyone has $1000 in the bank, plus what they earn, and what they spend. There's ample money in circulation; if someone wants something, it's available. Supply and demand are in balance. In other words, the perfect "Micro/macro economic balance". All is happy.

Now, increase the population, without increasing the money supply.
Suddenly, there is less money per person.
With less money per person, and the price of goods the same, people have to buy fewer items.
With fewer sales, businesses will produce less things
With less productions, employees will be laid off.

With no change in the money supply, you get a horrible depression; the economy collapses. * The money supply has to scale with population *. We've historically set a goal of "x% per year growth in money supply" entirely independent of population, because we think that "inflation is good for the country". That's a "crazy idea". Maybe it's right; I think it's not.

Incidentally, I don't agree with traditional micro- or macro- economics. Both make assumptions that just do not agree with reality. Both hand-wave the assumptions away, without any regard to the feedback/chaos loops that the assumptions create. The result of traditional micro- and macro- economics is stuff that just doesn't make sense no matter what you say, and the idea that "Everyone doing what is logical and good for the individual will destroy the economy as a whole" being a SOUND and valid deduction -- which is exactly what they claim -- is a good indication that they are broken.

So what is money?

Fundamentally, the standard definition is, "A tool for barter".
Fundamentally, the historical reality is, "A privileged tool for barter".
What gives it privilege? "The government says so".
But who is in charge of it? Not the government. Not those in charge of the commons. Private banks.
Why?

I have no answer. But the nature of a government saying "We are not in charge of the basic tool of the economy that we are trying to create, grow, and control" is the same as saying "Those others that are in charge are just as much government as we are".

What is a government? What makes group A and not group B the government? Isn't "The economy" the single biggest "commons"?

So I'm left with "The government is the group that has the legal setup, and respect of the governed, and manages the commons, including the economy". Yet today, private banks are at the cornerstone of that.

8. What is a corporation
9. What is the goal of a corporation
10. What makes these , and not those , a corporation?

#8 has a fairly straightforward answer. Note that this is NOT what courts currently say. In fact, I can't even understand what courts currently say.

A corporation is three parts:
A. Investors that put funds into a common pool.
B. A group -- called the "board of the corporation" -- that are responsible for the decisions on how to spend those funds.
C. The funds themselves.

"Corporate shield" or "corporate immunity" only refers to the idea that investors are not required to put more money in if the corporation has a loss -- all they can lose is the current investment. They cannot be held liable for any legal issues or fines, or jail time. The board has no such restrictions -- if there is a financial issue, or legal issue, it is jointly on the corporate funds AND those responsible for the actions taken by the corporation.

As far as I can tell, the current court system says that corporate immunity also protects the board from their decisions -- so you can decide to do X, and if it's in the name of the corporation, you are immune from the consequences. Only the corporation's money can be challenged, not your decision, and you have less at risk than the investors do.

That, to me, is crazy.

What is the goal of the corporation? Well, that's a hard question. Really hard. Ultimately, though, whatever the goal is, that is why the investors invest. But once you have a corporation, investors, funds, board, etc, then what is the goal of the next action?

Answer: To make good use of the corporate funds.

In other words:
A corporation is a group of people in charge of the "corporate commons" -- the funds -- with the investors agreeing to it.

In other words, a group that has the respect of the investors, to make decisions on behalf of the commons.

A corporation looks exactly like a government, except that, in theory, a government has the authority to declare something "privileged money", or to issue rules ("law") that the corporation has to follow.

Yet today, our government lets corporations ("banks") declare and issue money; they let corporations declare and issue law ("mandatory, non-negotiable contracts"). So what's the government?

What makes something a corporation, and a mini-government? Whatever the "boss government" says. Well, no, not quite -- apparently, anyone can, in any state, file paperwork, and get "corporation / mini government" status. And in some states, it's free. Just pay them income taxes, if you have any income. Or manipulate your funds and assets so you don't.

Or go overseas, and become a foreign corporation. Heck, operate out of an "at-sea" installation, and call it a "ship". Then it's not even subject to the laws of the US -- that's exactly what was happening at the Deep Horizon's / BP oil rig that went "gush" in the gulf. How many other oil rigs are considered foreign ships not subject to our laws and regulations?

11. What is law? What is a court? What is legal punishment?

If corporations can create law, require that disputes start with "We are correct, unless you take us to mediation and the mediator agrees with you, but you give up your rights of appeal and discovery under the court system", and they can ignore the consequences of their decisions, then what's really going on? Who is really in charge? What is our government?

For an excellent examination of this in fiction, read "The Ungoverned".
Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ungoverned
Entire story online: http://www.webscription.net/chapters/1416520724/1416520724___4.htm

Questions for Kagan

2010-06-29T20:49:00.001-07:00

These are questions for Kagan.

On PBS News Hour, you were quoted as saying that you consider a prior decision by the supreme court to be a fixed decision, and that we must honor the prior decisions as a fundamental point of our legal system. "Once the court has decided a case, it is binding precedent, and I think that is an enormously important principle of the legal system, that one defers to prior justices or prior judges who have decided something, and that its not enough, even if you think something is wrong, to say "oh well, that decision was wrong, they got it wrong"

Based on this, I have these questions.

1. Should "Separate but equal" have been overturned?
2. Should Austin have been overturned by Citizen's United?

3. To what extent do you consider any past issue, no matter how badly determined, to be open for re-examination?

4. Where do you see the boundary between the legislative authority of the legislative branch of government, as set in article one, and the judicial authority of the courts to create new rules?
To what extent do you believe in the early 1800's view of "strike down a bad law, but do nothing else; let congress create a new law", and to what extent do you believe in "Strike down a bad law, and put a new law in its place"?

5. Consider a specific case. This is a (hypothetical) case: It was brought in trial court, challenging the validity of Citizen's United. It was thrown out by the trial court, claiming a lack of authority to examine and overrule the supreme court. This was upheld by the appeal court, and now comes to you.

The specific claims in this case are:
A: While no challenge is made to the view that the two regulations examined were excessive and stifling, the remainder of the decision has numerous logical errors, and business behavior/tax law errors. Based on these, the overturning of Austin is not justified. (Assume several detailed examples are given in the lawsuit.)
B: The decision by the court to go beyond the narrowest possible ruling failed to properly give interested parties a chance to submit briefs and opinions on the issue; as such, the subject was not properly understood by the court. Based on this, the overturning of Austin is not justified. (NB: this is similar to Steven's dissension).
C: While the balance between the two rights -- free speech (amendment 1) and a fair election without undue distortion (amendment 9) -- may be in dispute, the court had no authority to throw one of those rights completely out the window. Based on that, the overturning of Austin is not justified.
D: While the court has authority to strike down bad laws and regulations, it lacks the authority to create new ones, including one that gives no limit to corporate rights and privileges. That authority is, by article one, solely in the hands of the legislative branch, not the judicial. As such, the court exceeded its authority in striking down Austin.
E: The claim that the 14th amendment "rights of people in state courts" applies to corporations is flawed in that the word "people" does not mean "corporation" in the rest of the amendment, including population and representation, and as such, that declaration by the courts is flawed, even if Austin is properly struck down.

How would you rule?
1: The decision by the court will not be re-examined. The trial court was right to throw it out. (But then, why was it allowed to re-examine Austin?)
2: The trial court was wrong to throw the case out. It must be re-examined. (But then, to what extent is a prior decision binding, even if you think it was wrong? What separates a "think its wrong, leave it as is", and "it really is wrong, change it" case?)
3: The prior court decision violated protocol, rules, and procedure. While the actual ruling might not be wrong, it was reached in a wrong way, and as such, must be voided. (Does the SCOTUS have such authority?)
4: The prior court decision may have violated such rules, and the trial courts must examine whether the SCOTUS ruled appropriately, or not. (But does this mean that only the procedure may be examined, and not the validity of the logic and business tax law claimed in the decision).
5: Something else. What, and why?

6. Consider this question carefully. It has to do with the recent gun decisions and the second amendment versus the 9th amendment, and the question of, "Does the SCOTUS have the authority to alter the constitution?". I hope you agree that it does not.

The recent court ruling found a second amendment right of individuals to have guns for self defense. This ruling is challenged, as follows: The second amendment, as written, only permits that the militia of the states to own guns without interference by the federal government. Any other interpretation is a plain text misreading of the second amendment. Note that the term "militia" is not defined by this; according to the 10th amendment, it can only be defined by the states or the people. It explicitly cannot have any British common law definition, nor can it be defined by the federal courts.

Now, this is a plain text reading of the second amendment. It does not agree with many court decisions. Based on this, a claim is made that the courts have modified the constitution in their decisions, and as such, those decisions are unconstitutional.

1. How would you rule, and why?
2. To what extent can a decision by the courts restrict a valid plain text reading of the constitution?
3. To what extent does the 10th amendment limit the authority of the federal government and federal courts?
4. If an individual does have a right of gun ownership for self defense, and that individual is not in the state militia, does that right come from the second amendment, or from the 9th? If the 9th, was this properly considered by the courts, or was a potential lack of submitted briefs and opinions enough to require reconsideration in a later ruling?
5. To what extent does the court have the authority to modify the constitution? What is the limit of a valid court ruling?

This was submitted to California Senator Feinstein, Tuesday the 29th at 9 pm.

Draft 2 of proposed amendment #1

2010-03-11T11:36:00.000-08:00

The proposed amendment is now being broken up into many small parts.

We start with this:

Proposed amendment to the US Constitution.

1. It is recognized that an implied right of the 9th amendment is the right to a election, and vote count, that is relatively free of corruption and error, given the current level of technology and ability.

2. No vote count that fails the test of corruption and error shall be certified. If necessary, a second election shall be held using different technology.

3. Congress shall have all authority to pass laws addressing any issue with regard to this, including but not limited to:
* Accuracy of voting machines and the vote count procedure
* Determination of acceptable technologies.

(** Important: What else should go into this list? **)

4. Enforcement of this amendment shall be delayed 5 years after approval. The intent and purpose of this delay is to give states the opportunity to acquire voting equipment that satisfies basic accuracy standards, as well as to provide congress with the opportunity to consider and discuss, and pass laws in accordance with section 3.

The real issue with the supreme court: Overturning Austin

2010-03-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

There's a lot in the Citizen's United ruling that is just bad. Bad logic (and outright logic errors); mis-application of prior rulings; making rulings on subjects without taking arguments pro and con, and those rulings being outright wrong/full of errors; etc. Steven's dissension makes a point of this.

More discussion on this is at XKCD, as before.

But there is one key issue that was recognized -- BADLY, and improperly -- in Austin. A "9th amendment" implied right.

The right to a relatively corrupution free vote and vote count.

That may sound silly. But lets face it: If it were not for that, no one would care about Chicago last century, or Ohio and Florida this century.

One right says: Unrestricted speech, unrestricted press.
One right says: Elections free of corruption or the appearance of corruption.

They conflict in this case.

Lacking any guidance from congress, the courts have to make the rules.

All legislative power resides in congress. Congress could, if they did their job, pass laws saying where the division was. The courts would then have the authority to uphold that, or not.

Instead, congress does not do its job. The courts take over, without constitutional authority, to create what amounts to laws.

But while congress would have discourse on both sides, discussion, examination, etc, the courts only give the appearance of that, and in this case, not even that.

From the discussion of Buckley on page 23, to the treatment of Austin and the government's bad defense of Austin, the court makes logic errors. Many of them.

But the upshot is: Austin made an attempt to recognize that corporations can distort the presentation of views and opinions to the point of giving at least the appearance of, if not actual, corruption. The court basically said that the government did a bad job of relying on that, so it will be overturned. (See pages 32-36 of the ruling).

Even worse: On the bottom of page 38, the court recognizes that for profit, and non-profit, corporations are not the same, yet are treated the same by Austin. Yet rather than narrow the ruling of Austin, it was fully overturned.

Once you overturn Austin, on page 50, and take the logic errors seen earlier, there is no reason not to reach the conclusion of the court. But it's the wrong conclusion, reached without properly considering both sides, and full of reasoning errors.

But this is the nugget that needs to be addressed in an amendment to overturn this decision. So, this is what the second round of proposed amendment starts with.

Can corporations be subject to jail or execution? Should they?

2010-03-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

Over at The Archdruid Report, there's an interesting take on corporate responsibility:

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2010/01/housebreaking-corporations.html

The kernel of that is in two points:

First, something which I would agree with, but use somewhat different wording:

Still, the most obvious difference between corporate persons and natural persons these days is that the corporate kind are noticeably more antisocial. They pursue their purposes – primarily, making money – with a single-mindedness and a lack of concern for consequences that, in natural persons, would be accurately labeled psychopathic; they’ve proven themselves consistently willing to lie, cheat, steal, and kill whenever the likely return on these acts outweighs the risk of punishment.

Can you force an insane person to be committed to a mental institute? Used to be yes; now it seems to be no. Can a psychopath be locked up if they present a danger to others? Can a corporation that acts in a manner that causes danger to others be locked up? What does it mean to be locked up?

One popular proposal would subject corporations to regular review by some independent body which could annul the charter of any corporation that refused to be properly housebroken, forcing its dissolution. What would keep this body honest in the face of the fantastic potential for corruption, the proponents of this notion do not say, but there’s another issue here: we’ve actually got a tolerably effective way of responding to antisocial behavior; we just don’t apply it to corporate persons the way we do to natural persons.

Sadly, I have no solution to the corruption issue, and fear that this cure would be worse than the disease. What about review by the courts? Archdruid has an even better answer at that point:

This is why natural persons who are convicted of felonies, by and large, can’t get away with just paying a fine; they go to jail, or if the crime is heinous enough and it happens in a jurisdiction with capital punishment, they die. While it has its failings, this approach to antisocial behavior generally works a good deal more effectively than the wergild principle.

From this perspective, the problem with corporate persons is simple enough: the only risk they run in breaking the law is that they have to pay wergild, and that doesn’t constrain antisocial behavior any more effectively now than it did in Anglo-Saxon times.

A little history since I'm taking away some context: "the earliest version of English common law, from which our American legal system descends, operated entirely on the basis of fines. The principle of wergild, as it was called, gave each person a cash value". If you can pay the fine, you can get away with anything. We've had similar things in this country at times; pay a fee to support the war, and avoid the draft ("There's no difference between a conscript and a convict"), etc.

Archdruid even goes so far to recommend jail, or dissolution (death) for corporations that break the law. Jail consists of the government taking over the corporation, possibly firing people at the top, stock losing all value (dividends, voting rights, etc) during this time. Profits go to the government. Death even includes creditors getting zero; all assets sold at auction, funds going first to victim restitution, etc.

Is this a good idea? I like the idea -- the kernel is great. But the execution is horrible.

Consider one company at the start of this whole economic mess. A bank, that was in the business of "junk loans". Instead of junk bonds, many of which would be worthless, you had junk bond funds -- lots and lots of junk bonds, so that even with some worthless, the whole group paid well. Now take that same approach to home loans. Lots of loans, many worthless, sold and packaged as a group.

One Monday, that investment bank was $120 per share. Employees there were required to keep their retirement package in, at least in part, company stock.

By next monday, the banking regulators had shut it down. They turned down a $4 per share offer, for a $2 per share offer. They wanted the death of the bank to hurt.

But they wound up hurting people whose job required them to invest in that bank, more than people who had the choice to invest in that bank.

What's the problem?
1. Lack of information. Had the true state of Bear Stearns been known, there's no way it would have had a share value of $120.
2. Lack of choice. Employees that are forced to choose from a company's choice of stock investment options are unfairly hurt by this.

Archdruid also makes the same mistake that the SCOTUS made -- the confusion between "corporation" and "Corporation that exists to make profit". Note that I'm also trying to distinguish "Corporation that makes profit on behalf of shareholders, publicly traded". A private corporation really does look like a group of people getting together as a group to excersize the rights of people as a group.

Maybe private corporations need to lose the liability limits that public corporations have. More rights comes with more responsibilities. Isn't that what we teach our children?

Is that what corporations are today? Children that have no parents?

Can a strict constitutionalist really be in favor of limiting free speech?

2010-03-07T14:18:00.000-08:00

So this is something that may seem like a shock. Can a strict constitutionalist, like me, really be in favor of restricting free speech?

What would happen if you had truly unrestricted free speech and freedom of the press?

The 7 words decision would be overturned.
Prisoners would be allowed to publish papers telling the world about their situation.
Prisons would not be able to restrict access to computers, or computer discussion forms; in fact, it could be argued that they would be required to provide computer access for prisoners to write blogs or participate in discussions about the treatment of prisoners.
6-12 year olds, in elementary school, would have the right to speak out against their teachers, or engage in "learning strikes".
Publication of books, or games, or computer programs, etc, to teach law breaking would be unrestricted --

States could not restrict the teaching of Lock Picking, but anyone could provide very realistic training tools, games, online sites, etc, such that anyone could be expected to be able to pick most consumer locks and enter any residence
Books on how to kill a person would be legal
Posting of advertisements seeking hitmen, or offering hitman services, would be legal.
NB: This doesn't mean the act of killing would be illegal, but the advertisement would be just more freedom of the press.

Do I think that this is a good thing?

Interestingly enough, while a book on how to kill someone may be bannable, a program on how to break into a computer program is not only not bannable, but a standard tool for testing your computer system for basic security leaks. At least, until you run it at work -- then you can be convicted of three felony counts. That's not a lie -- a computer admin, newly hired, was sued by the company he worked for, after running COPS on the system to test it for security issues.

The book on killing someone? While I don't have the case to cite, this happened while I was growing up, and was reported in the Los Angeles times.

Lock picking? We locked ourselves out of a building. Standard $10 doorlock. Had to get a professional lockpick out. I wanted to watch him, to learn how to do this myself; he told me that state law prohibited him from letting me watch.

So do we have freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of teaching today?

To a larger degree than any other country, yes.
Absolute? No.

Should this be absolute? I'll leave that as an open question.

Discussions this week, at XKCD...

2010-03-07T14:01:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of discussion on this topic this week at XKCD
http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=57164

What is clear seems to be that this amendment needs to be broken up into several:

1. Some review on supreme court decisions (see Steven's dissension, as well as the logic errors I pointed out in the XKCD thread)
2. Some partial overturning of the ruling (The spending by Citizen's United is valid; the decision to overturn all corporate restrictions is not).
3. Entirely separate, restrictions on the claimed rights of corporations.

The rest of the amendment

2010-03-01T23:54:00.000-08:00

Two parts here. First, a few sections need minor fixes. Second, the second half is now presented.

First, the fixes. Bold is added text; ~~strikethrough is removed text~~

Section 2:

A: People, or person, as used in the constitution, refers to naturalpeople. It explicitly excludes robots, artificial intelligence devices,corporations, or any other created entity. The 10th amendment does not grant rights to these entities.
---
As much as I'd like to leave that bolded section out, and claim that it's implied, I feel much better with it explicit. Courts have a history of not reading implications / implied conclusions of the constitution.

Section 2B has bad wording. It needs improvement, and I don't know how to write it better.

Section 2D is added:

D: People can, as a group, act with rights as if they wereindividuals. This does not mean that all groups of people, of any form,have all rights of people. It means that the people, or group ofpeople, can take actions as individuals or as groups of individualswith the same rights. Note that a corporation is actually differentthan the group of people that are the owners/shareholders of thatcorporation.

The supreme court has ruled that people do not lose their rights just because they form a group; that's valid. That does not mean that all groups maintain all rights. A corporation isn't just a group; it's something more than, and different from, the group of people; as such it does not have the rights of people.

Section 4:
Section 4B is added:

B: The pretense of the courts that the government cannot be sued unless it agrees to be sued is in violation of the constitution, specifically amendment 1's guarantee of the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. This right is not lost just because the government is the cause of the grievance; in fact, such abuse, or claims thereof, of government power must be the priority investigation of the judicial branch.

I hate the thought that this is needed, as it seems obvious; yet apparently the supreme court felt otherwise.

*** Still needed: Something to address / deal with investigations of the judicial branch.
It isn't clear that the Judicial branch can police itself; given the claim that sitting judges are immune from suit, combined with judges that break the law for personal gain, means that there is a need to petition the government for redress of grievances of the judicial branch, and no branch of government that is currently able to handle such petitions.

Section 5:
The start of section 5 is changed:
Article One ~~grants~~ states "All legislative

Minor wording correction.

And now, the rest:

Section 6. Nature of common law

A. Common law existing prior to the adoption of the constitution that has not been overridden by either the constitution itself or any law passed by congress -- including regulations passed validly by regulatory agencies approved by congress -- is valid.
B. No common law has been created after that point.
- Article one prohibits judges from creating law
- The 14th amendment prohibits judges from ruling that prior judicial rulings must stand.
- While common law has judges determining what happens in a court room, we have jury trials, congressional control of the operations of the judiciary, and a constitutional requirement that overturning of a jury decision be done according to law passed by congress.
- Consistent with repeated rulings by appeals courts and the supreme court, Jury Nullification is valid. No judge may instruct a jury otherwise.

Section 7. Default regulation for interstate commerce

A. All interstate commerce is subject to federal regulation.
B. Federal regulation cannot permit something that the federal government has no authority to do.
C. Therefore, anything subject to any federal regulation -- including any interstate commerce -- cannot do anything that the federal government cannot do.
D. Restrictions imposed on the federal government by the constitution therefore applies to any interstate commerce.
- No interstate commerce may require the adoption of private law. No forced contracts may create anything that behaves as a law.
- This does not apply to negotiated contracts, provided that any base law being overridden is acknowledged as such.
- No interstate commerce may violate the constitution, nor override any rights of the constitution.
- Interstate commerce between people is not subject to the limitation of federal authority, as the 10th amendment grants that authority to the people. However, it is still subject to the laws of the federal government, any regulations passed by the federal government, and the laws of all states involved.

E. The 10th amendment grants all authority for actions prohibited from the federal government, and by extension from interstate commerce, to the states and the people.
- State law, applied uniformly, affects all contracts where one of the parties is inside the state.
- The pretense that the only state laws that apply are those of the originating party's state is void. Parties have the ability to not contract with someone in another state. By choosing to enter into such contract, all parties agree to the laws of all involved states.

Section 8: Existing constitution

A: In all areas where this amendment simply clarifies or validates the existing constitution, even to the extent that it overrides any precedents of rulings of the Supreme Court, this is not considered new law, and has full retroactive validity, including actual and punative damage awards by courts.
B: Section 3B is recognized as being new; the rest of this amendment is intended as clarification of existing constitution, even when it overrides court rulings that are in violation of the existing constitution.

First draft of proposed amendment

2010-02-21T23:35:00.000-08:00

This does not look like typical amendments to the constitution. But this gives us a place to start from. Please, make comments.

This is half of it.

Amendment nnn

Section 1. Intent and purpose
The intent and purpose of this amendment is to clarify the relationship and relative powers of the constitution, the judiciary and legislative branches, the relative rights of individuals, groups, and corporations, and the effect of interstate commerce by corporations and state jurisdiction.

Additionally, this amendment seeks to clarify the meaning of "people" as used in the 14th amendment and enforce the 3rd section of the 14th amendment.

Section 2. Definition of "people"
A: People, or person, as used in the constitution, refers to natural people. It explicitly excludes robots, artificial intelligence devices, corporations, or any other created entity.

B: The 14th amendment grants representation in congress based on persons; no such enumeration to date has counted corporations or other artificial legal entity for representation. It is recognized as existing constitution that corporations are not persons.
C: The court decision, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, does not make a ruling on the issue of personhood of the corporation in question. It does not set any precedence in this issue. In declaring that the court would not hear arguments on the issue because all members of the court were prejudiced, it recognized that no such fair hearing could be held, and ruled instead narrowly on the issue of tax value of land and the improvements thereof.

Section 3. Section 3 of the 14th amendment
1. The 14th amendment, section three, states, "No person ... having previouslytaken an oath ... to support the Constitution of theUnited States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion againstthe same". It is recognized that "insurrection or rebellion against the same" includes both taking official action of office in defiance of, or that contradicts, the Constitution of the United States, as well as inaction when required by the duties of office; and that this section of the 14th amendment permits removal from office for failing to uphold the oath of office.
2. A majority vote of either house of Congress shall suffice to act as an indictment of this issue. Per the 14th amendment, Congress may pass legislation to determine the manner of trial; until such legislation is passed, the rules of impeachment of Article One shall be used.
3. It is explicitly recognized that Congress may pass legislation, by two-thirds of each house, placing limitations on the removal from office. Lacking any such legislation, the 14th amendment does not permit any failure to uphold the oath of office, but requires 100% perfect performance to avoid indictment, and whatever standard is held by either the Senate's impeachment process, or whatever legislation is passed by Congress to implement said trial. Congress is advised to pass some sort of legislation to recognize "good effort" or the fact that humans are not infallible, and is further advised to use the "three-strikes" laws passed by states as a basis for such ruling -- three errors over a person's lifespan with no forgiveness of such errors. Should the states change their "three-strikes" laws to permit forgiveness of errors, then Congress should adjust such legislation to match.

Section 4. Authority of the constitution over all three branches of government
None of the branches of government -- including the supreme court -- may issue any ruling or decision that contradicts the constitution. The only valid method for modifying the constitution is the amendment process of Article Five. No past decision of any age that contradicts the constitution shall remain valid upon discovery and challenge.

Section 5.
Article One grants "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States". No other branch of government has any authority to create law, or do to any other legislative act identified in Article One. The "Duck Test" shall be used to determine this --- if an action of either the Judiciary or the Executive branch results in something that behaves like a law, affecting all of the United States, then it is in violation of Article One unless Congress has delegated such authority and such delegation is valid. No new authority to delegate is created by this clause.

This is about half of what's needed; more to come.

The goals of an amendment dealing with rights of corporations

2010-02-18T21:58:00.000-08:00

This is the first page of this blog dealing with an attempt to write a proposal for a constitutional amendment to address the recent Supreme Court ruling.

I don't know how to write a good amendment.
I do know what I want it to cover.
So I'm putting this out to try to get others to help.

Proposal for constitutional amendment

Intent: Address recent supreme court ruling granting rights to corporations

The central view here is that corporations do not have rights. The 10th amendment specifically assigns rights to people and states, only.

Intent: Permit people to maintain rights as a group

The SC ruled that people may come together as a group and still maintain rights. There is no issue with this -- it is valid. But that doesn't mean that all possible groupings must have all possible rights. A group of protesters that engage in a political protest, and group arrest, is one thing; a corporation that cannot go to jail is something else.
Or does a corporation, upon existing for 18 years, gain the right to vote?
The key: People have rights. Groups of people have rights as the people. Corporations are fictional entities that do not themselves have rights, while the people in those corporations do.

Intent: Clarify that judges have no authority to create law

Article one gives authority to create law only to congress.
The key here is the "Duck test" (aka: If it floats like a duck, and weighs the same as a duck, ...) : If it looks like a law, restricts like a law, or otherwise behaves like a law, then only congress can do it. A judge cannot do it.

Intent: Clarify that the constitution overrides older common law that it contradicts

Common law that disagrees with the constitution is invalid under the constitution.

Intent: Clarify that corporations have no authority to create law

Contract "law" is mostly common law, not statute law. Most of it is NOT law passed by congress. Much of it is created by judges after the adoption of the constitution, and thus wrong.
Contracts that are freely entered into by both parties -- with both parties able to determine what they will and will not do -- is one thing.
Laws that state "Base contracts must do X; agreements to change X must be agreed by both parties, and compensation given for giving up rights granted" are OK.
Contracts that are not freely modifiable -- contracts where a business basically states "If you want to business with us, then these are the rules we will use, you have no say" are effectively creating law. Such contracts are almost always one-sided and unfair. Such contracts always pass the "duck test" of something that looks and behaves like a law that is not created by congress.
Such contracts violate article 1 of the federal constitution. If it looks like a law, restricts like a law, or otherwise behaves like a law, then only congress can do it. A corporation cannot do it.

Intent: Enforce the 14th amendment

The 14th amendment actually calls for the removal of federal officials that violate the constitution.

Intent: Enforce that the constitution is more important than prior judicial rulings

According to the 14th amendment, if you take an oath of office to uphold the constitution, and place anything else more important, you can be removed from office.

Any judge that claims that a ruling of the Supreme Court is more important than the constitution is in violation of this.
This means that any trial court judge has both the authority and the requirement to overturn any Supreme Court ruling if the judge is of the opinion that it violates the constitution.

Intent: Enforce the constitutional structure of federal law: Statute law, with jury convictions, and inherited common law

It is absolutely amazing that judges claim we live under common law.
* Common law has judges making laws -- article one prohibits this.
* Common law has the previous rule of courts as the most important -- the 14th amentment prohibits this
* Common law has guilt determined by judges -- we have both juries, and a constitutional requirement that any overturning of a jury decision be done according to law. In all areas, the constitution puts the representatives of the people in charge of the judges.
* Common law has judges in charge. We have laws passed by the people, with jury oversight in charge, according to the constitution. Judges have routinely given themselves more power and authority, and less and less to juries. Note that in California, it is common for judges to instruct juries that if the facts fit the law, they must return guilty. Federal appeals courts, and the supreme court, have consistently ruled that jury nullification -- returning innocent when the law is wrong -- is valid, yet judges permit themselves to lie to reduce the power and authority of juries.

Equally, we do inherit common law -- British CL as of 1776, and additional common law created between 1776 and either the creation of the constitution in 1787 or its adoption in 1789. Note that the constitution explicitly acknowledges the existence of, and right of jury trial in, any case involving such common law (and more than $20.)

Intent: Restrict interstate corporations to actually follow the laws

The goals here:
1. All corporations must follow the laws of their home state.
2. If they act/advertise/solicit/accept business across state lines, then they must follow federal law and regulations, and the laws and regulations of the destination state

This is amazing. I grew up with TV ads that routinely said "Not valid in ...", and then listed a number of states, adding "or where void or prohibited". It would be like saying, "I'm in Nevada. Gambling is legal. You can place a phone call to me, and make a gambling bet over the phone according to Nevada law from anywhere in the country". That would never pass the courtroom test.

Yet apparently, that is the way things now work. You can be a credit card company, based in one state, and lend money to someone in another state, and force them to use your laws, and ignore any federal restrictions or regulations until/unless congress passes a law otherwise.

Even if the state you lend into -- California -- has officially determined that lending to someone in California is subject to California laws. Yes, according to the comptroller of currency, if it's in the un-alterable contract, and supported by the law of state X, then the credit card company can do whatever it wants, regardless of your state's laws, regardless of the validity of the contract (creating private law in violation of article 1, being a one-sided agreement not subject to alteration or negotiation), or anything else.
3. Recognize that interstate corporations are the most restricted legal entity possible in our system:
* They do not have all the rights of individuals.
* Acting interstate, they are subject to federal regulations and laws, and as such cannot do anything that the federal government cannot grant (amendment 10 reserves that to people and states).
* They are subject to restrictions of two states and the federal government.

Intent:Establish that the existing constitution does not permit interstate corporations to do more than the government can

The Treasury Department routinely hires private corporations to do things -- the two biggest are the federal reserve bank and the internal revenue service -- both of which are private corporations. Both of which try to do, and do, things that the government would not be able to, claiming that as corporations they are not subject to restrictions of the government.
The idea of "We'll hire someone to do what we cannot" is flawed.
NB: Hiring a corporation is not by itself a bad thing. Hiring a corporation and then never firing it no matter how much it messes up is. (*) Refusing to issue guidelines underwhich another corporation can say "We can do it better for less" is. Hiring a corporation beholden to private stock holders, rather than requiring that it treat citizens of the united states as the stockholders, is.
(*): The US Supreme court, when asked to rule on the legality of the IRS doing levy, ruled that the constitution does not prohibit private companies from doing levy when congress has that authority and delegates it to the private company. It only requires that the company provide due process, and determined that as long as the IRS's regulations satisfy due process, and the IRS never makes any errors that compromise due process, then it is valid. Do you really think that the IRS has a zero error rate, as required by the courts? Or do you think that the people affected by it can't afford to sue it. What do you think the backlog against the US will be when the US's agent is found to be in violation and due for penalties? What is the risk to the US from a class action suit against the IRS? Answer: The courts have ruled that you can't sue the government unless it agrees to be sued (even if its agents mess up) -- why? That is not in the constitution.

Intent: All of the above is existing constitution, not new changes, despite any invalid court ruling violating the above

Lacking this clause, corporations will defend their actions up til now as "Perfectly OK". We need to make sure that this is not OK; that illegal and unconstitutional actions taken by corporations prior to today are still considered actionable and illegal, and punishable.

Intent: Give authority under the 14th amendment to remove officials who violate the oath of office to the House of Representatives

Right now it isn't clear who has it.

It cannot stay with the senate -- not only do they almost never impeach federal officials who need it, but the recent filibuster actions make it clear that the senate cannot be relied on for action.
This is new.

Welcome and introduction

2010-02-18T21:44:00.000-08:00

This blog is properly titled "Impeach the president: The political and economic blog of a strict constitutionalist". I have been looking at creating this blog for about 5 years now.

I am not picking on Obama. Since I started paying attention during the Reagan years, every president has violated the oath of office at least once a month. *EVERY* president. The oath of office requires that the president defend the constitution, and generally the president does not take action to stop bad court decisions or other issues.

What finally motivated me is this whole "Corporations have the same rights as individuals" ruling of the supreme court. (Citizens United vs The Federal Election Commission, giving corporate entities more free speech than normal people, and indicating that corporations have full rights of individuals). This is as bad as the Dred Scott decision, and will result in a constitutional amendment.

The biggest question is: Who will write it? What choices will the Senate pass on to the states? Will there be only one proposed amendment, or multiple?

This is what actually drove me to start this blog. I want to make sure that all the issues that lead up to this bad decision by the Supreme Court are addressed and fixed. And unlike most lawmakers who just say "Here's the answer", I want help. I want feedback and discussion with people, not just lobbyists.

I am a strict constitutionalist. I believe that the 10th amendment limits the federal government like handcuffs, and then gives the leftover rights to states and individuals. Not the corporations. It is this view -- the second half -- that separates me from people like Ron Paul.

I believe that the constitution does NOT grant rights. It recognizes rights. The 9th amendment makes it clear that there are more rights than those recognized by the constitution. Any time someone says "The constitution doesn't give you the right to X", they are really saying "The government controls you except where the constitution says otherwise".

That's not how our system is supposed to work. And any time a president lets a court or other official get away with that, they are not defending the constitution from internal threats to it.

Is violating the oath of office an impeachable offense? Until the 14th amendment, that answer is no. The 14th amendment, second half, permits removal from office of officials who take the oath and then fail to uphold it.

Is impeachment bad? No. Impeachment is no different than a threatened "vote of no confidence". An impeachment vote is nothing more than "Do we think that this is a violation". It is the equivalent of an indictment. I believe that every president should get at least 1 such vote per year, probably several per year. I believe that the risk or threat of such a vote should happen multiple times a year. An actual 50%+ vote should happen perhaps once every 10-20 years, and an actual conviction? Maybe twice in the last 50 years.

But that constant threat of removal from office for failing to do the job is critical. Without it, we have the current state of government.