One important item not mentioned in the constitution is the concept that the government will be run by two gangs. The legislative body could now be replaced by an appropriate number of rubber stamps, each with an R or D on it. The executive branch, whose loyalty should be to the American people, owes his loyalty instead to an R or D gang. He often writes the laws, which pass if a majority of the correct stamp are in the legislature. The Judicial branch, which is supposed to rule on the law, is becoming a group loyal not to the law, but to the R or D gang which elected it.
L. Neil Smith proposes that the two parties are identical, and should be known as one, the Boot on Your Neck (BOYN) party. I contend that they are still two, like two street gangs, for instance the Crips and the Bloods, but the effect is the same. To support either will have the same effect, control by street gangs with little care for our welfare. Neither have any ideology other than to oppose each other, fight their turf wars, and get votes by saying something different than the other gang does.
The recent nomination of Miguel Estrada to a judgeship is absolute proof of the above. When a group of senators votes on whether a man could be a good judge solely on the criteria of whether they have an R or D stamped on their forehead, then there is no possibility that any of them are voting on whether or not he would be a good judge.
As we would be better served by a legislature with 100 senators from 100 different parties, and 435 representatives from 435 parties, and a non-partisan president, I will begin by never voting for any R or D again. This theme will recur in this blog, as it seems to me like the only answer.
I wish I had a better language with which to communicate in this blog. I must try to avoid all words whose meaning has been too corrupted to be useful. For example, war=peace. Whatever reason our President has for sending troops to the Iraq area at present, and whatever your opinions are regarding those actions, they are unlikely to result in the President's stated objective, peace. So I find it hard to use the words war or peace, when these opposites apparently mean the same thing. And war has been used in such concepts as "war on poverty", "war on (some) drugs" etc. I don't want to kill poor people, nor do I want to kill users of some drugs, so why declare war on them?
As for words which describe political thoughts, such as: right, left, communist, socialist, statist, conservative, neo-conservative, liberal..........; they have also been so twisted and perverted as to be without meaning.
I must, however, continue to use freedom and liberty according to my definitions. In the words of our President, apparently, freedom=slavery. NO! I won't give it up. Freedom, to an American, used to mean a somewhat limited right to live his life as he wished. But after Osama Bin Laden et al took down the world trade towers, our President said that was because Bin Laden hated freedom, so our President outlawed most of our freedoms for the duration of the "war on terror", which the same President said would never end.
As for which political terms I intend to use in this blog, I'll try nanny-state, a government which orders citizens to obey "for their own good" and/or police state, a government which maintains large numbers of people with badges and guns to force citizens to bend to the will of the government, again "for their own good". I may refer to those people with badges and guns as overseers, as this is the proper term for the managers of slaves.
Some last comments on language. "Czar" is a constitutionally prohibited title in America. I will not use it without quotes. "Entitlement" is a government mandated "right" to steal the earnings of one's neighbor. Again I won't use it without quotes.
There are many more words which have been perverted, but I'll start with these.
Introduction--my political point of view.
I don't like labels, as all of them have been perverted. I am a 62 year old male, who has benefitted from being an American citizen as I knew it. I believe that, of the many political systems attempted throughout human history, the American system, with its Declaration of Independence, and Constitution with its Bill of Rights, has proven to degrade slowly over more than 200 years into a system which no longer meets the needs and desires of its people. But during much of that period, America became, in many ways, the greatest country in the world.
I consider the Constitution to be obvously imperfect, as a perfect system should have survived longer, with less degradation. However, I am not myself highly learned, and look up to the great men who wrote that Constitution. So, not being sure that I or anyone else could write a document which would work better, or for a longer period of time; I would personally rather return to the principles of that document, and if anyone has improvements to suggest, use that point as a starting point for improvement, and not try to improve it until we can return to it.
If we could accomplish the above, it would be an improvement so great over what we have in 2003 that I personally cannot countenance any idea that we should not return to Constitutional principles, but should instead try to "improve" it first.
Even the concept of returning to constitutional principles would require the very difficult task of unwinding the many perversions and distortions of its principles. This would be difficult in any real world scenario, and would have to be done carefully and in the right order, unless one could make a good case, both practical and philosophical, for total revolution. For example, many feel that the Constitution does not legalize an income tax, nor is that tax consistent with freedom. While I agree with that philosophy, I feel that a practical approach requires that we eliminate illegal expenditure of our money before we totally eliminate the illegal extortion of it.
As for what I believe we want or should want, or what concepts did produce and would produce a great country, I believe in freedom, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I am fully aware of the difficulties in changing our government in any way. Either we must do so by armed revolution, or through our present political process.
Armed revolution would be long, bloody, and require far more people than presently want it. Then we would have the job of replacing it with something (or nothing) which would work better.
As for changing the present system, the only hope is leaders who aren't associated with any party with an R or a D. All of both vote in lockstep for less freedom and more control of the populace. The best hope we have is to convince enough people that any vote for any R or D is a vote for more tyranny. To combine this with a belief that one should vote for candidates who would support the Constitution, and any vote for any R or D is a vote for slavery, just might get the majority (who doesn't even vote) to support peaceful revolution.
I know the above is a "long shot", and many will disagree with me, with myriad ideas from total anarchy to a different form of statism, but I challenge anyone to present a more possible plan.