Why Americans Need a Right to a Future

For starters, the right to a future is not some sci-fi concept–although it sounds like it. The right to a future means that each of us has right to expect that our government will place sufficient resources into prediction, prevention, protection and planning. The planning must necessarily include the possible consequences of the failure of government leadership to anticipate and plan for possible scenarios whose occurrence(s) would have significant consequences to any, some, or all of the security, educational, economic/environmental, and media institutions of society.

The right to a future means that it is each person’s right to expect that government has policies and practices designed to anticipate both the short term and long term effects of its laws and actions upon the individual and society in the context of the public good.

It is time for all Americans to ratchet up their imaginations in their duties as citizen bosses. After all, the 9/11 Commission’s biggest criticism of America’s preparedness for a terrorist act was its lack of imagination. In essence, that means all of us citizen slackers and our government leaders failed to anticipate what seemed to be apparent after the fact: that Bin Laden and his zealots were determined to cause great harm to our nation and people, having sufficient funds and ability to accomplish their goal. I assume that millions read a similar plot in Tom Clancy’s’ 1994 best selling novel, Debt of Honor, in which Japanese fanatics hijack and fly a commercial airliner into the Washington capitol with Congress in session. I found it difficult to believe the common excuse of high ranking government officials for lack of preparedness was that no one could have anticipated what happened to the World Towers.

The right to a future means that infrastructure is maintained by the government. Witness the 2005 failure of the levies following Hurricane Katrina and the 2007 collapse of the Minneapolis/St. Paul I-35 Bridge. The right to a future means that the responsible governmental agencies and Congress are prepared for the potential human tragedy following a “perfect storm” natural disaster. Again, witness the consequences to the people of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
The right to a future means that government agencies should be required to place a small percentage of their budget in reserve before allocating all of their resources for the fiscal year. This policy would encourage savings by government agencies. Each year’s savings could be applied to pay down the national debt.
The right to a future means that before the FCC backs the plans of mega media companies to consolidate power at all levels of a community, its priority consideration must be the possible and probable cultural consequences of media consolidation and the importance of maintaining cultural and media diversity.
The right to a future means that every citizen has a right to preventive medical care. It is not adequate medical care to simply plan a reaction to sickness. Each person is entitled to be a part of a health policy that places an emphasis on prevention and health maintenance.

The right to a future means that the federal government needs to invest more funds into an educational system that puts more resources into non-academic vocational education and offers flexibility to allow for individual change, differences in speed in learning, so that all of its citizens can have access to a lifelong education.

The right to a future means that Americans owe it to one another to provide large portions of their country where preserving the naturalness of the environment for themselves and their descendants is prioritized over policies that encourage mining, forestry, or other development policies that can cause any kind of damage, including scenic, to the environment.

The above examples are just some of the reasons why I believe American needs to amend the Constitution and recognize the right to a future.

Posted on 25th February at 11:12 am - 0 Your Comments

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Why the Rights of the Declaration of Independence Belong in the Constitution

I will use this inaugural blog to express some thoughts on what will be a frequent topic of mine: human rights. In particular, I offer an obvious rationale why the rights of the Declaration of Independence ought to be included in the Constitution by way of the Ninth Amendment.

Before the American Constitution was ratified in 1788, there was resistance to ratification from Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York delegations as the proposed Constitution contained no declaration of fundamental rights. In order to gain ratification Federalist advocates promised a Bill of Rights, which was drafted primarily by James Madison and based on Virginia’s Declaration of Rights. The Bill of Rights passed Congress in 1789 and was submitted to the states for ratification. National ratification was secured by December 15, 1791.

The Ninth Amendment is unlike any other amendment in that its subject matter is about unstated rights. It was added due to the concern that the Bill of Rights would be interpreted to be the people’s only rights. The Ninth Amendment reads:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

When I first read the 9th Amendment, the first question I had was: What are the other [retained] rights referred to in the Ninth Amendment? To answer that, I only had to ask one more question: What other rights were generally recognized and retained by Americans in 1791? The answer was easy. In 1791, there was only one highly revered national document, the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence declares certain rights to be “inalienable”, among them, the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It also refers to other fundamental goals of safety, equality, happiness, and governments “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” (which I interpret as the individual right to power).

The Declaration’s right to alter or abolish the form of government when government is destructive of its human rights goals is the only one of the Declaration’s eight rights to be mentioned directly, with restrictions, in the Constitution. Article V states the requirements for amending (altering or abolishing) the Constitution (form of government).

My position is that all of the rights of the Declaration should be incorporated into the Constitution based on the logic of the Ninth Amendment. That is not to say that reasonable minds will not differ over the meaning of such rights as the right to life, the pursuit of happiness, safety, and happiness. The significance of these rights will ultimately be decided by the laws and policies of government and decisions of the Supreme Court.

There is no simple process for incorporating human rights into the Constitution. Such a change will either take a Supreme Court decision to interpret the Constitution with a completely different perspective or a constitutional amendment. I would rather watch mountain ranges crumble than wait for the Supreme Court to recognize all of the rights of the Declaration of Independence. Nor, do I anticipate any movement from Congress. This is why the Constitution should be amended to add the rights of the Declaration of Independence.

Posted on 4th February at 4:23 pm - 0 Your Comments

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Would America Be Different if the Rights of the Declaration of Independence Were in the Constitution?

Consider the fundamental question: What is the purpose of government? You will not find the answer in the Constitution but in the Declaration of Independence. That should not be too surprising as the Constitution is mostly an organizational and procedural document defining the three branches of government, their powers and how those powers are applied. The Declaration of Independence is America’s national substantive document; stating that the purpose of government is to secure the people’s rights and enshrining democracy as the ruling political practice of American government.

Specifically, the Declaration states, “all men are created equal…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….” (My emphasis.) So, 1) the purpose of government is to secure the rights of the people and, 2) the powers of government originate with the people. “Consent of the governed” is a statement of the individual right to power exercised to grant government the powers to secure the rights of the people through a representative democracy.

Power is not discussed by politicians or by media as a fundamental right. But then those in power have seldom been uninhibited egalitarians. The right to power means that every person has the right to participate in the political decisions of his or her country and has the right to join with others and make decisions affecting the nation. The word, “democracy”, means, “people rule.” Governments “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” is another way of saying that every individual has the right to participate in democracy.

The first stated right of the Declaration states is equality (“all men are created equal”). Equality is the foundation of justice and fairness and the Baker v. Carr concept of “one person, one vote.” One wonders whether the term “equal protection of the laws” of the 14th amendment would have been necessary if the right to equality had been in the Constitution almost from its inception. Would the Civil War have been ignited even earlier had there been a constitutional confrontation over the right to equality? Would the difference in compensation for the same work by men and women be as wide as it is had Americans been aware of the right to equality since 1791?

The Declaration next refers to the “inalienable” rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What these three rights mean is, not surprisingly, open to interpretation. It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has not had 200 years to wrestle with these fundamental rights’ meanings and applications. The course of American social and cultural history might have been changed had the right to life been interpreted to mean effectively that capital punishment was prohibited by the Constitution or that the right to life exists for a human embryo.

Would the right to liberty have been interpreted to mean that music and the creative arts would have had a greater share of the federal budget or that music and art would not have been the classes cut first in educational budget crunches or that more government funds would have been allocated to Research and Development if the right to Liberty would have been equated with innovation and experimentation? Would marijuana have been legalized if the right to liberty were viewed as a right to one’s culture or lifestyle? Would the “pursuit of happiness” have been interpreted to mean that every person has a right to a lifelong education?

The Declaration of Independence states that governments should be organized around the people’s safety and happiness. Had our Supreme Court been interpreting the right to safety since the eighteenth century, it is conceivable that the Katrina governmental malfeasance might never have occurred. It is also possible that the right to safety might have been interpreted to mean that each person has the right to medical coverage and that the plight of 45-50 million Americans without adequate health care would not exist. It is possible that America’s infrastructure would be regularly maintained if there were a constitutional right to safety.

My opinion is that the right to happiness is a goal achieved when all of the rights of the individual are encouraged and secured. This topic will be covered in a later blog.

By my count, only one of the rights of the Declaration is recognized directly in the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights and only one right, the right to power, is implied. The right to alter or amend the form of government is stated—with strict requirements – in Article V of the Constitution which states the procedures for amending the Constitution.

In conclusion, it is likely social attitudes and laws would have been different had the rights of the Declaration of Independence been recognized by the Constitution. Arguably, the rights of the Declaration are included in the Constitution by virtue of the Ninth Amendment, but the Supreme Court has not yet dealt with this issue. If one is sincere about including the rights of the Declaration in the Constitution, the only logical choice is to amend the Constitution.

Posted on 4th February at 4:18 pm - 0 Your Comments

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Do Americans Need a Right to Know?

An essential component of an effective, working democracy is an informed citizenry. Unless citizens are aware of how their government is functioning, they cannot adequately criticize or give recognition for work well done, know the extent to which special interests are influencing government, or hold government and its leaders accountable.
Here is what openthegovernment.org statement of values says about government openness:

“The public’s right to know promotes equal and equitable access to government, encourages integrity in official conduct, and prevents undisclosed and undue influence from special interests.”

The Bush Presidency has been the most secretive administration in our nation’s history, even reclassifying previously unclassified documents from prior administrations. According to openthegovernment.org, in 2003, the federal government created 60%more secrets in 2003 than 2001, a total of 14 million new documents. Incidentally, it is not inexpensive to classify and retain documents. Openthegovernment.org reports that “for every tax dollar spent declassifying old secrets, the Government spends $185.00 creating and securing old secrets.” According to government statistics, the amount spent classifying documents in 2006 was $8, 200,000,000.00

Here are some highlights of the unprecedented level of secrecy of the Bush administration. As catalogued by openthegovernment.org.

▪From 2001-2006, the “state secrets” privilege has been raised 39 times, more than double the average of the previous 24 years. All it takes to invoke state secrecy is for the administration to assert that there is a “reasonable danger” to national security if the information is released.

▪ In 2000, 45 percent of government was awarded under full and open competition; by 2006, only 34 percent of contract dollars was awarded under such open competition. 25.9 percent ($107.5billion) of government contracts was awarded without any competition.

▪Through 2006, President Bush has issued at least 151 signing statements, challenging 1149 provisions of laws and questioning the constitutionality of 126 laws. According to the Constitution, the President is obligated to faithfully execute the laws. How can the public know whether the laws are being faithfully executed when the President has disputed so many laws? This, of course, raises issues about signing statements, themselves. 2concon.org proposes a constitutional amendment to bar the legal validity of signing statements.

▪In 2006, the number of original classification decisions by the federal government was 231, 995.

▪ In 2006, over 60% of the 7,189 meetings of the federal advisory committees giving scientific and technical advice to the government were completely closed to the public despite the language in the federal law governing such committees that “each advisory committee meeting shall be open to the public.”

▪On three separate occasions President Bush has invoked “executive privilege”
to keep documents from Congress or to keep government officials from testifying before Congress. Despite the Supreme Court case of United States v. Nixon, discrediting the generalized use of executive privilege.

▪Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests. The number of FOIA requests was 21, 412,736 in 2006. Backlog has tripled in the last nine years. Only 12 agencies do not have a backlog of requests. One request is 20 years old. Costs of handling requests has gone up 70%.

The above examples are just some of the more widely known examples of the use of secrecy by a government that is supposed to be accountable to the people. I have not given any details of secrecy policies in state governments, which is flourishing, nor have I discussed secret patents, national security letters, the foreign intelligence surveillance court, or pseudo-classified information where the federal government controls even more federal information through vague restrictions.

My belief is that if the Constitution is amended to provide a right to know, perhaps with a proviso that there is a general presumption against government secrecy, then Congress will enact laws enabling a watchdog agency to review all decisions of classification, with the ability to revoke those decisions, then government will become more accountable as citizens become more informed.

Posted on 4th February at 4:17 pm - 0 Your Comments

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Democratize the Primaries

Democracy is the exercise of political power ruled by the people and based on principles of equality and fairness. It is ironic that both major political parties have serious anti-democratic flaws in their presidential primary election processes. After all, we live in a democratic republic and the political parties represent the people, right? Wrong. The parties represent themselves and their members and the primary goal of each party is to gain power; not necessarily with fairness. If the process were done fairly, then each citizen’s would be equal, reflecting the philosophy of one person, one vote.

The Republicans’ Winner-Take-All Flaw
Is the Republicans’ winner-take-all primary fair and equal? A vote is not equal unless it is given the same value as other votes cast in the primary. A national electoral system that arbitrarily ignores large numbers of voters is not fair as it fails to count the a vote if it is cast for any candidate other than the state’s winner. This device allows a regional (state) vote to ignore the individual’s vote for a national office. Votes for candidates should be treated equally in every state, commonwealth and territory throughout the nation. This requires that the number of delegates in a state should be earned proportionately based on the candidate’s proportion or percentage of the votes. In this respect, the Democrat Party’s primaries are sufficiently democratic and avoid the flaw of the Republican’s winner-take-all state primary.

The Democrats’ Super Delegate Flaw
Is the Super Delegate’s delegate status based on fairness or equality? Neither. The delegates are chosen by the party themselves. This is neither fair nor equal and the method fails the democracy test. The Super Delegate exists because in a tight race, the party rulers have decided that they want to make the call. The same rationale exists when a presidential candidate lacks a majority of the electoral votes. In that case, the House of Representatives make s the decision; here it is the party leadership. It is a method of control that values power of fairness and the assumption of superiority over the random objectivity of equality. For these reasons, the Super Delegate concept is anti-democratic.

What Can the Citizens Do About a Party’s Rules

Do Americans have to remain at the mercy of our leading political parties when it comes to the process of selecting the American President? Of course not. If the parties’ fail to democratize their rules for Presidential Primaries by 2011, the people could, at a 2nd Constitutional Convention propose a constitutional amendment to require all presidential candidates to have been selected by an electoral process consistent with proportionate representative democracy. Would the caucus method pass such a test? Let us leave that discussion for another time.

Posted on 4th February at 4:01 pm - 1 Your Comments

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