If you’re like me (and you are, sometimes), you’re having trouble making sense of our base systems these days. There appears to be a breakdown of epic proportions of even the most basic system functions, and how they are supposed to work. So, I thought I’d address them as how they SHOULD operate. Let’s dig.
In a perfect world (limited to the United States), the following statements would be unshakable truths:
1. The US Constitution, as amended, is still the ultimate law of the land. No laws passed by Congress, nor by State legislatures, can be valid if they do not conform to its limits. The first 10 Amendments, known as the Bill Of Rights, are not suggestions, but pure limits on what Congress can or cannot do. Violations of these Amendments should be at the least an immediate loss of position, at the worst, instigate a criminal proceeding against whomever did the violating.
2. The US legal system is blind and impartial. All who come before it will be treated equally, regardless of race, sex, religion, wealth, or political party.
3. The Executive Branch of the US government enforces laws that are passed by Congress, and signed by the President. There is a method, known as Executive Order, that can clarify the priorities and methods of enforcing existing law, but there is NO method for the Executive Branch to CREATE law. Edicts, mandates, and other declarations are how tyrants and dictators rule their subjects. They should never occur here.
4. The Legislative Branch of the US government is responsible for writing new or changing existing bills. These bills have no force of law, unless passed by a majority of BOTH houses (The House of Representatives and The Senate), followed by either a signature of the sitting US President, or obtaining enough votes in both houses to override a Presidential veto.
5. The Judicial Branch of the US government is responsible for interpreting the Constitutionality of new law, and presiding over trials. Disputes between States can come before the Supreme Court, as can conflicting lower court decisions.
6. The Cabinet level positions within the Executive Branch are in place to advise the President of their particular expertise. All persons within the Cabinet (and their associated organizations) serve at the pleasure of the head of the Executive Branch: the President. At no time should these agencies become partisan or political. They each have a scope of responsibility, which may sometimes overlap, but the final word and decision is that of the President. NOTHING in the Executive Branch should have power over the other two Branches, and vice versa.
7. The mainstream media is protected from Congressional pressure via the First Amendment. But that protection comes with responsibility. The ‘press’ should be held to a truth standard, and where broken, there should be severe penalties. We have allowed the media to be so slanted in its reporting, it could be construed as an arm of a specific political party. This results in worthless reporting, ignoring what they do not wish to report upon, as well as emphasizing things they do, even if factually incorrect. This practice should remove all 1st Amendment protections for those that do not do their jobs.
8. Money is an issue in politics, as it has always been. But we are in uncharted territory these days. Facebook, Google, and Twitter, among others, have accumulated such wealth, that they can shield themselves from normal anti-trust laws by controlling enough of Congress. This is a failure of the system as a whole, to the detriment of the entire US population. Not sure the fix here, other than limits of ‘lobbying’, but this problem will get worse if not addressed.
9. The United States is responsible for the United States, not every other country in the world. And so, it can and must define what is the proper method of attaining citizenship, along with policing its borders. Willful ignorance of existing immigration laws is a criminal act by those ignoring those laws, and should be treated accordingly. By ignoring such already passed laws, it puts our economy, our social safety net programs, and our national security at dangerous risk levels. That it hasn’t caused a 9/11-type scenario is likely a matter of blind luck and time.
10. Congress has a yearly ‘budget’. This is not a suggestion, but a limit on what can be spent in a current fiscal year, per each function. The Executive Branch also has a ‘budget’. That the word budget is in quotes is due to the complete irrelevance of it, in both branches. Not only does Congress submit spending bills that have no relationship to reality, the Executive Branch operates as if there are no limits at all (see: usage of military transports to ferry illegal immigrants across the US. Whose ‘budget’ paid for that? Who approved it? And so on.). The net result of such wanton disregard for the US taxpayer is a $30T National Debt, and basic, necessary functions seem to have to fight for minimal funding.
11. States and cities have an obligation to protect their respective citizens. That is the second half of the tax/service social contract. Yet both cities and States are completely ignoring their responsibilities here. Some defiantly ignore immigration law, calling themselves ‘sanctuaries’. How this is not criminal activity is beyond me. Some ‘defund’ their police departments, or issue ‘stand down’ orders during riot conditions—again, abdicating the responsibility of protecting the people that paid taxes for that specific protection. Other cities have declined to prosecute crimes under a specific dollar amount, including shoplifting, overnight ‘camping’, public decency, drug possession and usage, and so on. The expected explosion of those very behaviors has already occurred. Since protections are apparently optional, is the ‘tax’ portion of that equation now voluntary?
12. Our education system should be the envy of the entire world, based upon resources allocated to it, including some incredible, selfless, individual teachers. Instead, it is a nearly complete failure. After a distinct inability to teach students necessary basics to succeed in society, including math, English, science, History, and geography (among others), the education establishment decided instead to broaden the curriculum to include social engineering that benefits no one but the teachers of such subjects. The US Department of Education even states in its charter that it should NOT influence local curriculum—so, instead, it threatens to defund any district not teaching what they want taught. This is another example of blatant legal slight-of-hand. They don’t choose course content, except they do. We are creating an entire generation of graduates that are completely unprepared for the real world, and it is only getting worse. Our STEM scores vs other countries slide yearly, but we know about all kinds of gender, patriarchy, and social constructs that have zero useful place in children’s minds.
These are my first dozen declaratives. As you can see by modern news stories, these statements of fact have been completely destroyed by politicians, media members, and corporate entities, over the last few decades. I do not know how to return the toothpaste back into the tube, but at its current pace, the Representative Constitutional Republic known as the United States of America is at grave risk of joining the other failed governmental projects of history.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article! Feel free to add comments (good or bad) in the box below. In addition, there is a link at the bottom of the article to view other items I’ve written at Global Liberty Media. Enjoy!
