Allow me to preface by saying that America is the best nation on earth, warts and all; that it is my home, and that I love it. That said, America is broken and has been since day one. How, you may ask? It is so in that the American architecture for governance was, and remains half-baked. The Framers put together a set of feel-good ideas that are in themselves valid, but that are insufficient to the tasks to which they were set. The tasks in question were few, but very essential to the establishment and maintenance of a free land.
The question arises: what is the valid purpose of governance? The answer is clear: to protect the natural rights of every individual. There is no other valid purpose, however this single imperative leads us to the question of what, precisely, defines such defenses? What are the metes and bounds? The answers are those that the Framers failed to incorporate into the Constitution, and a grave error it was, indeed. Instead, they relied on the largely tacit assumption that the principles of English Common Law would sufficiently serve as the basis for judicial comportment, for example. They assumed that a moral people would be capable of stemming tides of incompetence and corruption. They assumed wrong.For one thing, the establishment of America set a global precedent against tyranny that had not been known for millennia, and it pissed the Tyrant off something terrible. People of the civilized world had had the Tyrant's boot on their necks for so long, they knew not in sufficient measure what it meant to be properly free, and subsequent tyrants went immediately to work to establish their comparatively petty tyrannical framework for the new land in the form of early precedents so that the people would have the least opportunity to get wise to the broader and deeper implications of what it meant to be a free human being living amid and among his fellows. Early Americans simply didn't know, save that they were freer than they had been under the king. It was all very new. and in typical human style, having secured victory over a tyrant, they then grabbed a beer and celebrated, unaware that a new set of tyrants were already hard at work to circumscribe the rights and valid prerogatives of free men to the greatest degree they felt the could get away with at the time.
It is oft quipped that fortune favors the bold. And so it was with the First Congress who, desperate to raise revenues to pay off "national" debts to foreign holders, passed the so-called "whiskey tax", a legislative step that set a deep precedent that stands to this very day and has proven itself a cancer of the deepest and most deleterious sort. And some of the people revolted against it, what we call the "whiskey rebellion", and in the end the federal "government" sent the US military against its own people to crush the valid and proper dissension that had arisen against this first and foremost outrage upon the very rights of humanity for which countless brave and good men gave their lives over the course of seven years fighting the rot and tyranny of the British crown. It was already the beginning of the end for the ideals of the City on the Hill that was to become the beacon of hope for the rest of the world in spite of all the errors of intent and miscalculation.
But the absence of very explicitly specified and formalized foundational principles, in combination with the understandably incomplete knowledge of people naive to what it truly meant to be free, all but guaranteed our descent into tyranny in one form and degree, or another.
This is all very curious in the face of the fact that the Framers were in no way naive to the nature of politics. They well knew the propensities of human beings where political considerations were concerned. This was well represented in the old story about Benjamin Franklin who, having emerged onto the streets of Philadelphia, was accosted by a woman who asked him what form of government had the people been given. "A republic madam... if you can keep it." If, indeed. I will give the Framers credit in assuming that none of their failures were concocted with ill intent.
I would also note that the woman's purported question carries with it a clue as to the general mindset of the people. She asked what form of government, rather than of governance. The difference may seem subtle, irrelevant even, but I assure you that it is essential and that the differences it may make in terms of the qualities of life for a people are vast in every direction. The mindset difference alone is huge. For one thing, "government" as an entity in sé, does not exist. It is merely a script that people follow, but it has no reality its own in the way that a building does, or a vehicle or bologna sandwich.
Governance, on the other hand, represents real action in the real world. This is what the early American people either failed to grasp, or simple failed to pursue it with sufficiency in order to ensure that tyranny would not arise in their hard-won land.
Government, when seen incorrectly as a thing that exists in and of itself, causes the human mind to lend it qualities that are all lies. The quality of substance, for instance. It's the King's New Clothes on steroids and half tons of LSD and methamphetamine each, and a healthy dose of steroid rage in the deal. It is literally nothing at all in which people have come to believe is actual material reality, and that it is large and powerful and dangerous as all get-out, and that it must be obeyed. Just try to wrap your minds around the truth of this. It is the belief in unicorns and the flat earth. It is the very definition of what it means to be a raving, screaming psychotic, for the disconnection from reality in order to believe any of this lies at the very root of one's humanity. The wild insanity of this cannot be overstated, nor can the dangers.
But if we take 1791 as the year of our actual beginning as a formalized nation-state, then we can say that as of this writing we have the benefit of 233 years of hindsight from which we can learn just where we as a people went wrong, where the holes and cracks reside, and how we may better endeavor to affect the necessary and hopefully complete, correct, and uncompromising repairs not only to the so-called "system", but to our ways of thinking, including our understandings and attitudes toward and about what it means to be a free human being.
Principles. Without these, we are as a ship with neither rudder nor anchor. We are a tall building with a rotten foundation which cannot hope to stand for long. Without them we are lost.
Those principles must manifest the characteristics of clarity, correctness, and completeness. Without correctitude, we go wrong. Minus completeness, we may go right at times, wrong at others. Sans clarity, our understanding of otherwise valid principle falters and once again we wander into error. These qualities must be non-negotiable. We must not compromise them away for any sake whatsoever, especially for mere convenience or expedience. We must test the principles for error, holes, and other failures so that when all is said and done we have in our hot little hands a set of precepts by which we may judge the actions of those who take up the mantle of the Public Trust in service to their fellows, as well as ourselves.
There is nothing new here, save that we may have formalized what it means to be a free civilized man as part and parcel of a framework for governance for all. In this, there is no "government" to which we lend all the false qualities and characteristics of an actual, extant entity. There is only the function of governance, and that function comes into play only where the individual fails for some reason to properly govern himself. National defense comes validly to the fore when people of other nations fail to govern themselves properly by threatening danger to those of America.
The ways in which we have failed ourselves as free human beings are manifold. For example, it has long been clear to me that our judiciary is largely broken, what with it being polluted and infested with so many rotten principles such as chevron deference, which were added in ad hoc fashion to address the cracks that arose in the course of our judicial evolution, the architects clearly unwilling to, or incapable of seeing beyond the immediacy of their concerns with an eye toward unintended consequences.
Humans being what they tend, fail to establish with sufficient rigor the basic principles by which a system shall operate. The American judiciary is a glaring and tragically dangerous example of this failure, as is much of the Constitution - a document written for saintly men, rather than real ones.
I am a computer scientist. When designing software, especially that of a decidedly non-trivial nature in terms of its functional complexity and size, one must be extremely circumspect in how he goes about formulating the designs lest severe consequences arise that could impact, say, a business from many standpoints including that of criminal liability. I am in the deep-seated habit of approaching problems in the ways of proper computer science, which is to say I always look to exhaustive consideration of the possible outcomes of given schemes with an eye for failure points. This is boilerplate, and we of a well seasoned caste do it well and we do it as a matter of second nature. It is a habit that is in vanishingly small evidence in all branches of "government". It is all but nonexistent in the legislature where the rot of incompetence and malicious intent in the formulation and passage of statute leaves a stench that adversely and unjustly impacts the lives of all, causing unjust harm and at times utter ruin in violation of the very rights one's oath promises to protect in good faith and competent service.
In the executive, the same may be said for the formulation and adoption of policy, and in the legislature, the functionally self-same problems exist that give rise to laws that are arbitrary, vague, broadly interpretable, and therefore fly in the face of the natural rights of men and result in gross and felonious violation.
All have failed to define the fundamental frameworks with sufficiency such that all these blatantly arbitrary and ill-considered, ad hoc policies became possible and arguably necessary to plug holes in the dike, so to speak. The essential principles were either not worked out at the beginning, were not included in foundational documents, or were simply ignored by those in whom the public trust had been and continues to be vested, the latter being perhaps the more disturbing head of the hydra.
As an example, in the case of legislative ambiguity, advantage and benefit should always be settled by the court in favor of individual liberty and the attendant prerogatives of freedom over the purported interests of the "state" or any other consideration that seeks to more tightly constrain a man. Decisions should without exception be made in favor of individual liberty such that if such a decision so deeply offends the Congress or the executive, let them then go back to the drawing board to do their jobs correctly such that legislative and/or policy-related ambiguity is erased in favor of semantic clarity, as well as propriety of principle and the proper respect for the rights of all men.
If ever a project were worthy of human endeavor, it would be the one where the principled foundations of all governing action were laid out and passed into Law and set beyond the reach of the corrupt, inept, and malicious. Without this, we will continue only to proceed in ad hoc fashion, willy nilly. This may occur with all good intentions, but I remind you that such intentions count for nothing. Where liberty is concerned, we must never compromise even on the most seemingly trivial point because there is no point relating to human rights that is so insignificant that we can bargain them away in the interest of any other expedient, regardless of how grand and centrally critical it may be. Once a door is opened in this way, the precedent has been set for further degradation and disparagement of our fundamental rights. Never ever allow this; not even once. Be well, be prosperous, be free, and as always please accept my best wishes.
Governance, on the other hand, represents real action in the real world. This is what the early American people either failed to grasp, or simple failed to pursue it with sufficiency in order to ensure that tyranny would not arise in their hard-won land.
Government, when seen incorrectly as a thing that exists in and of itself, causes the human mind to lend it qualities that are all lies. The quality of substance, for instance. It's the King's New Clothes on steroids and half tons of LSD and methamphetamine each, and a healthy dose of steroid rage in the deal. It is literally nothing at all in which people have come to believe is actual material reality, and that it is large and powerful and dangerous as all get-out, and that it must be obeyed. Just try to wrap your minds around the truth of this. It is the belief in unicorns and the flat earth. It is the very definition of what it means to be a raving, screaming psychotic, for the disconnection from reality in order to believe any of this lies at the very root of one's humanity. The wild insanity of this cannot be overstated, nor can the dangers.
But if we take 1791 as the year of our actual beginning as a formalized nation-state, then we can say that as of this writing we have the benefit of 233 years of hindsight from which we can learn just where we as a people went wrong, where the holes and cracks reside, and how we may better endeavor to affect the necessary and hopefully complete, correct, and uncompromising repairs not only to the so-called "system", but to our ways of thinking, including our understandings and attitudes toward and about what it means to be a free human being.
Principles. Without these, we are as a ship with neither rudder nor anchor. We are a tall building with a rotten foundation which cannot hope to stand for long. Without them we are lost.
Those principles must manifest the characteristics of clarity, correctness, and completeness. Without correctitude, we go wrong. Minus completeness, we may go right at times, wrong at others. Sans clarity, our understanding of otherwise valid principle falters and once again we wander into error. These qualities must be non-negotiable. We must not compromise them away for any sake whatsoever, especially for mere convenience or expedience. We must test the principles for error, holes, and other failures so that when all is said and done we have in our hot little hands a set of precepts by which we may judge the actions of those who take up the mantle of the Public Trust in service to their fellows, as well as ourselves.
There is nothing new here, save that we may have formalized what it means to be a free civilized man as part and parcel of a framework for governance for all. In this, there is no "government" to which we lend all the false qualities and characteristics of an actual, extant entity. There is only the function of governance, and that function comes into play only where the individual fails for some reason to properly govern himself. National defense comes validly to the fore when people of other nations fail to govern themselves properly by threatening danger to those of America.
The ways in which we have failed ourselves as free human beings are manifold. For example, it has long been clear to me that our judiciary is largely broken, what with it being polluted and infested with so many rotten principles such as chevron deference, which were added in ad hoc fashion to address the cracks that arose in the course of our judicial evolution, the architects clearly unwilling to, or incapable of seeing beyond the immediacy of their concerns with an eye toward unintended consequences.
Humans being what they tend, fail to establish with sufficient rigor the basic principles by which a system shall operate. The American judiciary is a glaring and tragically dangerous example of this failure, as is much of the Constitution - a document written for saintly men, rather than real ones.
I am a computer scientist. When designing software, especially that of a decidedly non-trivial nature in terms of its functional complexity and size, one must be extremely circumspect in how he goes about formulating the designs lest severe consequences arise that could impact, say, a business from many standpoints including that of criminal liability. I am in the deep-seated habit of approaching problems in the ways of proper computer science, which is to say I always look to exhaustive consideration of the possible outcomes of given schemes with an eye for failure points. This is boilerplate, and we of a well seasoned caste do it well and we do it as a matter of second nature. It is a habit that is in vanishingly small evidence in all branches of "government". It is all but nonexistent in the legislature where the rot of incompetence and malicious intent in the formulation and passage of statute leaves a stench that adversely and unjustly impacts the lives of all, causing unjust harm and at times utter ruin in violation of the very rights one's oath promises to protect in good faith and competent service.
In the executive, the same may be said for the formulation and adoption of policy, and in the legislature, the functionally self-same problems exist that give rise to laws that are arbitrary, vague, broadly interpretable, and therefore fly in the face of the natural rights of men and result in gross and felonious violation.
All have failed to define the fundamental frameworks with sufficiency such that all these blatantly arbitrary and ill-considered, ad hoc policies became possible and arguably necessary to plug holes in the dike, so to speak. The essential principles were either not worked out at the beginning, were not included in foundational documents, or were simply ignored by those in whom the public trust had been and continues to be vested, the latter being perhaps the more disturbing head of the hydra.
As an example, in the case of legislative ambiguity, advantage and benefit should always be settled by the court in favor of individual liberty and the attendant prerogatives of freedom over the purported interests of the "state" or any other consideration that seeks to more tightly constrain a man. Decisions should without exception be made in favor of individual liberty such that if such a decision so deeply offends the Congress or the executive, let them then go back to the drawing board to do their jobs correctly such that legislative and/or policy-related ambiguity is erased in favor of semantic clarity, as well as propriety of principle and the proper respect for the rights of all men.
If ever a project were worthy of human endeavor, it would be the one where the principled foundations of all governing action were laid out and passed into Law and set beyond the reach of the corrupt, inept, and malicious. Without this, we will continue only to proceed in ad hoc fashion, willy nilly. This may occur with all good intentions, but I remind you that such intentions count for nothing. Where liberty is concerned, we must never compromise even on the most seemingly trivial point because there is no point relating to human rights that is so insignificant that we can bargain them away in the interest of any other expedient, regardless of how grand and centrally critical it may be. Once a door is opened in this way, the precedent has been set for further degradation and disparagement of our fundamental rights. Never ever allow this; not even once. Be well, be prosperous, be free, and as always please accept my best wishes.
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