A Runaway Convention

There are those – like Ben Paine, like myself – who are working to craft and ratify a 28^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will end corporate personhood and build a Wall of Separation between big money and government.  There are those – like Ben Paine, like myself – who want to have an Article V Convention write the amendment rather than Congress, in order to get what we want and not a watered-down version with no teeth and no real hope for a better more democratic future.  But there are those who fear that an Article V Convention might degenerate into a “runaway convention” whose consequence would be to undermine all the benefits we have thus far enjoyed under the original U.S. Constitution.

Ben's Picks

I was gonna call it Ben's Books because that alliterates and sounds punchy.  But it is wrong because they are not MY books, they are merely my book recommendations.

And I just thought of it today as I finished reading a very good book.

So what do I mean by "a very good book"?  The subject is interesting and you will feel nourished by learning stuff that is not a waste of your time, stuff that is good for you (protein and not sugar or other worthless carbs).  And the author is so engaging that his book is hard to put down.  VERY important!

So, the book that I just finished reading today is David McCullough's The Wright Brothers.  I have read other books by McCullough, and he can be very good; but he can also be not so good.  It was an effort to read his 1776 even though I am primed for books of our Revolutionary period, especially "popular" books.  Nevertheless, ...  Also, his immediately previous book, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, young American artists in Paris in the middle of the 19th century, a subject in which I have little or no interest, was an absolute delight to read and revel in.

Of all the authors who write mostly about the American Revolutionary period, I am an especially big fan of John Ferling, who is always engaging and always hard to put down, despite (because of?) all the facts he puts before your eyes.  Let me particularly recommend Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry that Forged a Nation.

Trump

Sometimes politics as a spectator sport is FUN!  Please note that I write very little about "politics"; I prefer issues to personalities, and politics is all personalities.  So few discuss issues independent of the passions associated with a personality; that is my niche.

Democracy

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence

The two most ringing phrases in all of American history are indisputably “We the People of the United States …” from the Preamble to the U S Constitution and “… all men are created equal …” from the Declaration of Independence.  And they both seem to argue for democracy – rule of, by, and for the people.  But every once in a while, a stray Republican, one not running for President, reminds us that democracy is not called for or even mentioned by the U S Constitution, or any other founding document for that matter.  He is right.  By all rights, we are a republic, a nation ruled by laws; but not by Constitutional mandate a democracy.  In addition, none of our Founding Fathers (excepting Thomas Paine himself) desired universal suffrage (suffrage is the form of a democracy, it is the right or privilege of a citizen to vote or otherwise participate in the processes of governing).  Indeed, to a man, they all feared democracy.  They feared the voice of the demos, the herd, the common people.  Consider that all of our Founding Fathers were highly educated and highly successful men.  Their version of “We the People” meant “we and our social peers,” a natural aristocracy even if not an inherited one (as in the old country).  A “real democracy” (in today’s usage) implies universal suffrage, suffrage of the common man.  But no democracy for these demigods.

The War of Northern Aggression

That is what a speaker in the South Carolina House of Representatives called the Civil War: “the War of Northern Aggression.”  I don’t know how ironic he was being, but there it was, one more name for the Civil War, a name that still resonates for some.

Some names for the great conflict include The War Between the States and The Brothers’ War.  There are a dozen or more names that combatants and others have used, some in an attempt to remain “objective,” others in an attempt to assign blame.  And to re-ignite still burning embers.

http://www.examiner.com/article/rick-perry-s-gop-and-the-new-war-of-northern-aggression

The optimal causes, the immediate causes of the war, were two-fold: firing on Fort Sumter was a clear act of war and the Union did not blink.  Secession was the other immediate cause.  Was secession a possible act under the doctrine of states’ rights?  As long as this was being debated, it was an exercise in free speech.  But the Confederate states’ official acts of secession were immediate causes of the war.

Slavery and states’ rights were enduring arguments from the first moments the terms of the Constitution were being argued, nearly 75 years before the outbreak of the Civil War.  So in themselves neither slavery nor states’ rights were operative causes of the War.  But firing on a government fort and the political acts of secession were optimal causes of the war.  Still, slavery was the underlying reason for the argument in the first place, the underlying cause of the war.  The South fired the first shot, the South split apart the Union, the South precipitated the Brothers' War.

But what does “The War of Northern Aggression” tell us?  It tells us what we have long suspected, that the Civil War, and its underlying arguments (slavery, and even states’ rights), are not settled issues among all Americans.  Gridlock in Washington, DC and the partisan passions across America are proof that as a nation we are not one people, one more argument that democracy cannot work in today’s fractured political environment.  <sigh>

The Iran Nuclear Deal

No doubt you are expecting some words of wisdom from me about a critical issue of war and peace, the Iran Nuclear Deal.  Sorry.  No can do.

I am ill-equipped to offer an informed opinion on the question “to sign or not to sign,” as my emphasis in political thought and deed is always domestic, not foreign, policy.

Charleston

What, really, has to be said about the cold-blooded murders at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina by a screwed-up white kid (I say “kid” because 21 years is not always enough to be called a ”man”).

http://www.charismanews.com/us/50183-this-pastor-pulling-no-punches-about-demonic-south-carolina-massacre

Why does it still happen here?  Were not 250 years of slavery enough?  Were not 150 years of Jim Crow enough?  Were not 100 years of lynching enough?  Were not 100 years of segregation enough?  If the history of race relations in this country prove nothing else, it is that whites are surely NOT the superiors of blacks.  By any measure.  Especially morally.

Beautiful -- but Provocative and Shameful

Three governors (and counting) have decided to outlaw the Confederate flag from license plates.  The governor of South Carolina has ordered the removal of Confederate flags from state grounds.  This is proper and long overdue.  Indeed, the flag of the Confederacy should be removed from any and all official Southern displays.  Imagine the Nazi flag being displayed in modern Germany, it would provoke a riot (and if it did not, that would be worse).  The Confederate flag is not merely the flag of the Confederate South, it is the flag of the slave-holding South.  We fought that war, the Union won that war, and while mercy and forgiveness were routinely granted to officers and soldiers who fought for the Confederacy, neither mercy nor forgiveness were offered to the institution of slavery or to white supremacy.

On the other hand, YOU may love the Confederate flag, you may own the Confederate flag, it is probably legal for YOU to display that flag on your own property as surely as it is legal for you display the Nazi flag (this being America and not Germany).  The 1st amendment protects your right to free thought and free speech and free expression.  But it does NOT allow a governing body the same "freedoms."  This is not splitting hairs, as it is legal for you to pray in a public school, but it is not legal for the school authorities to conduct a prayer.  You may discriminate, no governmental body may do the same.

The Irony of Democracy

One of the great ironies of contemporary American life is that the greatest democracy the world has ever known (that would be us, the United States of America) and the land that spends half of its annual tax receipts exporting democracy around the world, is not a democracy itself.  A democracy is a nation-state where the people rule.  All we are is a nation-state where the people VOTE, but the people do not rule.  You don’t need me telling you this, you know it.

This sorry state of affairs is the single reason why I wrote my book and why I write my blog, that we are not a democratic land where the people rule and what we must do to become a true democracy once again (well, that and I like to write and I like seeing my ideas and words in print).

What ARE we then, if not a democracy?  Lawrence Lessig thinks we are Lesterland, a nation-state where the Lesters rule.  Greg Palast thinks we are "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."  Maybe we are an oligarchy, where a few rule the nation-state.  Or a corporatocracy, where corporations rule.  Or a plutocracy, where the rich rule.  Or a kleptocracy, where the thieves rule.  Or fascism where big businesses have taken the reins of democratic power for their own purposes.  All these apply, all except democracy, because the people clearly do NOT rule.

Freedom

What is freedom?  Who is free and who not?

I think that when we think of freedom we must first think of what it means to be without it.  We must think first of freedom from foreign domination: Nazi domination, Soviet domination, pre-Revolutionary British domination.  After that, we must think of forms of physical incarceration: prison, official governmental coercion (house arrest, parole), or even non-governmental confinement (kidnapping).

The Flat Tax, Again

Today's Washington Post's headline reads: Rand Paul the latest GOP presidential contender to catch flat-tax fever.  Now, Rand Paul is no moron, and I like a lot of what he stands for, but the Flat Tax can best be characterized as …  a bad idea (in place of "a bad idea," I had originally used the highly expressive term "moronic" before; but in deference to a friendly reader, I have changed my language, if not my judgment).

http://www.prosebeforehos.com/political-ironing/12/22/the-flat-tax-visualized/

I have an essay in my book, To My Countrymen, which is titled Flat Tax, Fair Tax (pp. 110-113) and it analyzes both tax schemes and finds them … wanting.  The conclusions are simple to state: 1) however much these two tax schemes might reduce taxes, the middle-class ends up paying a bigger slice of the total tax pie than they did before, and the wealthy end up paying a smaller slice of the total tax pie than they did before.  Terrific, just what we need, another re-distribution of wealth … UP!  Then, 2) the more that tax rates and tax collections are reduced, the bigger the deficit (and the National Debt) that results.