A Citizenship Test

In my book, To My Countrymen, in the last few pages, I write these words: “If you, a native-born American, cannot pass the citizenship test that wanna-be citizens must pass, do you think that you should have the right to vote?”

Gerrymandering

It has occurred to me once or twice since publishing my book – since declaring for all time that “it is done” – that I made a mistake not to include an essay on gerrymandering.  Gerrymandering, as we all know, is the practice of state legislatures to draw Congressional districts in such a way as to maximize their majority party’s hold on Congressional seats, and on state-level representation too.  Gerrymandered states look really really strange, carving out districts one voter at a time.  Jig-saw puzzle pieces look much more regular than gerrymandered districts do.

TPP - Trans Pacific Partnership

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP for short) has been on my mind these past few days and weeks.  It is a “free-trade” agreement that President Obama wants to be part of his legacy.  The reason that I have not written about it before now is that it may be a tempest in a teapot, no big deal.  The immediate problem is that the terms of the agreement are still shrouded in secrecy.  Which may make sense as all its details have not been hammered out yet.  Perhaps it makes no sense to see what an agreement says while it is still being debated and written.  Which means, I guess, that I am not rationally concerned with its secrecy.  That is, as long as what it says is not yet writ in stone.  The U.S. Constitution was a secret until it was ready to be published and ratified.

Nonetheless, the TPP is a real political issue.  Partly because it is secret so far (see above), partly because what has been leaked (and all leaks are “unofficial” and often unreliable) is really really bad, and partly because we DO know that the President wants to “fast track” it when it is ready to be considered by Congress and voted on.  Fast track seems to mean Congress has 90 days in which to debate the agreement and no permission to introduce any amendments.  The no amendment part sounds conspiratorial and downright evil.  But imagine the chaos if Congress amended it: it would have to go back to the trade negotiators who would alter it again and then back to Congress, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.  When the U.S. Constitution was being considered for ratification by the states, no amendments were allowed for the same reason: it would go back and forth between all the states and the Constitutional Convention forever.  In addition, a Yes to ratification did not mean the written Constitution was perfect, but it DID mean that none of it, not one small piece, was a real problem.  Similarly, a Yes to pass TPP will mean that there is nothing in it that does not pass muster.  As to limiting debate to 90 days, that seems long enough to me to debate a bill that won't be bothered by amendments.   So, I guess I have no serious reservations about Fast Track, as 90 days seems slow enough to me.

Oxfam Report

According to a recent Oxfam report (2014 figures): 

The world’s richest 80 (sic, 80!, that’s – like – 1 per every 100 million people) individuals own as much wealth ($1.9 trillion) as the bottom 50% of the entire world’s population (3.6 billion out of 7.2 billion people).

And the world’s richest 1% (of individuals or families, it doesn’t matter) own 50% of the world’s total wealth ($263 trillion) (the top 1% owns half the wealth, $131 trillion).  That leaves the rest of us sharing 50%, right?  Not too shabby, right?

Wrong, maybe pretty shabby.  How much does the 2nd 1% own, and the 3rd 1%, and the 4th 1%?  A conservative extrapolation would yield 20% for the 2nd 1%, an extra 10% for the 3rd 1%, and an extra 5% for the 4th 1%.   So, a conservative guesstimate would suggest that the wealthiest 5% own 85% or more of the world’s total wealth, leaving the bottom 95% to share 15%.  A little shabbier than owning 50% of the total wealth, right?  By the time you get down to the top 10% and the bottom 90%, once again a very conservative estimate would suggest that the top 10% owns at least 95% of the total wealth and the bottom 90% (that’s you and me bunky) owns less than 5% of the total wealth.  Shabbier yet!  And the bottom 50% own significantly less than 1% of the total wealth (this one is not an extrapolation; this is verified by the report).

If you are OK with that – if “that’s the way the cookie crumbles” – well, God bless you and don’t bother reading any more of my crap; it ain’t worth your time.

The rest of you, continue to read my stuff and check out Robert Reich and Thomas Piketty.

Jefferson on Generations

Thomas Jefferson is famous for having written memorable words for commonplace ideas.  One of these ideas is:  “the earth belongs to the living, the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.”  This quotation comes from a letter he wrote to his friend James Madison on 6 September 1789.  The context for his remarks is the new U.S. Constitution.  Jefferson was registering his concern that a piece of paper composed by one generation might bind the next generation.

Put our quasi-sacred Constitution out of your mind for a moment and consider how you feel about this idea: that the laws of one generation should not bind the next generation, that each generation should make up its own rules for living.  I’ll wait while you consider your own position on this question.

Some historians believe that Jefferson had personal motivations for this idea: his father in law’s death left him with a legacy of land and slaves – and debt.  And he resented the debt being left for him to pay off.  Consider now how you would feel if your father left behind debts for you – his only son – to pay off.  Should a single son be responsible for his own father’s debts on his father’s death?  This time I will quit the essay and wait while you consider this question.  Please do not read the next part of this essay until you have thought this out.

Ferguson

It would be wrong not to comment on this sad story, wouldn't it?  So here goes.

Here is what I don’t know.  I don’t know if Michael Brown assaulted police officer Darrell Wilson.  I don’t know if Michael Brown ever had his hands up in surrender or if he ran away.  I don’t know if Officer Wilson’s life was threatened or if he had reasonable cause to believe it was.   I don’t know a lot of things.

Deficits Don’t Matter

“Deficits Don’t Matter” sounds like some weak liberal defense of our out of control deficit spending.  As I have shown in my book – and what is clear to any student of recent American History – it was Reagan who was the first President to submit huge deficit budgets without a real war to justify them.  While one might argue that he did have a war to justify them – the Cold War – and that that struggle was brought to a successful conclusion in 1989 (under the Presidency of George H W Bush) partly because of the defense build-up and spending, there was no compelling reason not to collect the taxes to pay for that spending (and thereby avoid unnecessarily large deficits) as we were not digging our way out of a depression.

However, the quote belongs to Dick Cheney – Vice President under Obama’s predecessor, George W Bush – and here is the “full” quote: “You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due.”  He was speaking to Paul O’Neill, the Treasury Secretary at the time (within days of becoming a former Treasury Secretary).  While it was primarily a political statement, its contempt for “balanced budgets” and “fiscal responsibility” shines through nonetheless.  It was 2004 when Cheney said it, and the Debt was on its way toward doubling what George W Bush had inherited from Bill Clinton, exploding from $5.8 trillion to $11.9 trillion.

The reason for this partisan rant is this: it is good to have at least one political party be the party of fiscal responsibility.  It is not so good when they ignore their own cardinal principles when they control the government.  But it is not so good when they remember their principles just in time to attack relentlessly a successor President of the other party who has the job of reining in a recession that was their gift to the American people.

The Corruption Perceptions Index

Virtually all my writing is a protest against the political “corruption” in the United States of America, in the form of legislation and jurisprudence in favor of the highest bidder.  This might lead some to think that I believe that the USA is especially “corrupt” among nations.  This is neither the case nor do I believe it to be the case.  Transparency International, self-styled as “the global coalition against corruption,” annually ranks countries on their “corruption perceptions index.”  In 2013, the USA ranked as the 19th LEAST corrupt nation in the world.  19th!  As an American, as a patriot of the land of my birth, I would like to see us much less corrupt than that.  Ahead of us (in order of the organization’s 2013 ratings) are: Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Singapore, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Luxembourg, Germany, Iceland, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Barbados, Belgium and Japan.  Our score is 73% while the top two (Denmark and New Zealand) have scores of 91%.  There are 175 countries that the group considers and North Korea is at the bottom with a score of 8%.  

So we are better than average!  Great!  That’s nothing to write home about.  When we get to 1st place with a score of 93%, I will still be banging the drum for us to get cleaner.  This is my country, and as long as she sells herself to the highest bidder, I will continue to sound ugly noises.

John Ferling on Paine's Common Sense

Nothing that I have read, by or about Thomas Paine, does so good a job explaining my connection to the great American revolutionary as this passage from John Ferling’s book, Independence:The Struggle to Set America Free, Bloomsbury Press:2011, pp. 217 – 223.  

Thomas Paine didn't invent the American Revolution, he brought people around – aristocrats and the common people alike – to the necessity and the urgency of it.

This passage is totally worthy of your time and attention.  If you like what you read here, read the book.

Just days before word of the Canadian calamity reached Congress, an express arrived with the first tidings of George III's October address to Parliament.  “It is decisive," a New Englander instantly responded.  No greater proof was needed that Britain's monarch "meant to make himself an absolute despotic Tyrant."  Samuel Ward added that "Every Man must now be convinced that . . . our Safety depends wholly upon a brave, wise and determined Resistance."  Samuel Adams told others that this proved the king was the driving force behind British policy.  War guilt "must lie at his Door," he added.  A Virginian, Francis Lightfoot Lee, concurred.  The king's speech laid bare his and North's “bloody intentions" and demonstrated beyond doubt that it was folly to any longer continue "gaping after a reconciliation."

Thirty-six hours after the express brought the king's speech to town, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the most important pamphlet published in the American Revolution – indeed, the most influential pamphlet published in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America – hit Philadelphia's streets.  Its central argument was cogent and timely: Reconciliation was not in the best interests of the colonists.

The thirty-seven-year-old Paine was an Englishman who, like Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams,

On Representative Democracy

Putting aside a real question – do we really live in a democracy? – I’d like to talk for a brief moment about our representative democracy.

It seems to me that a representative democracy can take two forms: where our representatives do as we bid them or where they do what they think is best.  As to the first choice, it seems to me that if we really wanted them to do as we demand, then we should begin to implement a technology-based referenda state for all matters big and small and just let the people decide.  No need for representation at all.  On the other hand, I personally believe that our representatives ought to do what they think is best for us.  If we disagree, it is their job to explain to us why they think what they think.  If it is convincing, fine.  If not, it becomes our job to explain to them why they were wrong until they agree with us.  Failing that, it is our duty to remove them from office.  Or to allow them this difference from us ("we agree to disagree but we still love you").