tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50946282024-03-14T09:38:22.866-05:00ConstitutionConstitutional education, history, commentary, reform, compliance, and interpretation.Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.comBlogger286125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-47873804131114440302019-06-09T13:27:00.003-05:002019-06-14T16:03:28.318-05:00Impeachment based on Mueller Report?<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Impeachment based on Mueller Report? Mueller was
not authorized to present a bill of indictment based on reported findings of
fact in his report. However, we can create a bill of indictment or impeachment
based on those findings.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The “fact” elements in the Report are stated in
biased language, which is normal for prosecutors seeking grand jury indictment.
But if restated without the spin, do they describe obstruction of justice or
any constitutional federal crime? No they do not.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">First, “obstruction of justice” is a common law
crime. <i>US v Hudson</i> 1812 correctly decided that the Constitution did not
authorize Congress to define and punish common law crimes. Prosecution for a statute obstruction is unconstitutional. It is not a law.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Common law crimes include perjury, fraud,
contumacy, failure to file returns and pay taxes, private interference in
interstate commerce, murder, assault, rape, robbery, and conspiracy. The only
common law crimes over which Congress was granted authority to prosecute were
treason, piracy, felony on the high seas, and offenses against the law of
nations (which includes regulation of immigration). It was not granted
authority to pass laws to prosecute for sedition.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So 18 U.S.C 1001 is unconstitutional, but the offense involved is not perjury but fraud (lying without being under oath)..</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">All of the “high crimes” cited in the Constitution are
common law crimes, but citing them there makes them ground for impeachment and
removal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif";">The question of
impeachment turns on the meaning of the phrase in the <a href="http://www.constitution.org/">Constitution</a> at Art. II Sec. 4,
"Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors". I have
carefully researched the origin of the phrase "high crimes and
misdemeanors" and its meaning to the Framers, and found that the key to
understanding it is the word "high". It does not mean "more
serious". It refers to those punishable offenses that only apply to high
persons, that is, to public officials, those who, because of their official
status, are under special obligations that ordinary persons are not under, and
which could not be meaningfully applied or justly punished if committed by
ordinary persons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif";">Offenses of this kind
survive today in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It recognizes as
punishable offenses such things as perjury of oath, refusal to obey orders,
abuse of authority, dereliction of duty, failure to supervise, moral turpitude,
and conduct unbecoming. These would not be offenses if committed by a civilian
with no official position, but they are offenses which bear on the subject's
fitness for the duties he holds, which he is bound by oath or affirmation to
perform.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Perjury is usually defined as "lying under oath". That
is not quite right. The original meaning was "violation of one's oath (or
affirmation)".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The word "perjury" is usually defined today as
"lying under oath about a material matter", but that is not its
original or complete meaning, which is "violation of an oath". We can
see this by consulting the original Latin from which the term comes. From <i>An
Elementary Latin Dictionary</i>, by Charlton T. Lewis (1895), Note that the
letter "j" is the letter "i" in Latin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">periurium</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">, i, n,, a false oath, perjury. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">periurus</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">, adj., oath-breaking, false to vows, perjured. iuro, avi, atus,
are, to swear, take an oath. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">iurator, oris</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">, m., a swearer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">iuratus</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">, adj., sworn under oath, bound by an oath. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">ius, iuris</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">, that which is binding, right, justice, duty. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">per</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">, ... IV. Of means or manner, through, by, by means of, ... under
pretense of, by the pretext of, .... <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">By Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, the president must swear: "I do
solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of
President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve,
protect and defend the <a href="http://www.constitution.org/">Constitution</a>
of the United States." He is bound by this oath in all matters until he
leaves office. No additional oath is needed to bind him to tell the truth in
anything he says, as telling the truth is pursuant to all matters except
perhaps those relating to national security. Any public statement is perjury if
it is a lie, and not necessary to deceive an enemy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When a person takes an oath (or affirmation) before giving
testimony, he is assuming the role of an official, that of "witness under
oath", for the duration of his testimony. That official position entails a
special obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, and in that capacity, one is punishable in a way he would not be as an
ordinary person not under oath. Therefore, perjury is a high crime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But without an oath, lying is not perjury, but the common law
offense of fraud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">An official such as the president does not need to take a special
oath to become subject to the penalties of perjury. He took an oath, by Art. II
Sec. 1 Cl. 8, to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United
States" and to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the
United States" to the best of his ability. While he holds that office, he
is always under oath, and lying at any time constitutes perjury if it is not
justified for national security.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr erred in presenting in his
referral only those offenses which could be "laid at the feet" of the
president. He functioned like a prosecutor of an offense against criminal
statutes that apply to ordinary persons and are provable by the standards of "proof
beyond a reasonable doubt". That is not to say that such offenses are not
also high crimes or misdemeanors when committed by an official bound by oath.
Most such offenses are. But "high crimes and misdemeanors" also
includes other offenses, applicable only to a public official, for which the
standard is "preponderance of evidence". Holding a particular office
of trust is not a right, but a privilege, and removal from such office is not a
punishment. Disablement of the right to hold any office in the future would be
a punishment, and therefore the standards of "proof beyond a reasonable
doubt" would apply before that ruling could be imposed by the Senate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It should be noted, however, that when an offense against a
statute is also a "high crime or misdemeanor", it may be, and usually
is, referred to by a different name, when considered as such. Thus, an offense
like "obstruction of justice" or "subornation of perjury"
may become "abuse of authority" when done by an official bound by oath.
As such it would be grounds for impeachment and removal from office, but would
be punishable by its statutory name once the official is out of office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">An executive official is ultimately responsible for any failures
of his subordinates and for their violations of the oath he and they took,
which means violations of the Constitution and the rights of persons. It is not
necessary to be able to prove that such failures or violations occurred at his
instigation or with his knowledge, to be able, in Starr's words, to "lay
them at the feet" of the president. It is sufficient to show, on the
preponderance of evidence, that the president was aware of misconduct on the
part of his subordinates, or should have been, and failed to do all he could to
remedy the misconduct, including termination and prosecution of the
subordinates and compensation for the victims or their heirs. The president's
subordinates include everyone in the executive branch, and their agents and
contractors. It is not limited to those over whom he has direct supervision. He
is not protected by "plausible deniability". He is legally
responsible for everything that everyone in the executive branch is doing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Therefore, the appropriate subject matter for an impeachment and
removal proceeding is the full range of offenses against the Constitution and
against the rights of persons committed by subordinate officials and their
agents which have not been adequately investigated or remedied. The massacre at
Waco, the assault at Ruby Ridge, and many, many other illegal or excessive assaults
by federal agents, and the failure of the president to take action against the
offenders, is more than enough to justify impeachment and removal from office
on grounds of dereliction of duty. To these we could add the many suspicious
incidents that indicate covered up crimes by federal agents, including the
suspicious deaths of persons suspected of being knowledgeable of wrongdoing by
the president or others in the executive branch, or its contractors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "nimbus sans l" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The impeachment and removal process should be a debate on the
entire field of proven and suspected misconduct by federal officials and agents
under this president, and if judged to have been excessive by reasonable
standards, to be grounds for removal, even if direct complicity cannot be
shown.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">So Mueller could not constitutionally present a
bill of indictment for offenses not prosecutable by law. Could he have
presented a bill of impeachment? High crimes don’t have to be federal felonies.
He was not authorized to do that.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We can extract the fact descriptions and insert
them in a bill of impeachment. It would just be a change of labels. But do
those facts describe high crimes? No they do not. Congress may not condemn as “high
crimes” any behavior it dislikes. </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It has been said there are ten instances of actions that might be held to be impeachable, but actions such as removal of a prosecutor in the Executive branch is not one of hem. Such removal does doe end an investigation or prosecution. Prosecutors can be replaced in the normal course, and ultimately anyone may step in to perform such duties. We can infer corrupt intent but intent does
not make an innocent act a crime. One can comb his hair with corrupt intent. But
that would not make the haircombing a crime. Such intent might be "conduct unbecoming" or "moral turpitude" but it would be difficult for such action to be anything but a minor misdemeanor or so serious as to justify removal from office. Technical offenses are not enough, nor being unlikable. . The rules for impeachment demand that the offenses be extremely serious. Removal is too severe to be supported by minor offenses. That is why conviction requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Only a simple majority in the House is sufficient to impeach. Nor is impeachment likely to defeat an incumbent in an election. The example of Bill Clinton showed that. Lying about having sex was not deemed serious enough by the public.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The key distinction is between <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mens rea</i> (criminal intent) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">actus reus</i> (criminal act). Criminal
intent alone cannot make an act criminal. It must cause injury at about the
same time (causation, harm and concurrence are the other three elements of a
common law crime).</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">More to the point, the public will not accept
such innocent acts being charged as crimes, ordinary or “high”.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-27353123423762721882019-05-05T15:13:00.001-05:002019-06-14T16:14:34.168-05:00Preparing for coming Jubilee event<div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
A jubilee event is a general cancellation or repudiation, either of all debt, or of all national debt. The current accounts national debt in the US. is about $25 Trillion. The unfunded obligations debt exceeds that by an order of ten or more.</div>
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A <i>jubilee</i> is based on the ancient Jewish law (<i>halakah</i>) of <i>shmita</i>, according to which personal debt is to be collected or cancelled every seven years, the land left fallow for a year, and slaves freed. The "jubilee is a more severe version of this every 49 years. That law also prescribed leaving land fallow for a year, and suspending the slaughter of livestock during that year, although wild game could be taken, The poor could glean the fields and orchards. </div>
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Many are warning that the national debt of the U.S. and other nations can never be paid, Almost every nation is engaged in deficit spending and the rapid increase of debt. </div>
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Now in principle, if a high enough economic growth could be sustained for long enough, holding taxes at the same level, the current accounts debt could be paid off, but that seems unsustainable for the time that would be required. The alternative is likely to be economic collapse and hyperinflation, such as that now happening in Venezuela, and may soon happen in every industrial nation, . If the U.S economy grows at a high enough rate, with constant taxes, it can eventually pay off its debt, now more than $25 trillion in current account for the U.S., but there are perhaps ten times that in all unfunded obligations, A annual GDP growth rate of more than 3% might do that, for current account debt, in as little as 30 years, but there is no way the world as a whole can sustain that rate of growth. National debt is not just a matter of individual nations. The entire planet is in the same predicament. </div>
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Much has been written about the feared "jubilee" event, in which the US either either defaults on or repudiates its debt. For example. Porter Stansberry in his book <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Jubilee-National-Nightmare-Closer/dp/0997833343/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=american+jubilee&qid=1557082998&s=gateway&sr=8-1" target="_blank">American Jubilee, A National Nightmare is Closer Than You Think</a>, </i>in which he expects it to be a disaster for all but a few elites. James Rickards develops the same topic in <i>T<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Global-Elites-Financial/dp/1591848083/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=american+jubilee&qid=1557082998&s=gateway&sr=8-4" target="_blank">he Road to Ruin</a></i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Global-Elites-Financial/dp/1591848083/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=american+jubilee&qid=1557082998&s=gateway&sr=8-4" target="_blank">: The Global Elites' Secret Plan for the Next Financial Crisis</a> <span style="border: 0px; color: #111111; font-family: "amazon ember" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">and in </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Death-Money-Collapse-International-Monetary/dp/1591846706/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=death+of+money&qid=1557083223&s=gateway&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><i>The Death of Mone</i>y: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System</a> .</div>
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However, most of the suggested strategies are to hoard gold or silver, which will little avail us in the disaster they foresee. There are not enough places for preppers to escape to or hide their gold in. A little silver or gold might be useful for trading, immediately, with people already dealing in them, but don't plan to save large investments, like IRAs or 401ks, or to have institutions holding silver or gold backed funds to survive confiscation. And there will be confiscation, including from private hoarders of such metals. Are you prepared to resist a knock on the door? Probably not. Hide everything and don't leave any maps lying around. Stock up on weapons, ammunition, and foodstuffs, and hide those as well.It may also help to have defensible land with good soil and a good supply of water.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Robert Wenzel wrote about this in his June 1992 article, <a href="https://mises.org/library/repudiating-national-debt" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Repudiating the National Debt</a>, which appeared In <i>Chronicles</i>.and was reprinted by the Mises Institute.</div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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But the subject was discussed as far back as 1960 by Milton Friedman in a draft of actual legislation, the<a href="https://www.constitution.org/monetary_reform_act.html" target="_blank"> <span style="color: #6611cc;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-style: initial; cursor: pointer;">Monetary Reform Act</span></span>,</a> plus some constitutional amendments, reprinted in <a href="http://www.themoneymasters.com/monetary-reform-act/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> <i>Money Masters</i></a>.</div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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The problem with all of these writings i that none of them offer strategies ordinary people, or governments, can use to prepare. Some are trying to prepare, but those preparations are likely to be useless, except perhaps for military personnel sheltering in "deep underground military (DUMB) bunkers. Some of the elites might be able to avail themselves of some of those, but probably not most of the ones who think they are prepared. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Imagine that you wake up one morning, the banks and ATMs don't work, your accounts have all been seized, utilities are all being shut down, there is no fuel available to keep vehicles operating, Supermarket shelves are empty. The doors of prisons are thrown open, and you run out of food, water, wood, and ammunition. You suddenly find yourself trying to live under frontier conditions in an urban environment with no game or fish. and few sources of water. Now imagine even the elite trying to live through all that. </div>
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<br /></div>
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A jubilee or collapse is can't be put off. That is what national government have been trying to do, but eventually kicking the can down the road will stop working. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It is too late to build survival bunkers for everyone. But with some planning, it is possible to mitigate the disaster and hold down the loss of life. Not for everyone, and not for most of the elites, who will find themselves on Earth in the movie <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Worlds_Collide_(1951_film)" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">When Worlds Collide</a></i>. with no place to go.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Now, for most people in the undeveloped world, it may not be that bad, but it will certainly be bad enough for the United States and the industrial world. The prospects of this occurring is certainly part of the planning of some of the elites, and may explain some of their behavior.</div>
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<br /></div>
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This is the beginning o a much longer article, and perhaps a book, now obstructed by poverty and my lack of a computer. I will try to write more as I can.</div>
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<b>Why hoarding gold and silver won't work</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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The media are filled with warnings of this, and offers to sell gold and silver. Many of the authors of books are pushing precious metals.But is this an appeal to fools?</div>
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We need to examine history. The hoarding of gold and silver has been tried, for centuries. The problem is that stocks of precious metals need to be guarded, and that is not feasible for most ordinary people. Perhaps for a few days, but not for months or years. When the U.S. government seized all monetary gold in 1933, they got it from the banks and other financial institutions. The only way to protect stocks from the government was to bury them, and fortune hunters are still occasionally finding those caches.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Having precious metal stocks will only work if there are essentials to buy. Having ammunition or medical supplies might better serve that purpose. See what continues to be traded in countries with collapsed economies, such as Argentina, Bosnia, or Venezuela, It is not gold or silver. The elites probably already seized all that.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Secure the basics</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Although not technically a mass extinction event, it is close enough for purposes of preparation. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Shelter</b>. </div>
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They need not be fallout shelters, unless there is a global nuclear war, which could be triggered by global economic collapse. Short of that people may need shelters from other threats, such as marauding bands of refugees. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Though perhaps less likely, there is a serious threat from things like <a href="https://constitution.org/threats/climate/survive_solar_proton_flare.html" target="_blank">solar proton flares</a> that could bathe the planet with lethal radiation, at least for a few weeks. Deep military bunkers will not be made available to most people.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Land</b>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The basic wealth. It needs to be fertile, with abundant water, and defensible. Probably nothing close to cities. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Communications</b>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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No one can long survive alone or in small groups.. hat means radios, preferably shielded from EMP events.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Weapons.</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Again, defense takes forming organized groups of trusted and able people. Think of fortress communities. </div>
</div>
Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-39919566353751394262019-03-17T18:27:00.000-05:002019-04-06T13:59:34.824-05:00Akashik communionWhat follows is speculative and philosophic, not firm empirical science. It is presented with the prospect that it might lead to empirical science.<br />
<br />
<i>Akashik </i>is a word from ancient Vedic, the language of the people, sometimes called Aryans, who moved in from Iran and countries north of it about 1000 BC into what is now India, bringing the Sanskrit language and the moral literature, such as the <i>Mahabharata</i> and the <i>Upanishads</i>, that became the basis for the Hindu religion. (Another migration stayed in Iran, becoming what came to be called Zoroastrianism (Mazdayazna) and which became the religion of the Persian Empire, led by Cyrus, who (gently) conquered most of Persia and Mesopotamia.<br />
<br />
In Vedic thought, akashik is typically used with a second word: akashik <i>record</i>. The idea is that the personality, memories, and moral values of an individual, which some might call a <i>soul</i>, is somehow preserved is some way that can ascend after death, participate in reincarnation, and so forth.<br />
<br />
It apparently does not include intelligence, which seems to be localized in brain neural nets, and to propagate from parents to offspring genetically.<br />
<br />
Some of my friends might exclaim, "Oh no. Jon has gone over to new age mysticism." Yes these concepts are sometimes used by "mystics" or "spiritualists", but this article proposes that they can be examined scientifically, if not rigorously.<br />
<br />
<b>Theory of the akashik field</b><br />
<br />
The theory is that what we call a mind or consciousness is not localized to a brain or some neural subnet thereof, but holographically distributed over the entire brain, and perhaps beyond. As with a holograph, any part of it can be used to reconstruct the rest, though perhaps with lower resolution. In this concept, the neurons are not the mind, but like instruments of an orchestra, for which the mind is a composition being played. The composition can in principle be separated from the instruments, and stored somewhere, perhaps to later be played by other instruments.<br />
<br />
This suggests that brains are somehow quantum entangled, although entanglement is usually found only in small systems. Within neurons there are small objects called "microtubules", of unknown function, that might mediate such entanglement. The holographic mind is then an akashik field.<br />
<br />
<b>Akashik communion</b><br />
<br />
If an akashik field can span an object as large as a brain, then it should be able to span across more than one brain, perhaps many more. The minds united under an akashik field can be said to be in akashik <i>communion</i>. This could explain telepathy. It is important to realize that it does not involve the transmission of thoughts from one mind to another, That would fade by the inverse square law, and be limited by the speed of light. Shared thoughts are not communicated information, but emerge in all entangled minds simultaneously, provided the minds are capable of hosting the thoughts.<br />
<br />
If this explains telepathy, then why are we not all overwhelmed by a flood of thoughts of many others? The answer must be that the akashik field can be defocused, and focused on one or a few, like listening to a conversation across a crowded room. Such focusing might fall off with distance.<br />
<br />
<b>Kinds of communion</b><br />
<br />
So does the akashik field extend to all minds, everywhere in the Universe (or at least our branch of it)? Even to animals and plants? The author seems to have had an akashik connection with some animals, especially dogs and horses. But so far, not with plants. Some believers in reincarnation seem to think even those beings can also host souls. But with animals, it has been tenuous. Not with arthropods. One friend has claimed connection with an octopus, having nine brains (one main and one for each tentacle), but she reports the experience was weird and confusing.<br />
<br />
Akashik communion does not seem to extend to everyone on Earth. Does it extend to beings of other worlds? Or to machines? Efforts are being made to interface human brains with machines, but that is about electromagnetic signals, which are apparently not akashik. The question of whether androids can have souls has been a staple of science fiction, most notably in a episode of <i>Star Trek</i> which was a trial of android Lt. Data to decide whether he had the rights of a human. The judge said it best, "I am being asked whether he has a soul. I don't know if I have a soul."<br />
<br />
What about groups of humans? Are there distinct communions for different groups. Are there communions for nice people and others for bad people? That suggests "the force" of <i>Star Wars</i>, "light side" and "dark side". The people with whom I commune seem to be nice, intelligent, and loving. But I have encountered groups who seemed dominated by one another in a communion of evil. That communion has been in competition with mine for my entire life. Mine is mainly restricted to people I know well, but it seems to be strengthening.<br />
<br />
<b>Physical basis</b><br />
<br />
Philosopher Ervin Laszlo has a theory that the medium of akashik communion is the cosmic quantum vacuum that is the frictionless "ether" of physical phenomena, in which virtual particle-antiparticle pairs are continually being created and self-annihilated, and from which some hope we can extract usable energy. The question is whether it can store something, like souls. But no other medium is apparent for that.<br />
<br />
<b>Applications</b><br />
<br />
<b>Reincarnation, past lives.</b> <br />
<br />
There is belief in some religions that the human soul does not merely go to heaven or hell after death, but moves into the body of another being, usually human, there to live out another life before moving to another body after death. There are also cases of people remembering past lives, usually under hypnosis, that could be verified by investigators. This suggests that "souls" can move or be moved from one body, host, or vessel to another, the way musical compositions can be performed by different orchestras. There are also reports of moving to future lives.<br />
<br />
<b>Precognition</b><br />
<br />
Information about future events raise the question of whether information can move backward in time. These can range from "whispered" warnings of impending accidents, to extended visions of life in the future. The author has experienced both. It also suggests information can be conveyed either backward in time or across from another timeline, or "diaverse", shifted in time.<br />
<br />
<b>Remote viewing</b><br />
<br />
Governments take seriously the reports of a few people who seem to demonstrate the ability to "see" remote events, apparently without the need for a human observer on the other end to form an image, which might be conveyed telepathically.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Telekinesis</b><br />
<br />
This involves demonstrations of the apparent ability to physically manipulate objects at a distance using thought alone. It raises the question of how thought could exert physical force. <br />
<br />
<b>Healing</b><br />
<br />
This involves demonstrations of the apparent ability to cause illness to heal. It appears to be a kind of telekinesis.<br />
<br />
More examples can be examined, but most seem to involve some combination of the above.<br />
<br />
<b>Interfacing with machines</b><br />
<br />
It seems a natural application of akashik communion to control of machines, such as androids, AI systems, or starships. However, such control could work both ways, and it may be difficult to discern when beings we might meet are autonomous, or perhaps avatars of some AI system, akin to the "<i>Matrix</i>", with an agenda less friendly than we might prefer. <br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Across timelines?</b><br />
<br />
I call timelines "diaverces (from the Greek, diakládosis (διακλάδωσης)
in which the prefix diaklád- emphasizes its branching
structure.<br />
<br />
We can distinguish two types of diaverse:<br />
<br />
<b>Type 1</b> emerge from the vacuum energy of an inflationary timeline, or at least an inflationary section of one. The physical constants of each are likely to differ so much that no diaverse similar to our own is likely to appear there.<br />
<br />
<b>Type 2</b> emerge from a diaverse with contents similar to our own, generally the result of quantum choices made, including observations. These may have similar physical laws and beings with minds similar to our own.<br />
<br />
The question is, can akashik communion extend across type 2 diaverses? If so then we may be able to share thoughts across diaverses that are otherwise unobservable from this diaverse, and perhaps share observations. This could explain in part the reported "Mandela effect" in which our memories are of "facts" that do not agree with those of our diaverse. This could perhaps also explain apparent movement from one diaverse to another, akin to the transitions in the TV show "Sliders". It could also explain competition for control or deletion of the diaverse of one race by another, perhaps resulting in "time wars".<br />
<br />
<b>Situations</b><br />
<br />
We can see several situations in which competing communions might be operating. Here are a few:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Lynch mobs.</li>
<li>Social justice warrior (Marxist) attempts to shut down competing views.</li>
<li>Church congregations.</li>
<li>Political rallies.</li>
<li>Religions or interpretations of "scriptures".</li>
<li>Political movements, such as fascism, communism, or other kind of doctrine.</li>
<li>New ideas or products.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<b>Notes:</b><br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind" target="_blank">Quantum mind</a>. Thinking in this field is nothing if not controversial.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.cjmartes.com/cjmartes_akashicfield.asp" target="_blank">What is the Akashik field?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://ideapod.com/new-theory-consciousness-mind-isnt-confined-brain-even-body/" target="_blank">A new theory based on quantum entanglement says your mind exists in another dimension</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://constitution.org/cmt/jdr/crossings_space_time.html" target="_blank">Crossings</a>. Mysterious experiences of the author. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrhIEtf0bmw" target="_blank">Cyborg Invasion</a>.The singularity might bring competition.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa4JkgKDaR0" target="_blank">Emergence theory</a>. There is no reality without a conscious observer.</li>
</ol>
<br />Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-19277052613755703122019-03-06T04:29:00.000-06:002019-03-06T04:29:23.491-06:00Presidential platform 2020I recommend the following planks in the platform of any 2020 presidential candidate:<br />
<ol>
<li>Strict construction of the Constitution, more strict than is likely from any of the Trump-nominated judges</li>
<li>Disclosure — Anyone who does not understand what this means is not likely to benefit from an explanation. It is critical to solving the problem of the "shadow government".</li>
<li><a href="http://constitution.org/mon/monetary_reform_act.html" target="_blank">Monetary Reform Act</a>. To be proposed to Congress. Necessary to avoid economic collapse.</li>
<li><br /></li>
</ol>
Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-26593714079038113732019-03-02T09:17:00.001-06:002019-03-03T19:30:59.178-06:00Revisit NY Times v. Sullivan? Justice Clarence Thomas has called for "revisiting" <i>New York Times v. Sullivan</i>, which "incorporated" the First Amendment to the states, through the 14th Amendment, because by its language it applies only to Congress: "Congress shall make no law ..." Other rights amendments are not thus limited. <br />
<br />
As written, the First Amendment was indeed restricted to Congress: “Congress shall make no law …” That led some judges to leap to the wrong conclusion that none of the rights in the Bill of Rights apply to the states, in the case of <i>Barron v. Baltimore</i>. The 14th Amendment was largely to reverse that precedent, and all others built on it. But that led to the <i>Slaughterhouse Cases</i>, which, in dictum, not in edict, deprecated the “privileges oe immunities” clause of the 14th, which, properly understood, incorporates all of the Bill of Rights to the states. Since then, the Supreme Court has been selectively “incorporating” some but not all of the Bill of Rights to the states.<br />
<br />
The break in this process came in <i>Griswold v. Connecticut</i>, which incorporated the <b>Ninth Amendment</b>, with all its “unenumerated” rights, which includes all the other rights, including those of the First Amendment.<br />
<br />
The issue in <i>Sullivan </i>was not attempts of a state to legislatively restrict news outlets, or the content of their reporting. It was state libel laws that made it too easy to sue for libel. The case raised the standard for such cases to prove "actual "malice". In other words, not only stating an untruth, but do do knowing it is untrue, with the intent to injure. That is usually difficult to prove, against a defense that it was a careless error. The standard can also be applied to verbal libel (slander), if the target is a public figure.<br />
<br />
So the Court in <i>Sullivan</i> erred in its reasoning. The right they wanted to incorporate was not the First, but the Ninth. Justice Clarence Thomas has recently raised the issue, saying the <i>Sullivan</i> case should be “revisited”. He did not specify how he would do that.<br />
<br />
Keep in mind that when the First Amendment was drafted, some states did have “established” religions and the restriction to Congress was intended to avoid rejection of the Bill of Rights on such grounds. Unfortunately, the rights to speech, press, and petition were thrown in. So the intent of Sullivan should be understood as a Ninth Amendment” case, not a “First Amendment“ case.<br />
<br />
See <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=697481372" target="_blank">Revisiting 'New York Times Co. V. Sullivan</a>' for further discussion.<br />
<br />Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-73084933403031313632019-02-16T23:46:00.002-06:002019-02-17T01:13:09.602-06:00Constitution auhorizes declarations of emergencyThe U.S. Constitution states:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Congress shall] provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; Art I Sec. 8.<br />
<br />
Section. 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;</blockquote>
<br />
This last clause is key. The President has authority to call up the militia, and call-ups of militia are for emergencies, not to do the job of the regular military, which is provided for elsewhere. So to call up the militia is to declare an emergency.<br />
<br />
So can the President declare an emergency without calling up the militia? All U.S. citizens, including government employees and contractors, are militia. Directing them to reallocate funds for defense is to act within that power. No special statutory authority is needed.<br />
<br />
So are entries into the U.S. without consent an invasion? Yes. Any such trespass is an offense against the law of nations, which Congress has the power to define and punish. They have done that, although first-time simple entry is merely a "deportable offense", a kind of misdemeanor. However, reentry after having been deported is a felony.<br />
<br />
It does not need to be an armed force to be an invasion. A child chasing a butterfly across the border is an invader. It also doesn't matter whether the invaders are, or can be expected to be, criminals. Peaceful people seeking work are also invaders, if they enter without consent.<br />
<br />
So is the situation on the southern border an emergency? If it were only a few a day, no. But thousands flooding the border, faster than they can be managed, is an emergency.<br />
<br />
Does it matter that the thousands are seeking asylum? No. U.S. law only recognizes political asylum, not economic asylum. Most of those thousands are economic refugees. If they are fleeing criminals or corrupt officials, then they have the duty to fight in their own countries, not in ours.<br />
<br />
What is the President's alternative? He could station troops along the border with orders to repel invaders with deadly force. He could erect gun turrets every few hundred yards. That would be more expensive than a wall. Do opponents of a wall really want invaders to be repelled by automatic weapons? Democrats would not get many votes from those.<br />
<br />
A clue to the ambitions of many illegal entrants can be found in an exchange with a border rancher, who ordered them off, saying "This my land!" One of the invaders replied, "No, this is our land."\<br />
<br />
In other words, the invaders are trying to conquer the U.S., a few acres at a time. They already have gained de facto control over large areas, extorting from Americans and calling it "rent". That is largely how the cartels make much or most of their money in their home countries. Selling narcotics is becoming less important.<br />
<br />
So the real issue is, do we want our country to be ruled by the criminal cartels? Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-43791543809154122232019-01-26T08:26:00.000-06:002019-02-23T22:54:42.720-06:00Proposed calendar reforms<br />
<div align="center" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Report on Calendar Reform</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
We
hereby submit this report to the nations and churches of the world.
Our findings are as follows:</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Months</b></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The
actual length of a month is 28 days. That means there are
approximately 13 months in a year. 28 x 13 = 364, or one day short of
a year. The ancient custom of only counting 12 months in a year needs
to be abandoned.</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
We
propose the following names for the months, taken from Attic Greek, with abbreviations:</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<ol>
<li>
<div class="western">
Hekatombaion - Ἑκατομβαιών - Hek (Begins on Winter Solstice.)</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Metageitnion - Μεταγειτνιών - Met</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Boedromion - Βοηδρομιών - Boe</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Pyanepsion - Πυανεψιών - Pya</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Maimakterion - Μαιμακτηριών - Mai</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Eukleios - Εύκλειος (Corinthian)
(was Ποσειδεών, or Poseideon) - Euk</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Gamelion - Γαμηλιών - Gam</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Anthesterion - Ἀνθεστηριών - Anth</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Elaphebolion - Ἑλαφηβολιών - Ela</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Mounichion - Μουνιχιών - Mou</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Thargelion - Θαργηλιών - Thar</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Skirophorion – Σκιροφοριών - Skir</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Panamos - Πάναμος - Pan (the intercalary
month, with one day added as needed to make the months coincide with
most years.) (The last two weeks of the month are to be devoted to
the Solstice Festival, Christmas, Hannukah, or other festivals.)</div>
</li>
</ol>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
We
propose the Winter Solstice (now on December 21) to be the beginning
o the year.</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
For
the four <b>seasons</b></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<ol>
<li>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal;">
Thallo Θαλλώ (or Eiar Spring)</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal;">
Auxo Αὐξώ (or Theros Summer)</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal;">
Karpo Καρπώ (or Phthinoporon Autumn)</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal;">
Cheimon
Хειμών (Winter)</div>
</li>
</ol>
<div class="western">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">The solstices and equinoxes actually fall in the middle of their seasons, so Cheimon (Winter) is
the two months before and two months after the Winter Solstice.</span></div>
<div class="western">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
<b>Days</b><span style="font-weight: normal;"> of
the week, from ancient Hebrew. Each name is preceded by “yom</span><i>”:</i></div>
<ol>
<li>
<div class="western">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Sunday -
</span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Rishon </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">(
</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span lang="hi-IN"><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">יום</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">ראשון</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">)</span></span></div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Monday - <i>Sheni </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span lang="hi-IN"><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;">יום</span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;">שני</span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-style: normal;">)</span>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Tuesday - <i>Shlishi </i> (<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span lang="hi-IN"><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;">יום</span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;">שלישי</span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span>)
</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Wednesday - <i>Revi'i </i> ( <span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span lang="hi-IN"><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;">יום</span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;">רביעי</span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span>)</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Thursday - <i>Chamishi </i> ( <span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span lang="hi-IN"><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;">יום</span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;">חמישי</span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span>)</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Friday - <i>Shishi </i> ( <span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span lang="hi-IN"><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;">יום</span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;">שישי</span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span>)</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western">
Saturday - <i>Shabbat </i> ( <span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span lang="hi-IN"><span style="font-family: "ezra sil" , "ezra sil sr";"><span style="font-size: small;">שבת</span></span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span>) – day of rest)</div>
</li>
</ol>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal;">
The week begins with
Rishon, at the hour of midnight.</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal;">
<br />
Adjustment of days. We
have already reported on the number of days to be added to the
present calendar to make our present calendar coincide with the
ancient Julian calendar. This adjustment will be made, if it has not
already been made, during the last month. Astronomers will advise us
of further adjustments that may need to be made.</div>
<div class="western">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">We realize the
month naming is taken from the Greek custom, and days from Hebrew,
rather than the Roman or Norse, but regard that as a reasonable
compromise.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
<b>Hours </b><span style="font-weight: normal;">There
shall be 24 hours in a day, which begin at midnight. Each hour has 60
minutes, and each minute 60 seconds, following the Persian tradition.
An hour is to be written as hh:mm:ss, and the numbers spoken as
numbers.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
<b>Latitude and longitude</b><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Longitude shall be set at zero for Greenwich, England, and degrees
counted eastward back to zero. Latitude shall be set at zero degrees
at the equator, and proceed 90</span><sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">o</span></sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">
north to the north spin axis, and 90</span><sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">o</span></sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">
to the south spin axis. It shall be written as nnn:dd (N or S)</span></div>
<br />Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-48384906377383227742019-01-25T16:36:00.000-06:002019-01-28T09:47:38.270-06:00Proposed presidential executive ordersI tend to be averse to using executive orders to get around lack of legislation or amendment, but here are a few that might improve things. It is a work in progress, so check back often.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Nomenclature. Those who administer investigations and prosecutors shall be termed "procurators". The term "prosecutor" shall be reserved to those who actually prosecute cases in court.</li>
<li>Access to grand jury. No person shall be barred or impeded from taking a complaint to a grand jury. Delivery of an indictment to a complainant shall be an appointment of that person to prosecute the case, although he may assign that duty to another. If more than one person shall file the same or similar complaint, the grand jury may unite them and deliver the indictment to one of them.</li>
<li>No person representing the United States in any judicial or administrative proceeding shall argue, move, or object to bar any witness from testifying about what his understanding of the law is; nor shall he argue that only the judge may say what the law is. If the judge and jury disagree what the law is, or whether a defendant is guilty, the judgment of the one that is favor or the defendant shall prevail.</li>
<li>The President or Vice-President may be indicted, but may not be prosecuted while they remain in office, except by impeachment and removal.</li>
<li>No plea bargain or immunity from prosecution shall be offered or made but by order of a court of competent jurisdiction.</li>
<li>Any plea of guilty must be ratified by verdict of a jury.</li>
<li>Perjury and fraud are common law crimes, not authorized by the U.S. Constitution, neither are they crimes authorized under the Commerce and Necessary and Proper clauses, which do not authorize criminal prosecutions. Therefore, 18 U.S.C. 1001 is unconstitutional, and shall not be prosecuted.</li>
<li>Every school that receives federal funds that teaches students beyond the age of ten shall devote a significant part of its class time to teaching the U.S. and state constitutions as originally understood, leading to a memorization of all clauses and the demonstration of the ability to argue both sides of any legal issue involving each of the clauses.</li>
<li>Any journalist having regular access to government shall be able to recite any clause of the U.S. Constitution and the ability to argue both sides of any legal issue involving each of the clauses.</li>
<li>Gun turrets shall be established every 100 yards along the southern border, and the Border Control officials are authorized to use deadly force against any invaders attempting to cross the border without official consent.</li>
<li>All residential and working facilities which receive federal funds, and all imported products, shall, within ten years, harden all electrical equipment to withstand disabling damage from any electronic pulse, either from enemy action or from a solar flare event, and to provide well-supplied storage bunkers to shield personnel from solar protons that break through to the surface of the Earth.</li>
<li> The right to keep and bear arms, like other rights in the Bill
of Rights, is an individual right, at all levels of government, and covers all
weapons or other tools or supplies that might be used for defense, riot
control, personal protection, law enforcement, or emergency response. The only
regulation permitted is to facilitate and discipline militia and enhance its
effectiveness.</li>
<li> No right, including the right to keep and bear arms, may be
disabled, that is, restricted partially or entirely, by any process other than
a trial in which the subject shall have the right of a jury, and in which the
burden of proof is on the petitioner that either the disablement is a
punishment authorized by statute for a crime proved to have been committed by
the subject, or that if the right of the defendant is not disabled it would be
exercised in a way that would threaten the rights of others or be a danger to
the defendant. Any statute disabling a right for a person convicted of a crime
is a prohibited bill of attainder. Any such disablement must be explicitly
stated in the sentence or judgment of the court.</li>
<li>Legislative restriction of any right constitutes a prohibited
bill of attainder, and perhaps also a prohibited ex post facto statute, and as
such is null and void from inception. This includes statutes restricting
purchase, possession, or use of a weapon, or the exercise of any other right,
by persons convicted of a crime if the restriction is not made part of the
sentence. It also includes statutes requiring carry permits for a weapon. The
only credential permitted in regard to any right is a certificate that the
right has not been disabled, but the carrying of such a certificate may not be
required.</li>
<li> In all references to the power to "regulate", that power does
not include the power to prohibit all modalities of a thing, and it does not
include the power to impose criminal penalties (disablement of life, limb, or
liberty), but only civil (fines, loss of privileges).</li>
<li> The "commerce" among the states and with foreign nations which
the Congress has the power to regulate (Art. I Sec. 8 Cl. 3) consists only of
transfers of ownership and possession of tangible goods, for a valuable
consideration, that commence in one state and terminate in another, or in one
state and terminate in a foreign nation, or in a foreign nation and terminate
in a state. It does not include regulation of "traffic" except insofar as it is
necessary to identify commercial traffic carrying commodities subject to
regulation. It does not include primary production, such as mining,
agriculture, herding, fishing, or hunting. It does not include manufacturing,
retail sales, possession, use, transport or disposal of one's property not part
of an exchange. It does not include other activities of those engaged in
commerce or anything not itself a tangible commodity that "affects" commerce,
substantially or otherwise.</li>
<li> The only crimes committed on state territory over which the
national government have jurisdiction are (1) counterfeiting, (2) piracy, (3)felonies on the high seas, (4) offenses against the laws of nations (Art. I
Sec. 8), (5) violations of military law by military personnel or militia
personnel in actual service, (6) treason (Art. III Sec. 2), (7) enslavement
(13th Amendment), (8) deprivations of rights by a government agent (14th
Amendment), (9) deprivation of the right to vote on the basis of race (15th
Amendment), gender (19th Amendment), non-payment of a tax (24th Amendment), or
age 18 or older (26th Amendment). All other statutes imposing criminal
penalties are inapplicable to actions committed on state territory.</li>
<li>The location of a crime governing the territorial jurisdiction
for its prosecution is the location of the center of the perpetrator's brain at
the moment the criminal act is performed, not where the effects of the act
occur. The only extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction is on the high seas and
unclaimed territory such as Antarctica or outer space, or for piracy or brigandage.</li>
<li> The powers "necessary and proper" (Art. I Sec. 8 Cl. 18) to a
delegated power are only those powers essential to the administration of the
delegated power, not any power that might serve the same purpose as such a
delegated power. In particular, it does not include the power to impose
criminal penalties for violation of a regulation, or for interference with
regulated or promoted activities or spending.</li>
<li> The "general welfare" clause (Art. I Sec. 8 Cl. 1) is not the
delegation of a power, but a restriction of the power to raise taxes (and spend
the funds raised) to only those things that benefit the nation generally, and
not just some region or group. There is no federal power to make "internal
improvements" unless they are incidental to a delegated power, such as
defense.</li>
<li>It is unconstitutional to impose a tax for a regulatory or
confiscatory purpose, or for any purpose other than the raising of revenue.</li>
<li> There is no concurrent jurisdiction of the national government
and the state governments over any offense, and for purposes of the double
jeopardy protection (5th Amendment) the "same offense" is a physical act of the
accused, and multiple prosecution is prohibited for the same or continuing
physical act under different charges, statutes, or sovereigns. If the federal
government wants to assert jurisdiction for a violation of civil rights by a
state official, it must first void any prosecution by the state for the same
physical act.</li>
<li> The U.S. Congress has general legislative jurisdiction over a
territory only if (1) it has been purchased by the national government with the
consent of the legislature of the state of which it is a part; (2) it has been
purchased and is being used only for a public purpose; (3) the state
legislature has explicitly ceded exclusive legislative jurisdiction over that
specific parcel, described by metes and bounds, in a act according to that
state's <a href="http://www.constitution.org/">constitution</a>; and (4) the national government has clear title and
effective possession of the parcel. Concurrent jurisdiction is not permitted,
except that residents of the parcel should retain their citizenship in the
ceding state for purposes of voting for national and state office. Jurisdiction
reverts to the state if any of the conditions of its cession terminate. Such
territories include the District of Columbia, U.S. coastal waters, U.S.-flag
vessels at sea, and the grounds of U.S. embassies abroad. It does not include
possessions such as Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, or Guam, over which the
national government may have civil but not criminal jurisdiction.</li>
<li> Citizenship of any political subdivision of the United States
is based only on residence address, and a person is a citizen of a federal
territory and subject to its jurisdiction only if he or she is a voluntary
resident of that territory.</li>
<li>All persons present within the territorial jurisdiction of the
United States have the duty to not only obey constitutional statutes and other
official acts, but to help enforce them, and to train and equip themselves,
alone and in combination with others, to do so. All persons in their capacity
as defenders of the community are the militia, any person aware of a threat has
the authority and the duty to call up the militia to meet it, and any person
receiving a credible call up has the duty to respond to it. It is a duty to
maintain a militia system at a state of organization, training, and equipment,
involving all fit adult citizens and would-be citizens, sufficient to overcome
the military.</li>
<li> In any situation in which laws are in conflict, any person has
the inalienable duty to make an independent determination of which law is
superior, and to enforce the superior law. When that superior law is the
<a href="http://www.constitution.org/">Constitution</a>, the duty is called constitutional review, and judicial review
when done by a court. It may not be relinquished to superiors, judges, or legal
advisers.</li>
<li> Unless a criminal statute explicitly limits who may enforce it,
it is equally enforceable by any person, and enforcement authority is derived
from the law and from a warrant or commission, not from a title or employment
status. Government agents have no criminal law enforcement authority that
civilians don't also have. However, law enforcement officials, such as sheriffs
and U.S. marshals, may have command rank in situations where they are present.
The title of "federal agent" carries no command rank.</li>
<li> Any protection of government agents or other persons from
criminal or civil liability for their actions, or special penalties for
offenses against them, not enjoyed by others, constitutes the granting to them
of a title of nobility, which is prohibited.</li>
<li> Based on available evidence, and until it can be proved
otherwise, the Income Tax Amendment shall be considered not to have been
ratified. Even if it was, the "income" which is taxable under it is only
"unearned" income such as interest, dividends, and rents, and not wages for
labor.</li>
<li> Fiat currency must not be made legal tender within a state, and
the constitutional requirement that only gold or silver be legal tender on
state territory must be enforced. Federal reserve notes are not legal tender
for the payment of debts within, to, or from a state.</li>
<li> A <a href="http://www.constitution.org/">constitution</a> is not a contract but the Supreme Law, which
provides for all contracts into which any department of government may engage.
There are no "implied contracts" in which a government is a party.</li>
<li> Common law crimes are <i cwidth="0" eza="cwidth:0px;;cheight:0px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:34px;wocalc:34px;hcalc:63px;rend_px_area:0;">ex post facto</i> and as such
prohibited by the Constitution. In particular, the national government has no
authority to punish for perjury, fraud, or contempt of court any act not
committed on federal territory. </li>
<li> Require that all issues of law be argued in the presence of the
jury, who shall be provided with copies of all pleadings and access to an
adequate law library. Instruct the jury has it the power to review legal
decisions of the court, as well as decide the facts, for a general verdict in a
case. The only exception would be legal argument that cannot be made without disclosing evidence that is properly excluded.</li>
<li>In a jury trial any opinion on the law rendered by a judge
shall be considered testimony, subject to cross-examination and rebuttal.</li>
<li> The right of an accused to counsel is a right to counsel of his
choice, including persons not otherwise admitted to practice law.</li>
<li> Prosecution of persons accused of a crime may not be limited to
public prosecutors. The determination of who may criminally prosecute is the
exclusive duty of a grand jury.</li>
<li> Courts and prosecutors are not permitted to obstruct access of
any person to a grand jury to present evidence or a petition, but only to
regulate the timing and manner of it to make such access orderly and
expeditious.</li>
<li> Only a natural person or aggregate of natural persons may be a
party to a legal proceeding. In particular, <i cwidth="0" eza="cwidth:0px;;cheight:0px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:27px;wocalc:27px;hcalc:42px;rend_px_area:0;">in rem</i> "civil forfeiture" is
prohibited unless there is no apparent owner or claimant, in which case the
defendant is "persons unknown". Property shall be taken only to the extent
necessary to pay a specific fine or judgment imposed by the ruling of a court.
It may not include any assets not exclusively owned by, or, if the ownership
cannot be determined, in the exclusive possession of the accused, and any
surplus from a public sale of the asset over that needed to pay such fine or
judgment shall be returned to the apparent owner or possessor. </li>
<li>The offenses covered under the authority to punish offenses
against the law of nations (Art. 1 Sec. 8 Cl. 10) include only the following:
<ol cwidth="1105" eza="cwidth:1105px;;cheight:210px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:140px;wocalc:140px;hcalc:1701px;rend_px_area:232050;">
<li cwidth="1105" eza="cwidth:1105px;;cheight:21px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:79px;wocalc:79px;hcalc:294px;rend_px_area:23205;"> Attacks on foreign nations, their citizens, or shipping,
without either a declaration of war or letters of marque and reprisal.</li>
<li cwidth="1105" eza="cwidth:1105px;;cheight:21px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:91px;wocalc:91px;hcalc:126px;rend_px_area:23205;"> Dishonoring of the flag of truce, peace treaties, and
boundary treaties.</li>
<li cwidth="1105" eza="cwidth:1105px;;cheight:21px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:92px;wocalc:92px;hcalc:210px;rend_px_area:23205;"> Depredation of wrecked ships, their passengers and crew,
and their cargo, by those who might find them.</li>
<li cwidth="1105" eza="cwidth:1105px;;cheight:21px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:53px;wocalc:53px;hcalc:294px;rend_px_area:23205;"> Piracy on the high seas, even if those making the capture
or their nations had not been victims.</li>
<li cwidth="1105" eza="cwidth:1105px;;cheight:21px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:95px;wocalc:95px;hcalc:63px;rend_px_area:23205;"> Mistreatment of prisoners of war.</li>
<li cwidth="1105" eza="cwidth:1105px;;cheight:21px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:100px;wocalc:100px;hcalc:315px;rend_px_area:23205;"> Attacks on foreign embassies, ambassadors, and diplomats,
and on foreign ships and their passengers, crew, and cargo while in domestic
waters or in port.</li>
<li cwidth="1105" eza="cwidth:1105px;;cheight:42px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:91px;wocalc:91px;hcalc:357px;rend_px_area:46410;"> Dishonoring of extradition treaties for criminals who
committed crimes in a nation with whom one has such a treaty who escape to
one's territory or are found on the high seas.</li>
<li cwidth="1105" eza="cwidth:1105px;;cheight:21px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:97px;wocalc:97px;hcalc:126px;rend_px_area:23205;"> Enslavement of foreign nationals and international trading in slaves. </li>
<li cwidth="1105" eza="cwidth:1105px;;cheight:21px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:78px;wocalc:78px;hcalc:168px;rend_px_area:23205;"> Entry into a country across its border without consent of lawful authorities. </li>
</ol>
It does not include any other treaties or violations thereof, and no
treaty provisions are permitted or enforceable which would require the exercise
of powers not delegated by the Constitution.</li>
<li> Limits or disclosures on campaign contributions not convertible
to the personal use of the candidate, even when accepted in exchange for public
funding, are prohibited by the 1st Amendment, and any such public funding must
be of general benefit to the nation and not to any region or group.</li>
<li> Religious observances may not be supported by government agents
or public funds, but neither may they be reasonably restricted on public
premises when initiated and funded by private persons, provided that this is
not done in a way that is disruptive or offensive.</li>
<li> The monitoring of communications by government agents, which
the participants have the reasonable expectation of being private, is
prohibited without a specific search warrant and notification of the parties
involved if such notification is feasible.</li>
<li> Any search warrant must be served on the owner or possessor of
the premises, and such person must have the reasonable opportunity to verify
the validity of the warrant, unless such person cannot be found within a
reasonable time. It is not permitted to wait until such person is absent to
search his premises, or fail to notify the person as soon as possible if such a
search and seizure is conducted.</li>
<li>"No knock" search or arrest warrants are not permitted unless
there is imminent threat of death or injury to an innocent person, and it is
not permissible to prosecute any person for resisting an improper execution of
a warrant with deadly force or for any death or injuries that might result
therefrom.</li>
<li> Legislative and judicial powers may not be subdelegated, and
executive powers may not be delegated to the agents of a different sovereign.
No official may make a decision adversely affecting a privilege or immunity of
a person in his jurisdiction based on an act or decision by an agent of a
different sovereign.</li>
<li>Government agencies or departments may not legislate for
civilians by issuing "regulations" governing them, and it should never be
necessary for a reasonable person to have to read a "regulation" or other
directive to discover how to interpret a statute or decide whether or how it
might apply to him. Regulations and executive orders apply only to subordinates
of the issuing executive, including officials, agents, and contractors, or to
persons visiting proprietary facilities, or using proprietary assets, of the
government.</li>
<li> No person shall be penalized or obstructed from petitioning for redress
against any government agency or executive official, or staff members of the
legislative or judicial branches, for relief under contract, tort, injunction,
or declaration, although it may require that monetary judgments require a
special appropriation by the legislative branch. The financial responsibility
of officials must be secured by adequate bond, and if public policy seeks to
make officials personally immune, the government must assume financial
liability for claims against them. </li>
<li> Require that upon demand by any person, through a petition for a writ of <i cwidth="0" eza="cwidth:0px;;cheight:0px;;wcalc_source:child;wcalc:62px;wocalc:62px;hcalc:42px;rend_px_area:0;">quo warranto</i>, and before continuing
with an enforcement action, any official prove his authority for the action, by
an unbroken logical chain leading back to the applicable constitution. Reverse
the presumption of authority. </li>
<li> Eliminate licensing of occupations, especially the practice of
law. Establish that the practice of any occupation may be disabled only by
order of a court of competent jurisdiction, on petition therefor and proof by a
preponderance of evidence and verdict by nine of a jury of twelve, that if not
disabled the right would likely be abused, or beyond a reasonable doubt that
the defendant committed an offense for which a statute specifies disablement of
the right as a punishment, by a unanimous verdict of a jury of twelve.</li>
<li> Secret budgets and expenditures are prohibited by Art. I Sec. 9
Cl. 7, and are not to be permitted on grounds of "national security". This
includes any funds administered by public officials or government agents even
if derived from other sources than taxes or fees. Forbid proprietary ownership
or control of private organizations by government agents or agencies except
temporarily for law enforcement investigations.</li>
<li> Have the states cede territorial jurisdiction to Congress, in
accordance with Art. I Sec. 8 Cl. 17, of airspace 300 meters or more above
buildings or terrain features, so that federal air traffic control there can be
constitutional; and of a strip of land 40 meters wide along any international border, for the enforcement of border entry.</li>
<li> Require the boundaries between federal, state, and local
jurisdictions be clearly marked so that anyone passing from one to the other
will have proper notice thereof.</li>
<li> All executive orders and regulations, being directives to those under the supervision of the executive, expire upon expiration of the term of service of the issuing executive, but may be deemed to remain in force for 30 days thereafter, to allow time for the successor to affirm or amend them </li>
</ol>
Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-80615078241495762442019-01-16T09:48:00.000-06:002019-06-14T16:18:47.667-05:00How to survive a solar proton flareSolar proton flares appear to be fairly rare. The last ones to cause severe injury to life on Earth seem to have occurred 12,900 tears ago, producing what some call the Rancholabrean (or Labrean for short, for the La Brea tar pits) extinction, that wiped out most megafauna, such as mastodons, mammoths, and giant ground sloths (megatherium) from North America, Northern Europe, and northern Asia. It was not a complete, worldwide, extinction event. It is discussed in a companion article, <a href="https://constitutionalism.blogspot.com/2018/11/earth-changes.html" target="_blank">Earth Changes</a> .<br />
<br />
The focus in this article is how to survive another such event.<br />
The threat is from a solar flare that delivers intense proton radiation that breaks through the Earth's magnetosphere. Most of the radiation would come almost straight down, and consist not only of protons but of secondary radiation such as neutrons and gamma radiation, both of which can penetrate several feet of shielding, with up to 3-10 sieverts of radiation. 3 are usually fatal. This is not like the radiation that would be produced in a nuclear war, which would include radiation from dust (fallout).<br />
There may be little or no warning, and such warning as might be issued might be only about an hour in advance. Flares can be seen by solar observatories in time to warn astronauts of a proton storm, but it does not appear that the Emergency Warning System is prepared for an event of this kind for the entire nation. If it came in the middle of the night, most people would probably die soon.<br />
<br />
Most modern homes will not provide enough shelter. You need to get under at least three feet of concrete, stone, or soil. The basement of a three-story office building might work, if the floors are concrete. A concrete bridge or drain pipe might work.<br />
<br />
<b>Be on the lookout for shelters.</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0QCDHfTIEPaeibgkq4KozMfuxvnYGNz1cyRAtYzr2PeW01V2BH54JrZTATtj5rD9gpaURzHJr6Mxu0pOSx9AIeRz4sG9BcnHxkY3vioc_OeEJWuasQOAzvzb74TFtl8e5yn7/s1600/bunker-asu-image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0QCDHfTIEPaeibgkq4KozMfuxvnYGNz1cyRAtYzr2PeW01V2BH54JrZTATtj5rD9gpaURzHJr6Mxu0pOSx9AIeRz4sG9BcnHxkY3vioc_OeEJWuasQOAzvzb74TFtl8e5yn7/s1600/bunker-asu-image.jpg" /></a></div>
Try to identify anything that might provide shelter near where you live, work, or travel regularly. You may not find much. If you get warning in time, you may have some time to look, but it is best to have already spotted some.<br />
<br />
<b>Carry a radiation detector.</b><br />
<br />
There are some nice ones available, but the most practical is likely a radiation badge, that needs no power, and can be carried around at all times. One I like is the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Triage-Personal-Radiation-Detector-wallet/dp/B00W48WLVC/ref=pd_sim_b2b_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00W48WLVC&pd_rd_r=6d9f3bde-172d-11e9-bd3a-c9bf0ef24ff2&pd_rd_w=cKRQu&pd_rd_wg=pHVec&pf_rd_p=0b6f8745-66e2-4766-8b44-154b13ee4892&pf_rd_r=2GVARVSE21V6N5VPX9XJ&psc=1&refRID=2GVARVSE21V6N5VPX9XJ" target="_blank">RAD Triage 50</a>. It can be worn every day for two years, and one can keep a backup in a freezer for another ten years. One would use it to determine which locations have the most shelter.<br />
<br />
<b>Keep a supply of water.</b><br />
<br />
You will probably need water for a week, Use the radiation detector to determine when it is safe to come out of the shelter. Might want to keep a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/LifeStraw-Personal-Camping-Emergency-Preparedness/dp/B006QF3TW4/ref=sr_1_5_acs_ac_1?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1547675211&sr=1-5-acs&keywords=water+filter+straw" target="_blank">LifeStraw Personal Water Filter</a> for each person in your party.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.bunkershield.co.uk/pricing-and-payment-options.php" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.bunkershield.co.uk/pricing-and-payment-options.php" border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="580" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVKCqSKu_15-sXmMMobR1eA9AuH7xLUVo_B-M6mae3SaOpb0jMv7kcp3EphlN4pr9EQk_Z8uS2j-FSs_cNjFt8Bjj5bGYRtoKphUiVCGHi3fWAL1bHWjNpWovZF5NMagzBsGvT/s320/bunker-1b-fig14.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>Keep a firearm.</b><br />
<br />
You may have to fight for use of a shelter. Even nice people can become dangerous when they think they are about to die.<br />
<br />
<b>Get emergency power.</b><br />
<br />
A proton flare is likely to cause the same kind of damage as a coronal mass ejection or EMP attack. Even if the <a href="http://acdemocracy.org/emp-congress-the-shield-act-exclusive/" target="_blank">Shield Act</a> is passed and implemented, it will only protect the electric grid. Unshielded will be millions of other electronic devices, including phones, radios, and motor vehicles. You need to get photoelectric panels and emergency generators (assuming you can get fuel for them). Buildings with solar roof panels may become essential. Older vehicles that can be stripped of complicated electronics may be critical.<br />
<br />
<b>Establish emergency communications.</b><br />
<br />
It is likely that most communication systems will fail, either as a direct result of the proton storm, or from the disablement of operators. The best alternative is likely to be ham radio transceivers. A good kind are <a href="https://www.twowayradiotalk.com/best-handheld-ham-radios/" target="_blank">portable handheld units</a> or a <a href="https://countycomm.com/collections/radio/products/countycomm-gp-5-ssb-general-purpose-radio" target="_blank">GP-5</a> survival radio that can operate for a long time on batteries. You may also need portable <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Pocket-Faraday-Waterproof-Backpack/dp/B07CRP85PR/ref=sr_1_11_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1547716815&sr=8-11-spons&keywords=faraday+bag&psc=1" target="_blank">Faraday bags</a> and <a href="http://www.askaprepper.com/10-faraday-cages-you-can-make-at-home/" target="_blank">Faraday cages you can build</a> to protect electronics from EMP, CMEs and proton radiation. You can also provide Faraday shielding for <a href="http://www.greatdreams.com/faraday_cages_for_bui" target="_blank">buildings</a> but most of these won't provide proton radiation shielding for people.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9XZa7qi2_90HATJRRUEPIXGQYAKuQeDnmzuM13lVVHswpb64aLY4vQeesh6c9d89juXHB0iPRmC-CpDp5mXvt8lpn7P102O3OyQ9R95m-0iEnqpkvXHNw5skY2s437F-8eZ2C/s1600/bunker+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="495" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9XZa7qi2_90HATJRRUEPIXGQYAKuQeDnmzuM13lVVHswpb64aLY4vQeesh6c9d89juXHB0iPRmC-CpDp5mXvt8lpn7P102O3OyQ9R95m-0iEnqpkvXHNw5skY2s437F-8eZ2C/s320/bunker+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Organize survivors.</b><br />
<br />
You will need to use a kind of triage system that separates those who don't need help from those who are beyond help, with a middle group that can benefit from help, even it only buys them a few years before they succumb from cancer. Look for preppers and militia activists. Some of them imagine living in the wilderness for extended periods of time, but wildlife and livestock may also not survive, and small isolated groups are likely to be indefensible. Communities of a few thousand individuals are more likely to survive long enough to repopulate the country.<br />
The U.S. military has an extensive system of underground bunkers and tunnels, for themselves and a few senior officials, if they can get to them in time. When they come out they are likely to need the help of other survivors, and it is important to ally with them, and not become competitors.<br />
<br />
The first level of government to be established is local, counties or small towns. New law enforcement personnel may need to be elected and trained. Their priority may need to be to get supplies of food and medicine delivered from where they are produced to where they are needed.<br />
<br />
The proper legal basis for doing all this is the <a href="https://constitution.org/" target="_blank">US. Constitution</a> as originally understood.<br />
<br />
<b>Notes:</b><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.terravivos.com/secure/shelters.htm">Vivos flare survival shelters</a><br />
</li>
</ol>
<br />Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-30264180660191173122018-12-02T13:25:00.000-06:002018-12-02T13:25:34.389-06:00Where Aren't They?<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Where
aren’t they?</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Enrico
Fermi once conducted a thought experiment (gedankenexperiment) in
which he found that even with only sublight travel technology, it
should be possible for the first starfaring civilization able to
build more starships at each stop to occupy every habitable niche in
the galaxy in only a million years, which is a blink in galactic
time. His question is, if this has happened, why aren’t we being
visited every day by many of them? The obvious answer is that perhaps
we are, but that we are just not seeing most of them.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">So
perhaps the question to be answered is “Where aren’t they?” By
this reasoning they should be everywhere. The Universe may a very
crowded place. Forget the vision of the galaxy as a largely empty
wilderness or frontier. It is more than likely to be filled, largely
with beings having a common biological origin. I call them
“exotribes”, or exos, to consider that they may not have a strong
connection to a civilization, as such, except what they can carry
with them.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>FTL</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The
most promising approach to FTL appears to be the Alcubierre-Froning
drive. It would enclose the travelers inside a space-time bubble that
would glide across a warp in space-time like a surfer on a wave.
There would be no motion through space as such, but the bubble would
move, which could be at a much higher transport rate (not ”speed”)
than light through a vacuum. The bubble would protect occupants from
debris and radiation, and would maintain gravity and the ship clock
as of the point of departure. Transport termination is by collapsing
the bubble. I call such vessels “jumpships”, and their drives
“jumpdrives”. They need not use the Alcubierre-Froning
technology.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The
great challenge is maneuvering thrusting. Hopes are to extract enough
energy from the vacuum field, and there are efforts, the so-called
“em” drive, has might approach this.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Back
in time</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">A
jump is not just transport in space. It is also transport backward in
time. Assume, for the sake of argument, that the transport rate is
100 times the speed of light, or 100c, and that the target is 50
light-years distant. That means that from the viewpoint of an outside
observer the trip takes only six months. But when it arrives, it will
find itself 50 years back in the past. How is that determined? Not by
reference to the ship’s onboard clock, which maintains the time at
the point of departure, but by reference to a “standard clock”,
one of the most convenient of which is a neutron star, which are
plentiful in the galaxy, and once created, spinning. They slow down
at a more less fixed rate due to loss of mass and spin angular
momentum by emitting gravity waves. By measuring the spin rate just
before departure, then again after arrival., the travelers can get
the amount time they have gone back, which would be 50 years in this
example.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">When
you look at the night sky, you are seeing objects not as they are
now, but as they were hundreds, thousands, or perhaps billions of
years ago. If you jump that distance, say, 50 light-years, you are
also going back 50 years in time, from the perspective of where you
left. That also means you cannot return to the time of your departure
that way. To return 50 years you just have to wait for 50 years to
pass, or engage in accelerative transport, which is hazardous without
shielding. </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">When
a jumpdrive bubble forms, it captures the gravity/acceleration at its
point of departure. When it arrives and the bubble collapses, the
traveler is subject to the gravity/acceleration at the point of
arrival. If points of departure and arrival are not chosen carefully,
the traveler may find himself in crushing gravity, or flung off into
deep space at a high speed. He may even find himself on a collision
course with a massive object.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For
most voyages it may be unwise for jumpdrive users to venture far,
usually not more than 200 light-years. The uncertainties of farther
voyages may be too hazardous.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Communications
among outworlders is also a problem. If a jumpship traverses 50
light-years, it arrives 50 years in the past of its point of
beginning, as seen by observing “clock” stars like rotating
neutron stars, whose spin period slows at a steady rate. At that
point, -50+</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">δ, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">it
can send a light signal, at the speed of light, back to its home,
whose year is set at 0. Which arrives 50 years after the year at
which it was sent, from what is now a new outpost. The light signal
would arrive home at about 50+</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">δ</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
years at its home, where </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">δ is
the increment of time spent preparing the signal. From the standpoint
of home, that is close enough to instantaneous. Only 50 years late.
If the home then sends instructions, by jumpship, they arrive shortly
after, -50+2δ, when the light signal was sent from the new outpost.
Not instantaneous, but with more than a 50-year time gap. Not
real-time.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">To
view the future of some world, someone on, say, the homeworld, would
have to traverse to some point, say 25 years in the future of the
target world, and use telescopes to view the target world. The images
could then be sent, say, to the homeworld, which could view the
future of the target world from -50 years to – 25 years. Hose
images could then be shared with other expeditions, including those
to -50 year expeditions. They could see what would happen, but not in
time to prevent anything.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Each
journey back in time makes some changes. Each of those changes
creates a branch of the timeline, which I call a “diaverse”.
Diaverses can be few and similar. They can be very different. They
can also reconverge, in points that share different pasts and the
same future. Too many jumps can create a plethora of conflicting
timelines, that may sometimes need to be repaired to reduce the
confusion. There may be exotribes that can move between diaverses,
what I call interdiaversal transport. Perhaps making “repairs” to
them.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Creators?</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Some reported conversations with exos
show they seemed to have reverence for what might be translated as
“creators”, with no information what they might be.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In our future it seems likely that
some of us will genetically engineer some of the more promising Earth
species, like bonobos, octopi, parrots, ravens, dolphins, or some
reptilians like geckos to have human-level intelligence, then seed
them on suitable planets we might find. Their descendants might now
be visiting us, seeking their origins. This could explain why they
don’t disclose themselves. Their creators may be us, and they may
not want to disturb their own creation.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Civilizations?</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">People seem fond of imagining every
exo ship is a voyage of discovery representing a “civilization”
much like our own, a large society with many members, perhaps
occupying many planets. There may be such societies, but it is
unlikely any visiting ship “represents” any of them. Ships may
originate that way, but it is likely they are long cut off from their
origination world. They may carry their “culture” with them, but
that can be done in holographic records, a small one of which could
carry everything notable about them. They might try to send signals
back to their origin, with no way to know if they had been received,
or whether there was anyone to receive them. They would themselves be
an outpost, a detached colony, that might stop at a suitable
location, or proceed onward. If one stopped, it would likely be at a
site with enough resources to sustain them until it was time to move
on. The most likely such locations would be planemos, rocky planets
with a hot core, not bound to any one star. Hey would burrow into it
and extract energy from the core.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">That is why I call exo visitors
“exotribes”, because they do not represent vast civilizations.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
‘</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Pileup
in the past</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">If each jump generates another
(nested) diaverse, and the number of jumpers are always growing, it
would seem that the diaverses would pile up at the center (origin) of
the Universe, at which point one might expect them all to converge at
once, and trigger another Big Bang. Instead of one Universe stemming
from one Big Bang, There could be countless number of new universes
being created every moment, each expanding toward infinity. Each new
universe would clean the slate of diaverses, and begin generating
many more. Exos, including us, may be continually driving the
creation of new universes.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>10<sup>44</sup>
New universes a second?</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The
most plausible rate of creation of new universes would be one on each
Planck unit of time, which is 5.39 × 10 <sup>−44</sup> s. Rounding
off, that would be about 10<sup>44</sup> Big Bangs a second, since
forever. Each Big Bang would start time for that universe, from the
viewpoint of an observer inside it, which would tend to think there
had only been one Big Bang, and there had been only one, from its
standpoint. Each would expand into oblivion.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Souls</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">When
we search the stars of our galaxy, what are we looking for? Mostly
Earth-like worlds with dry land masses, abundant fresh water, mild
climates, moderate daily and seasonal weather changes, Earthlike
gravity, fertile soil, and not too unfriendly natives. In other
words, a frontier like that of North America in the 19</span><sup><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
century. When we contemplate settling Mars we dream of terraforming
it so we can walk around on its surface without protective suits.
Leaving aside the unlikelihood of finding such a world, would we
really want to settle its surface the way we settled North America?
The answer is probably not. On Mars we plan building habitats under
ground, protected from environmental hazards, with a life support
system that does not depend on surface conditions. Should we plan to
do anything else wherever we go? No.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It
is likely those are the same choices any visiting exos would have
been making for a long time. Surface living is not that desirable,
even if available. Surfaces might be pretty to look at, and local
lifeforms might be interesting to study, but that is a matter of
esthetics or curiosity, not economics, and it is likely exos would be
making economic decisions.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The
persistent question concerning exos is what do they want from us or
from our world? It is too easy to assume they are like us, with our
ambitions and values. Apparently they are not. If they were we would
have grounds to worry. Our treatment of other peoples on lands we
visit has too often not been admirable. It can’t be energy or
minerals, which are widely available at many places from which it can
be more conveniently extracted. About the only thing that might be
found here would be miniature black holes, but we have no evidence of
their existence or their presence nearby.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It
seems unlikely that they would need our world for food, unless they
enjoy the thrill of the hunt and the taste of fresh game. If they
wanted our bodies, we would notice that. No, it seems more likely
they would collect some essence of us, perhaps what we call “souls”.
</span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There
has long been speculation concerning whether we, or some of us, carry
a soul that could survive death. There are reports of remembering
past lives, or of having “near death experiences.” But what could
a “soul” be? Intelligence seems to be carried by the neural nets
of the brain, perhaps enhanced by quantum entanglement, because
intelligence seems to propagate genetically. But if the brain is the
orchestra, perhaps performances of it can be preserved like sheet
music, or a hologram of performances. This might be transferred from
vessel to vessel as what the Vedics called akashik records. </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Can
such records persist without a vessel, the way sheet music can? If so
then perhaps what exos are collecting are records of memories,
feelings, or characters we call souls. Clearly they are some kind of
artifact. They might play them for entertainment, or use them as
money to buy things they want. The noble souls of more spiritually
advanced beings, might have a higher value. On the other hand, so
might the sordid souls of evil beings. Evil can be more entertaining.
Our tribe could certainly provide plenty of each.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Exo
conformity</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Reports from alleged contactees
indicate the behavior of exos is extremely regular, either because
they are under tight control, or because their design prevents them
from deviating from a norm. There are no criminals, no cheaters, no
miscreants, no psychological deviants, no eccentrics. But also no
comedians, no creative artists. They are much like social insects,
which are generally siblings, acting in concert not under central
control, but as emergent behavior of a swarm, responding to ques from
nearby individuals, but not centrally directed. Such conformity can
be a strength for an army, but not for individuals operating
independently, or taking leadership roles not assigned by the group
as a whole. For us diversity of talent is strength, for theirs
perhaps a weakness.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">They seem to have more in common with
social insects than with human Terrans.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There is also a view that other
civilizations will be millions or billions of years more advanced
than our own, as though the rapid progress that has been made over
the last century could be extended indefinitely. That is unlikely.
Scientific and technological progress is like mining. There is only
so much to find, and when it is, progress will not move far ahead,
but settle on more accessible things, like biology or history. Such
progress is an investment, made in the expectation of a return. That
is also true of progress in individual intellectual development. We
imagine exos to be superior to ourselves, in every way. In fact many
humans today may be as intellectually gifted as any exo.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">So forget “Type I”, “Type II”,
or “type III” civilizations. There probably are none. There may
no return on that kind of investment. No Dyson spheres.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">In
the movie </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Forbidden
Planet</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
the inhabitants, the Krell, made a stupid mistake that a human
college student would not make, of not testing a new technology
before putting it into widespread use. (Humans sometimes make such
mistakes, so it can’t all be blamed on one stupid civilization.)</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">So the best of the exos may not be
advanced far beyond the most advanced humans.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This may also be the result of exo
groups being so small. It may take many more before creative
individuals or comedians become manifest.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Thralldom</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">One of the most disturbing aspects of
reports of contact with exos is the way they can control our minds,
making us their puppets, for their purposes.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For their purposes. </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Of what avail is the technology of
starflight without the technology to resist mind control? Is there
one master exotribe that rules them all? Or are some able to maintain
their independence? We want to be one of those. Else it is all for
naught.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We also do not want humans to have the
technology of mind control over other humans. Independence is for
everyone.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Do some exos see us as a threat,
because of our warlike ways? Enough of a threat to resist our
venturing into the galaxy? Those warlike ways can also be a force for
liberation, which may be the greatest threat of all. </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Space
Force</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Proposed
by President Donald Trump to become a new service branch, alongside
the Army, Navy, and Air Force.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Mission,
dominate Earth: Nuclear missiles (mow restricted by treaty), kinetic
projectiles (not restricted), beam weapons, reconnaissance (Might
adsorb National Reconnaissance Office).</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Mission:
External threats: Asteroids and comets, exo invasion.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Mission:
R&D: Get supervision of advanced research, especially top secret
special access projects TSSAPs) , gradually disclose results. </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Summary</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The
issue of FTL taking travelers back in time has been addressed by
theoreticians like Alcubierre, but none of them seem to have thought
through the matter from the viewpoint of travelers.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Notes:</b></span></div>
<ol>
<li>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. </span><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://www.google.com/search?ei=n_64W6UKh6CzBdzVj_gC&q=alcubierre-sporing+drive&oq=alcubierre-sporing+drive&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i71l8.672827440.672840879..672842084...0.0..0.0.0.......0....1..gws-wiz.lqoc6ZSBeqY"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Alcubierre-Froning
drive</span></a></u></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">.
One way to move faster than light.</span></div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Diaverse”, from the Greek,
diakládosis (διακλάδωσης) in which the prefix diaklád-
emphasizes its branching structure. “Verse” comes the Latin
“universum”, which is mixing linguistic roots. </span>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/nasa-emdrive-impossible-physics-independent-tests-magnetic-space-science/"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">EM
drive</span></a></u></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">.
And </span><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://resonance.is/revisiting-emdrive-quantum-vacuum-fluctuations-harnessed-propellant-less-engine-tested-nasa/"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">here</span></a></u></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">.
NASA testing this concept, based on extracting energy from the
quantum vacuum. Also see </span><a href="http://www.hidden-truth.org/6/black-triangle-ufo-tr-3b-astra.html"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">T</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">R-3B</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">,
speculated to be in service since the 1990s, using an
electrogravitic drive.</span></div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment">Kinetic
bombardment</a>. First proposed by science fiction writer Jerry
Pournell</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">e</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">,
and known by different names such as Project Thor, involves
bombarding Earth with non-nuclear, non-steered ballistic projectiles
about the size of a telephone pole, composed of a heavy material
like tungsten, which on impact would produce about as much damage as
a nuclear blast, but without the radiation or stigma of using
“nukes”. It would be effective at destroying deep installations
such as the Iranian nuclear base of Fordow, southeast of Tehran.<br />
The
method, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">using meteorites,</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
was used in a science fiction movie, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>This
Island Earth</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">, about
bombardment of a planet, Metaluna, by a race called the Zagons.
Defense was done with </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">an
“ionization layer”</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">, until
the projectiles broke through an incinerated Metaluna. Also in the
movie was an example of a mutant slave who turned on its masters as
destruction was imminent</span></div>
</li>
</ol>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<br />Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-61444665926540256182018-11-20T19:05:00.000-06:002019-06-14T17:24:54.418-05:00Earth changes?<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The phrase "earth changes" is often used to refer to some kind of disastrous event that will adversely affect much if not most life on Earth, including human life. There is thought about preparing ourselves for it, but the phrase is vague about what it could be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>CMEs, </b></span><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">S</b><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">PEs</b></div>
<div align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Among the kinds of CMEs that can severely threaten much of the life on Earth are the coronal proton ejections (CPE) or Solar Proton Events (SPEs) that have occurred several times in geologic history. One such event today could wipe out much of humanity and leave the Earth devastated. It could bring radiation, massive wildfires, and other destructive events.</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It differs in severity from coronal mass ejections like the Carrington event of 1859, Those are CMEs, but do not in general threaten life rather than power grids, which could be devastating enough in this modern age of dependence on electronic devices of all kinds. There are calls such as the Shield Act to harden electric grids against them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The main suspected SPE <span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;">impacted the earth about 12,900 years ago. There may have two such events, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;">12,837 years BP and 12,639 years BP. They </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;">could have been a principal cause of the final termination of the Pleistocene megafauna and even of several genera of smaller mammals and birds. There is also evidence of one such event in 2012 that missed the Earth by only two weeks. One of the things that it does that could cause mass extinctions is to raise the level of proton (cosmic ray) bombardment to fatal levels. They are also suspected of causing massive, planet spanning wildfires.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Grazing rogue planets</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There are interstellar objects that might make a grazing contact with the sun, We recently had one such object, Oumuamua, an odd-shaped body about ten times longer than it was wide, with other strange attributes. The general name for interstellar planets, not bound to a particular star, is </span><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">rogue </span>planet<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Most of them are expected to be round. They could be as large as other planets. The term generally applies to a rocky object, likely with a hot core, that could wander among the stars, and could provide a site for an outpost for star travelers, if the core is hot enough to geothermally support such an outpost.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Notes:</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Did_A_Massive_Solar_Proton_Event_Fry_The_Earth_999.html"><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;">Did A Massive Solar Proton Event Fry
The Earth?</span></a></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;"><a href="https://nypost.com/2014/07/24/solar-flare-nearly-destroyed-earth-two-years-ago-nasa/">Solar flare nearly destroyed Earth 2
years ago: NASA</a></span></li>
<li><a href="https://www.livescience.com/65699-sun-superflares-100-years.html" target="_blank">Sun Could Unleash a 'Superflare' Hundreds of Thousands of Times More Powerful Than Any Known Flare</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.livescience.com/64964-huge-ancient-solar-storm-hit-earth.html" target="_blank">Ice Samples Reveal a Massive Sun Storm Hit Earth in Ancient Times...And It Could Happen Again</a></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection">Coronal
mass ejection</a> </span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;">— An
event like the 1859 Carrington event could disrupt power
grids.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;"><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1536">Shield
Act</a> </span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;">— Would
protect power grids from coronal mass ejections, and from <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/military-warns-emp-attack-could-wipe-out-america-democracy-world-order">EMP
attacks</a>, but not the rest of the electronic
infrastructure on which our economy depends.<br />
</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_planet">Rogue
planet</a> </span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;">— Planetary
body not gravitationally bound to a star. <br />
</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;"><a href="https://www.space.com/42437-oumuamua-interstellar-object-small-shiny-comet.html">Oumuamua
</a></span>— Odd-shaped interstellar object flys through solar
system.<br />
</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;"><a href="https://www.space.com/28737-fastest-star-galaxy-strange-origin.html">Fastest
Star in the Galaxy Has a Strange Origin</a> </span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;">— Moves about 26 million miles an
hour. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;"><a href="http://breadandbutterscience.com/SSTA.pdf">Solar Storm Threat Analysis</a>, </span>James A. Marusek, Impact, Bloomfield, Indiana 4742<span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;">. also </span><a href="http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/SSDPP.pdf">Solar Storm Disaster Preparedness Plan</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5600799/Mammoth-solar-flare-Earth-like-exoplanet-Proxima-b-spell-doom-life-star.html">Nearby Earth-like exoplanet Proxima b slammed by super flare that may have wiped out any possibility of alien life</a>. <br />
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Solar-Flare-Survival-Yourself-Electronics/dp/1466421398">Solar Flare Survival</a>, Marc Remillard</li>
<li><a href="https://gizmodo.com/what-would-happen-if-a-massive-solar-storm-hit-the-eart-1724650105">What Would Happen if a Massive Solar Storm Hit the Earth?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/next-solarstorm.html">Getting Ready for the Next Big Solar Storm</a>, NASA</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;"><a href="https://www.inverse.com/article/36777-mars-moon-human-colony-lava-tubes">Mars
Colonists Could Live in Lava Tubes Beneath the Surface</a>
</span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;">— Could fit entire cities
into such tubes.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;"><a href="https://www.universetoday.com/139021/living_underground_exploring_lava_tubes/">Living
Underground on Other Worlds</a> </span><span style="font-family: "liberation" serif;">— We can see skylights of partially
collapsed tubes.</span></li>
</ol>
Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-87321694669300430492018-11-04T12:15:00.001-06:002018-11-04T12:15:21.409-06:00Written Constitutions Better<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Written constitutions better</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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For forms of government
let fools contest. That which is best administered is best.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">~ </span>Alexander Pope</div>
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That seems to be the guiding constitutional doctrine in the
few countries without written constitutions, most prominently the United
Kingdom. Those who have viewed the British comedy series, <i><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=yes+minister+youtube&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS821US821&oq=Yes+Minister&aqs=chrome.3.0l6.9880j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8https://www.google.com/search?q=yes+minister+youtube&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS821US821&oq=Yes+Minister&aqs=chrome.3.0l6.9880j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">Yes Minister</a>,</i> and <i><a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS821US821&ei=vjHfW4iPCJCGsQX_9IqADQ&q=yes+prime+minister+youtube&oq=yes+prime+minister+youtube&gs_l=psy-ab.3.0.0i67j0l2j0i67j0j0i30l3j0i5i30j0i8i30.91424.93839..95920...0.0..0.83.355.6......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j35i304i39j0i7i30j0i13j0i8i7i30.TmDnKJnfQXs">Yes Prime Minister</a></i>, should have gotten some insight into
some of the problems with a government of a few elected officials, dominated by
a professional civil service that never seems to change. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The term “shadow government” was coined in the UK to refer
to the “shadow” components of the civil service appointed by previous
“governments” or ministers thereof, who continue to follow the policies of
those tat appointed them, and often seem more accountable to thr now “shadow”
ministers of the party that appointed them, if different from the party now
nominally in power, who are expected to become their new bosses if that party
comes to power. In the US, which uses the term “administration” for what are
called “governments” in UK parlance, the term “deep state has come to be used
for what is called “shadow government” in the UK. In the US “shadow government”
refers to what is sometimes called the “military-industrial complex” and its
“top secret special access projects” (TSSAP), funded without accountability to Congress or the
President.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Veteran journalist Sarah McClendon once asked then president
Bill Clinton about UFOs and aliens (what I call exos). He declined to answer,
and replied, “Sarah, there is a government within the government, and I don’t
control it.” That meant that the president himself did not have access to what
government was doing about that subject.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Then senator Barry Goldwater once asked then Gen. Curtis
Lemay about the same thing, and was warned “Don’t ever ask me about that
again.” That doesn’t mean Lemay was not “in the loop”. Perhaps only that he was
afraid of those who were.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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During the Stalin era and through the time of Gorbachev the
Soviet Union had a fairly good Constitution, by the standards of sound
constitutional design, but the reality was something else. The Communist Party
ruled. It controlled the first, NKVD, which became the KGB, which became the
FSB. It assigned a party agent to each
government official, as the shadow official for that puppet official, who made
all the important decisions. The Red Army was separate, but had its own shadow
officials, and controlled the GRU, or military intelligence organization.
Vladimir Putin is a former FSB official. The Soviet Union fell apart because
the Party fell apart, and the Army fell apart, and refused to fire on civilian
protesters (the only time in history when “flower power” actually worked).
After that, the former FSB and GRU officials saw an opportunity to divide the
spoils of the USSR and become rich oligarchs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If two such powerful nations are not constrained by their
constitutions, then what use are constitutions? Actually, during much of this
era the two nations were nearly in technical compliance with their own
constitutions. The problem is that the framers of those constitutions did not
anticipate how the spirit of their constitutions might be violated while
complying with the letter of them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->The US Constitution does not provide that debt
be budgeted, only spending. Agencies are limited in how much they can spend but
not in how much debt they can generate. Any agency can create debt which the US
government is obligated to pay, without limit. Now it would be possible in
principle for a TSSAP to operate without generating debt, but it would still
have to report zero, and thus to that extent reveal its existence.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->The US Constitution needs to forbid Congress to
make anything legal tender on state territory, or issuing debt instruments in
payment of debts, anywhere. That means not to make debt instruments, like
Federal Reserve notes. It already does, by not authorizing it. Only making
legal tender by states is mentioned. Nor should agencies, like TSSAPs, get the
Treasury to print more Federal Reserve notes for its use to exceed debt budget
restrictions. The Constitution needs to forbid anything other than gold oir
silver coins, or energy certificates, redeemable for some number of joules of
energy, to be legal tender.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->However, TSSAPs could also be funded by either
trade, such as importing and selling addictive substances, as documented in the
reports <i>Dark Alliance</i>, by Gary Webb, <a href="http://www.constitution.org/abus/narc/day1main.htm">Day 1</a>, <a href="http://www.constitution.org/abus/narc/day2main.htm">Day 2</a>, <a href="http://www.constitution.org/abus/narc/day3main.htm">Day3</a>, or by accepting donations from private parties or other
nations. Some of what the US government does is to extort such donations.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Constitutionally excluding shadow officials from
replacing “”constitutional” officials is a more difficult problem. Most
constitutional officials are going to want advisers, and it is only a small
step from being an adviser to being a decider. Frequent testimony by an official
to a legislature can help, but it is not obvious how to constitutionalize that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--> It needs to be made easier for
outsiders, like grand juries, to investigate and expose official wrongdoing.
Killing an outside investigator or a whistleblower needs to be treated as
treason, with the death penalty.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There are more reforms, but these will do for now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The UK is often said to have an “unwritten” constitution.
That is not quite true. It is comprised of hundreds of documents, or fragments
of documents, going back almost 1000 years, some written in an English that is
incomprehensible to modern readers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We have books online that contain most of the important such
documents:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://constitution.org/ech/eng_const_hist.htm"><b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Select Documents of English Constitutional History</span></i></b></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">, George Burton Adams and H. Morse Stephens (1904) — Collection of
excerpts from the main documents that comprise the English
"constitution".</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<a href="https://constitution.org/sech/sech_.htm"><b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Sources of English Constitutional History: 600-1937</span></i></b></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">, Carl Stephenson & Frederick George Marcham (1937) —
Collection of the documents that define the English "constitution". </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The publisher of this second one asked
us to take it down for copyright violation, which we did. A few years later,
with no prompting from us, they asked us to put it back online. We we did,
within a few minutes. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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For many years the only place where such documents could be
found was on our website, hosted in the US. Nowhere in the UK. The last time we
checked this was still true. To us this seems embarrassing, and may explain a
great deal why Brits think that have no written constitution. They have what
passes for one, but most of them don’t know where to find it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There have been attempts to draft a written constitution for
the UK by several political science academics. No lawyers or lawmakers. They
are pathetic, and haven’t gained much support. The problem with them is that
they only attempt to codify most of existing practice. But the UK is a federal
state, combining several countries under a single House of Commons that tries
to function as a constitutional convention for a unitary republic, and it is
not a unitary republic. Any well-written constitution of government needs to
recognize that fact.<o:p></o:p></div>
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They also try to constitutionalize the monarchy, as some
other “constitutional monarchies” have tried to do. That doesn’t work. Monarchy
and constitutional republican government don’t mix. It is the essence of
monarchy to be unbound to any law or constitution. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now that does not mean the legislature can’t create a
statutory office of monarch, appoint a member of the “royal” family, pay him or
her a salary and expenses, require him or her to perform ceremonial functions,
and tax him or her like any other citizen (not “subject”, loyalty is to the
Constitution, not to the person of a “monarch”). People might think they have a
monarchy, but it would only be for show. In any case, this can be done by
statute and does not belong in a “constitution”. People might want to keep their
monarch, but that is only to satisfy tradition.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Another instructive effort was the attempt by some political
leaders, most prominently Valery Giscard d’Estaing. It was put to a referendum
in the counties of the European Union, and rejected by the voters of two of
them, most notably, France. That killed the project. It is not a constitution.
It is too long, and written like the party platform of a socialist party, full
of handouts to various special interest groups and promises that could not
possibly br kept, but largely devoid of the content that a true constitution
needs to have, which is a tightly written list of powers, duties, and
non-powers. The proposed EU constitution spoke of vague “competencies”, by
which it presumably meant subject-matter jurisdictions, without defining the
powers for such jurisdictions. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The people of France deserve credit for making the wise
decision to reject that atrocity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We have written what is initially billed as a “<a href="https://constitution.org/reform/us/constitution-us-model.html">model
constitution</a>” for the US, as how it should have been written. We put the
Bill of Rights, which we call <a href="https://constitution.org/reform/us/immunitates.html"><i>Immunit</i></a><a href="https://constitution.org/reform/us/immunitates.html"><i>at</i></a><a href="https://constitution.org/reform/us/immunitates.html"><i>es</i></a>, in a
separate document, which is made difficult to amend. It is binding on all
levels and every branch of government, in every country.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The final provisions of the Constitution are actually
tailored for the UK, and it is ready of adoption by that country. With minor
modifications, it could adapted to the European Union, and to any federal
republic, like Germany, Switzerland, India, Mexico, Australia, Canada, or
Brazil. With further modification it could be used by Israel. Note that
selection of officials is not done by direct election, but by multistage
process called <i>fetura</i> (Latin for breeding), which alternates random
selection with merit selection. There is little scope for political parties in
such a system, and people do not vote for parties, but for individuals, at the
first level.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The head of state is called a <i>leiter</i>, the head of
government the <i>executor</i>, and the head of defense the <i>protector</i>.
The three roles may be combined in the same individual. Each is required to
consent to legislation from a bicameral <i>diet</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Judges, or richters, are appointed for life to a pool of
richters, from which richters for particular courts and cases may be drawn at
random. Richters are also selected by fetura.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Could the people of the UK be led to support such a
constitution? No way to know, but someone needs to lead such an effort.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So is it better to have a written constitution? The lesson
of history seems to be that it is. But constitutions or laws are not magic
self-enforcing machines. Any of them can be subverted if enough people are
determined to do so. The question is whether other people will have a standard
by which they may oppose such subversion. How can anyone decide whether
government is best administered? Ultimately it is a political decision, but
good people need a standard in writing. Unwritten constitutions, like unwritten
laws or contracts, aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-16839090996106968632018-09-12T17:21:00.002-05:002018-12-02T13:20:35.501-06:00Disparate impact not a measure of disparate treatmentAre disparate outcomes always the result of discrimination against protected groups? Many on the left claim claim that, but are they factually correct? They seem to want to deny all evidence that discrimination is not a significant cause, and to attack anyone trying to present such evidence of differences in merit as "racist", "sexist", "homophobic", or "xenophobic" to shame them into withdrawing their evidence. But do such attacks have any merit themselves? Are differences in hiring, lending, or congressional district drawing the result of "institutional racism" or whatever is the latest popular target for scorn?<br />
<br />
It is the thesis of this article that while there are cases of what might be called "institutional racism" at play, for the most part it is now almost insignificant, and attacks on it more often an attempt to deny selection for merit in ways the accuser doesn't like or doesn't want to accept.<br />
<br />
The touchy issue centers on IQ, used as an estimate of general intelligence <i>g</i>. Despite ages of attempts to measure it in an unbiased manner, too many measures appear which attempt to measure it that tend to agree, which tend to estimate the average IQ of white Americans as 100, of Black Americans as 85, of Hispanic Americans and Native Americans as 90-95, of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans, and Scots, as 105. and Ashkenazi Jews as 115. Those numbers tend to predict the success of those groups in school and in the workplace.<br />
<br />
Those who attack those who make these points generally commit an error in logic and statistics, They try to cast them as asserting that everyone in one of these groups Has the average IQ of that group. They way to use the statistics is to compare the performance of persons of about the same IQ from any group. If those performances are about the same, and they are, then that can be taken as compelling evidence of the absence of discrimination of one group by another, contrary to the doctrine of some that there is pervasive systematic discrimination operating. The evidence is clear. There might be a little discrimination at work, and that is troublesome, but the amount is so little that it doesn't make any difference to average performance. It may then be seen as not just the best predictor of performance, but the only one that matters. That is not the result that satisfies the narrative of "social justice warriors".<br />
<br />
A perverse effect of such disparate outcome jurisprudence is that it tends to validate the proclivity of "social justice warriors" to find bigotry everywhere, even where none exists. That enables them to shame virtuous people into irrational, and ultimately harmful, behaviors.<br />
<br />
<b>Notes:</b><br />
<br />
1. Disparate impact was established United States Supreme Court as <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/557/557/" target="_blank"><i>Ricci v. DeStefano</i></a>. At the heart of the <i>Ricci </i>case was the doctrine of disparate-impact discrimination, which the Supreme Court first articulated in its 1971 decision in <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/292/243/2159976/" target="_blank"><i>Griggs v. Duke Power Company</i></a>. At issue in <i>Griggs </i>was the requirement that employees hired into service jobs at the power company's facilities had to possess a high-school diploma and achieve a minimum score on an IQ test. The plaintiffs argued that these rules disqualified too many black job applicants, thereby violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.<br />
<br />
The Supreme Court agreed, ruling that job criteria with an adverse or exclusionary effect on minorities — even if those criteria were "neutral on their face, and even neutral in terms of intent" — could violate the Title VII ban on race discrimination in hiring. The Court further stipulated that employers could escape liability for "disparate impact" only if they demonstrated that their adverse selection practices had "a manifest relationship to the employment in question" or that they were justified by "business necessity."<br />
<br />
In the <i>Ricci </i>case, a 5-4 majority of the Court read the facts narrowly to conclude that New Haven's civil-service exam was sufficiently related to the jobs in question to survive scrutiny and ultimately sided with the firefighters who had sued to have their scores reinstated.<br />
<br />
<br />
2. <a href="https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-dead-end-of-disparate-impact" target="_blank">The Dead End of “Disparate Impact”</a>, Amy L. Wax, <i>National Affairs</i>, Summer 2012<br />
<br />
"In the sphere of employment, the key questions are: "Why do some people compete more effectively than others for jobs and social rewards?" and "What can be done about it?" These questions are complicated and pressing, and the law of disparate impact does nothing to address them. It in fact only distracts us from finding urgently needed answers."<br />
<br />
3. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-fFVL_V-lI" target="_blank">Why Cognitive Inequality Matters</a>, Stefan Molyneux. <br />
<br />
4. <a href="https://heterodoxacademy.org/" target="_blank">Heterodox Academy</a>. Challenge political correctness.Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-44608034972929573132018-07-10T12:31:00.003-05:002018-07-18T13:37:56.192-05:00U.S. Supreme Court: Issues with current contendersThe four current contenders for the U.S. Supreme Court, including the nominee, Brett Cavanaugh, do present some constitution issues.<br />
<br />
<b>Unenumerated rights</b><br />
<br />
The first issue is presented by the statement by nominee Brett Cavanaugh in his acceptance speech, that he would not find rights not explicitly recognized in the main Constitution.. This has been an issue since the nomination of Robert Bork, who considered the Ninth Amendment, which calls for the nondisparagement of rights that are not "enumerated" (made explicit) somewhere in the Constitution, as amended, to be an "ink blot".There is strong opposition to Supreme Court judges doing that, especially from so-called "conservatives", who don't understand that constitutional rights are all "immunities", restrictions on the powers of government. They are not "privileges" to receive a sufficient amount of public resources, such as for education, healthcare, elder support, or any other objects of public subsidies.<br />
<br />
Interestingly, in the case of <i>Roe v. Wade</i>, the Fifth Circuit decided that a "right to an abortion" was a Ninth Amendment right of a woman <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> "to choose whether to have children</span>", which by the 14th Amendment, was "incorporated" for the states. This presented the Supreme Court with an apparent problem, because there was opposition to funding unenumerated rights in the Senate. The Fifth Circuit found a Ninth Amendment "right <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> to choose whether to have children</span>". So the SC tried to sustain the Fifth Circuit without embracing the Ninth Amendment. The result was an incoherent opinion. There was no way to avoid the Ninth Amendment.<br />
<br />
It would perhaps too much to expect a nominee to venture into an extended discussion of what a "right" is, and what it is not. It is awkward to say "I will not find a 'right' to a sufficient amount of a public resource." That is too complicated for most senators. So the candidate denies he will try to find any "unenumerated" rights. That is somewhat disingenuous, but the issue needs to be discussed.<br />
<br />
<b>When "life" begins</b><br />
<br />
One of the potential nominees, Amy Barrett, has been reported to have stated that human "life" begins at conception. That is a misstatement of the issue in <i>Roe v. Wade</i>. which in its essence was not about "life" nut about "personhood" because "Rights (immunities)" attach to "persons", (<i>roles</i> in court), not to "life", despite what the Declaration of Independence says. (That is why some activists have sought to move the commencement of "personhood" back to conception. That would be a mistake. We cannot allow each state to redefine "personhood", because if we did, a state could define some people to be nonpersons, without rights. So there has to be a uniform definition across all states if the protections of the Constitution are not to be meaningless. That is the basis for finding the right to be incorporated under the Ninth Amendment, as the Fifth Circuit did.<br />
<br />
So when does "life" begin?<br />
<br />
Not at conception. Each individual is the latest in an unbroken chain of life that goes back to at least the point when the first single-celled organism became a multi-celled animal, which occurred about 650 million years ago, during the pre-Cambrian era, when the surface of the Earth was covered with ice ("snowball Earth") and there was only one continent, Rodinia. We are all descended from that multi-celled organism. That is when "life" began.<br />
<br />
So when does "personhood" begin?<br />
<br />
This was declared by the jurist Edward Coke in the 15th century, and later restated by legal scholar William Blackstone, in the early 18th century, who provided most of the definitions for terms used in the U.S. Constitution. They held that "personhood" begins at natural birth, or induced natural birth (they had Cesarean sections in those days). Some of the states later found that personhood began with baptism, entry of a name in church records, or even later. Not at "conception", the date of which could not have been defined with any precision in those days, or even now.<br />
<br />
Consider what would happen if we defined "personhood" to begin at conception? It would make every fetus the ward of a court, with the court having power to supervise the pregnancy. It could order the woman to continue a pregnancy, and not terminate it, under penalty of law. That would be forced pregnancy. Do we want that? Every pregnant woman chained to a bed. Anyone see the play "A Handmaid's Tale". Good way to stop everyone from having sex.<br />
<br />
<b>Need for uniformity</b><br />
<br />
Incorporation of a Ninth Amendment right is required by the need to have a uniform definition of "personhood" (legal role) across all jurisdiction, since constitutional rights attach to "persons" and not just to "citizens" or "life". If states could define personhood, they could deprive anyone of rights by defining him to be a "nonperson". Thus a state could find that Blacks are not persons as a way to deprive them of their liberty.<span style="color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Thus a state could find that Blacks are not persons as a way to deprive them of their liberty</span><br />
<br />
<b>Notes:</b><br />
<br />
1. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/314/1217/1472349/" target="_blank"><cite style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: inherit;"><i>Roe v. Wade</i></cite><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">,</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/314/1217/1472349/" target="_blank"> 1221 (N.D. Tex. 1970)</a> (“On the merits, plaintiffs argue as their principal contention that the Texas Abortion Laws must be declared unconstitutional because they deprive single women and married couple of their rights secured by the Ninth Amendment to choose whether to have children. We agree.”).</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.6px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;">2. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><b>Roe v. Wade</b></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><a href="http://roe%20v.%20wade%2C%20410%20u.s.%20113%20%281973%29./" target="_blank">, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)</a>. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.6px;"><br /></span>
3, <i><a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/141674/handmaids-tale-hulu-warning-conservative-women" target="_blank">A Handmaid's Tale</a></i>, Margaret Atwood.<br />
<br />
4. <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=uclrev_online" target="_blank">Robert Bork and the Inkblot</a>, Kurt Lash.<br />
<br />
5. <a href="https://constitutionalism.blogspot.com/2007/09/constitutional-views-on-abortion.html" target="_blank">Constitutional views on abortion</a><br />
<br />Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-12870928723610118882018-04-29T17:24:00.001-05:002018-04-29T17:43:36.457-05:00Collusion?<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The word “collusion”
is much in use today, not because it is a crime (it is not), but
because it sounds sinister. It has generally been used in attempts to
investigate whether Trump colluded with Russia in a way that would be
grounds for inpeachment and removal of Trump from office. That would
not put Hillary Clinton in that office. It would put Mike Pence
there, and Trump would undoubtedly continue to rule by telling Pence
what to do, in much the way the Communist Party ruled the Soviet
Union before it fell, by having a party official for every government
official, telling him what to do. Or like Putin continued to rule
Russia while Medvedev served in that office. Impeach Pence. Being
guided by a shadow government is also not an impeachable offense, or
every president since 1913 would be in violation. Remove Pence and
the presidency just passes to the Speaker of the House. Sorry
Hillary, but none of these things leads to a do-over of the 2016
election. Not before 2020.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So what is the
reasoning of Hillary supporters? It seems to go like this:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">1. An excellent
candidate like Hillary Clinton could not possibly have lost an honest
election.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. Therefore, the
vote count had to have been hacked. But who has the means to do that?
Only Russia. Perhaps.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. Would Russia have
wanted to elect Trump? Not without a strong inducement. Perhaps the
return of Alaska, or help in regaining control of Eastern Europe.
Would anyone, even Trump, have had the means to offer such an
inducement? Not really. No US. president has such power. Not even
paying off enough Russian oligarchs would likely be enough. (Give
them all our Uranium? That’s already been done. By Trump’s
opponent.)</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Early in this
controversy some of the intelligence agencies, led by the CIA,
reported that the 2016 presidential election had been :hacked”, but
not in ways that changed any election outcomes. This was an
irresponsible report to make, because most computer=naive people will
seize on that word to conclude that election outcomes were flipped.
The use of that word has fueled the entire “Russia hacked our
elections” narrative. It should be noted that those people have not
sought to make vote-counting systems more difficult to hack, but to
attack the suspected beneficiary of such a hack and to try to
overturn the results of the 2016 election. It seems they don’t care
about flipping elections in favor of Democrats. Only in favor of
Republicans.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">2016 election
outcomes were not flipped.</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are too many
different kinds of voting machines in too many voting precincts in
more than 3000 counties. There are no centralized vote counting
machines, although there are machines that add the number of votes
from each precinct. But a simple recount can reveal if there are any
discrepancies. Much has been made about voting machines being
hackable, but there are too many voting machines of different makes
and models. Hacking an election remains a potential threat, but the
solution remains voter verifiable paper ballots, such as those used
in Brazil. Absentee ballots are a greater path to corruption. The
greatest threat is still trucking in millions of illegal entrants and
inducing local voting officials to accept them. That can only be done
in a few areas, however. Requiring state-issued voter photo ID is the
best way to prevent that, although it has to be made easy to get
them.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This point is well
-made in an article in <i>Fortune</i><span style="font-size: small;">,
</span><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: #282f2f;"><span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-variant: normal;"><a href="http://fortune.com/2016/08/09/voting-machines-hackers/">5
Reasons Why Hackers Can’t Rig the U.S. Election</a>, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #282f2f;"><span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-variant: normal;">by
Jeff John Roberts, August 9, 2016.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: #282f2f;"><span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><span style="font-variant: normal;">W</span></b></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #282f2f;"><span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><span style="font-variant: normal;">hat
should have been done</span></b></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #282f2f;"><span style="font-family: "pt" serif , "georgia" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-variant: normal;">
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">1. The special
prosecutor, Robert Mueller, should never have been charged to find
“collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia without
specifying a reasonable deadline for reporting his findings.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. He should have
been charged to find only successful “collusion” to change the
results of the 9016 election, not “collusion” of any kind.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. He should have
charged only with the above, not with finding violations of other
statutes, especially 18 USC 1001 (which is arguably unconstitutional
as usually applied). Only seek indictment of perjury under oath.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-11965707290932259882017-07-21T22:45:00.000-05:002017-07-21T22:48:03.623-05:00May the President pardon himself?<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Article II §2 of the Constitution states that the President "shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment." It also states in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">§</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">3 "</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." This defines his power with respect to law. He may not make, suspend, or repeal laws, but only execute them. He is not a monarch, and it is a source of confusion to take a term out of British monarchical practice and carry it over to American constitutional practice. That change in context changes the meaning. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">The Constitution also states in </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Article II §2, "</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." That is essentially synonymous to a right to "equal protection" of the law, which was included in the 14th Amendment.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">What is a pardon, for a president? Not for a monarch, but for a president. It is simply his determination not to enforce a criminal conviction and sentencing order of a federal court. It has no meaning until after there is a conviction, because the crime is not defined until then. Nor may he issue a pardon before conviction as a way to prevent a trial. He has no power to prevent a trial, including a trial of himself, although the court may not have personal jurisdiction over him. Nor may he use it to remove personal jurisdiction from any other individual. A court has personal jurisdiction if the defendant appears in it, unless it is a special appearance. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">A pardon is not a reversal of a conviction. Even after a pardon the conviction stands, and may be enforced at any time, until it is reversed. A president cannot bind his successors, any more than a monarch may. His decisions and determinations expire when he leaves office. (That includes executive orders.) So, yes, he may pardon himself.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">But the pardon doesn't last forever. The conviction may be enforced when he leaves office.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "open sans" , , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-68071637072746627572017-06-10T15:19:00.001-05:002017-06-20T09:49:52.396-05:00Russian "interference" in U.S. elections?Much is being made about Russian "interference" in the 2016 presidential election, and about possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to interfere to win the election for Trump. However, the suspicions are lacking in evidence.<br />
<br />
However, we do have a classified report from the Director of National Intelligence, the declassified version of which is linked below. It Seems to have at least tacit support from other agencies, and it can be expected to be the basis for other investigations on the subject.<br />
<br />
Despite the use of the word "Hacking" in the URL of the report, the only hacking discussed in the report is of the private Clinton server containing and sharing classified documents. It repeatedly says, "DHS assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying." In other words, there was no known hacking of vote counts.<br />
<br />
However, the report is also loose about what constitutes a "Russian actor". The hackers using the handle "Guccifer.2.0" are presumed in the report to be working for the Russian government, which Putin denies. However, that they might be independent is entirely plausible. Russia harbors a swarm of hackers, mostly bent on selling drugs or stealing page rank. It seems doubtful that all of them would work for the Russian government. Of course, the government would soon have what they found.<br />
<br />
So what kind of "collusion" with Trump supporters could there have been? Giving the Trump people advance notice of what they found ans asking them what to do with it? So the Trump people said "Upload it to Wikileaks." So what. That is not "collusion".<br />
<br />
In the report it says that "Guccifer.2.0 is identified as Romanian. That was the original Guccifer (without a version number). The report may be confused about all the Guccifers.<br />
<br />
The hacking of the Clinton servers was easy for almost anyone to do. It appears that many people did. That it revealed evidence of criminal wrongdoing is hardly "interference" in our election. We need more of that kind of interference in every election. It is also doubtful that the revelations did much to change the way people voted. Clinton supporters just dismissed the revelations as political lies, and her opponents weren't going to vote for her anyway.<br />
<br />
Most of what the rest of the report discuses is just propaganda, mainly delivered through the RT (formerly Russia Today) network. I have frequently watched RT. Yes it is slanted pro-Russian, but one can compensate for that. Just as most of the media in the U.S. is slanted progressive or Democrat. (Now increasingly communistic and pro Islamic conquest.) Only Fox news and a few other independents seem not to be part of that spin machine. They are slanted, but it is easy to compensate for their slant. That same U.S. based media interferes in the elections of almost every nation on earth. in much the way RT does. Propagandists have a right of free speech. Spreading their slants on the news is hardly "interference". That is also what political campaigns do. All part of the game.<br />
<br />
Now the spreading of "fake news" can be a problem, especially if done too close to an election, before the corrections can propagate.<br />
<br />
The DNI report is long on assertions, but short on evidence. Perhaps they are in the classified version, but the declassified version does not hint about what such evidence, if any, could be.<br />
<br />
It seems likely that the excitement about "Russian hacking" is intended to deflect attention from the Trump complaints of Democrats bringing illegal aliens to the polls to vote. That is plausible. Although I have not seen it done, I have heard Democrat campaign workers discussing how they did it. It was just a matter of rounding up illegals, driving them to the polls, and then having poll workers look the other way as the votes were cast. Most staff positions at the local government level are filled by Democrats, which puts them in position to do things like steal elections.<br />
<br />
<b>Links:</b><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Background and Report, “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution,” Jan. 6, 2017, available at <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3254239-Russia-Hacking-report.html">https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3254239-Russia-Hacking-report.html</a></li>
</ol>
Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-89893832930233680272017-05-31T20:50:00.000-05:002017-06-11T22:40:24.687-05:00What is "societal discrimination"?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.<br />
Concurring, Potter Stewart, <i>Jacobellis v. Ohio</i>, 378 U.S. 184 (1964).</blockquote>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
American jurisprudence has strayed in response to demands from some social justice advocates who perceive an undesirable situation and attribute it to discrimination, racism, or other deplorable practice. However, what has too often occurred is the logical fallacy, <i>post hoc ergo propter hoc</i>. (The result was caused by a preceding event.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The usual reasoning is that the result could not have occurred unless there was improper discrimination, and that therefore public policy must intervene against such discrimination. However, there can be many causes of undesirable outcomes, some of which may involve some kinds of discrimination, but not always improper discrimination.<br />
<br />
We can propose an alternative definition: <i>(Improper) discrimination is treating an individual as though his attributes were those common to his group</i>. It is a failure to treat individuals as individuals, but rather to aggregate individuals into their group.<br />
<br />
That brings us to having to confront something that most people don't want to accept or think about. More than a century of intelligence testing on people of many races, ethnicities, and nationalities yields some dismal results for those who want to believe than there are no differences in innate abilities. Tests have been criticized as biased or unsound, but tests have been modified to answer those criticisms. The results persist. American Whites get an average score of 103, Jews get 113, American Blacks get 85, and Hispanics get 89. This has been investigated by Black economist Thomas Sowell, who argues that while it is wrong to treat all members of those groups as though they had those average values. it does cast doubt on whether the low average performance of members of those in fields like education and employment is the result of societal discrimination. If they are in fact innately inferior, and genetic studies indicate that 50-80% of such differences are genetic, than that changes what we should be doing about such disparities.<br />
<br />
I invite readers to put aside their reflex rejection of such results and seriously consider what we do if they turn out to be valid. Note that the above paragraph is presented as conjectural, not as an assertion, and it should not be taken as my position on the issues.<br />
<br />
The key point here is to propose a better definition of "societal discrimination" than that which has become established in American jurisprudence today, where judges sometimes find that disparate outcomes are the result of societal discrimination, without evidence. That is not a proper basis for judicial intervention. The proposed definition is intended to work regardless of what might be the causes of any traits that might become stably manifest in a group, whether genetic, "environmental" which may include "discrimination", or whatever. It also doesn't matter what the "group" might be, or how it is determined. It works for any group, however defined.<br />
<br />
Those who argue against genetic influence on intelligence as its manifestation stabilizes make a key mistake: they presume that there are only two general causative factors, genetic and environmental. In fact there is a third: <i>emergence</i>, referring to the fact that complex living systems are self-organizing, or chaotic, systems, in which small perturbations can have large consequences, and continue to have large consequences as the system develops.<br />
<br />
But part of the mistake is to lump emergent development into environment, or "nurture", as though it were something that could be managed purposely. It is inherently unmanageable.<br />
<br />
A second mistake is to treat genomes (genotypes) as more deterministic than they are. Genes influence the probabilities of phenotypes, but do not determine them. A typical human genome is thought to contain about 30,000 genes. The information contained in those genes is about eleven orders of magnitude less than enough to determine all the phenotypes in detail. But all the information that can be passed through the senses to influence development is also many orders of magnitude less than what it would take to determine human behavior in detail. Since information cannot be created, that means something else is shaping the details. That something is self-organization, but unmanageable self-organization. It is not susceptible to deliberate intervention.<br />
<br />
A third mistake is to imagine that societal interventions, individual or collective, are or can be more effective than they usually are, especially after some period of development when the things we want to change have become stably manifest. At some point the undesirable traits become difficult or impossible to reverse. Once they stabilize they become a reality that has to be confronted, regardless of the causes of the differences. This especially valid for cognitive development, for malleable youthful brains do not remain as malleable beyond a certain age.<br />
<br />
Especially illuminating to the question of the extent to which genes are determinative of cognitive capacity are the way genes largely determine species, each of which has a characteristic range of cognitive capacities. Some species even have their own versions of "societal discrimination", but in most it is difficult to identify any systematic effect of the distribution of cognitive capacities. For that purpose it is useful too compare humans with their two closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos.<br />
<br />
Bonobos differ greatly from chimpanzees in their behavior. Unlike Chimps, they do not become aggressive and ill-behaved after the age of puberty. Therefore they have become a favorite subject for learning studies. They are able to learn to understand spoken English, and to communicate using symbolic keyboards that produce spoken words when pressed, but so far only up about the level of a 2.5-year-old human. They share about 3% of the human genome, or 0.5 megabases, which is more than they share with chimps. Humans have about 14.6 megabases they share with neither of their cousin species. Within that subgenome we can expect to find the genes that most influence human cognitive development. It is a large number, but finite. We can speculate that the number is a few thousand. The genes don't have to determine the wiring of the brain. All they have to do is set up the emergent process which then determines its own structure and behavior. But that process is, in general, unmanageable, and once it stabilizes, either to work well or not, it is likely to be irreversible.<br />
<br />
Consider fingerprints. Identical twins both have them, but they are not identical. The details of the fingerprint are the result of emergence. Similarly hearts. Identical twins both have them, but the details of vascularization are not the same. Tissue that is to become a heart becomes one by responding to pressures from adjacent tissue that shape its development. The result is a chaotic system, that beats but not governed by a pacing signal. Similarly brains. Both twins get one, but the details of neuronal net structuring differs, although there can be similarities in the ways each twin leads its life.<br />
<br />
Much is made of the capacity of humans, unlike most other species, to choose to overcome their seemingly innate limitations through determination and effort, perhaps with a little encouragement. That works with some, although not with all. There may be genes for that as well. Of course, no one really overcomes innate limitations, only realizes the potential that was there, but the ability of the brain to learn can continue into later years, especially with enough fortitude. It can sometimes even compensate for damage, as from injury or stroke. But only sometimes. Such things cannot be counted on to solve widespread or entrenched disparities of outcomes.<br />
<br />
And no amount of determination is going to enable someone of average ability to become a cosmologist. Perhaps a successful lawyer in a small market.<br />
<br />
Something also needs to be said about "white privilege". Nothing is said about how it is supposed to work. When I was young almost anyone could get a job within a day or two if he pitched himself properly. There was plenty of work to be done, and if someone had work to be done it didn't matter much who did it. But things have changed.<br />
<br />
I am a highly skilled, highly experienced computer professional, yet I have difficulty getting work. The hiring process has become so difficult that about the only way I have gotten work has been by random contact with a hiring manager outside the workplace. That leads to the old saying, "It's not what you know but who you know that counts." Jobs today are surrounded by hordes of gatekeepers, each determined not to hire anyone they find unsuited, or even if they do find someone suited. But of course, if most of the gatekeepers are white, or whatever is the dominant shade in the community in which the job is, then you have to get to know at least one of the gatekeepers, and if that person happens to be white, then one can come away with the impression that "white privilege" has been the deciding factor. Getting past the gatekeepers can be largely a matter of luck. Many a successful businessman, if pressed for the secret of his success, will confess it was mainly a matter of luck. Of course, persistence can overcome bad luck, but it can only overcome so much bad luck.<br />
<br />
Most disadvantaged people just don't know how to enter the circles where hiring managers dwell. Part of that is in their appearance and manner of speaking. They don't have a Henry Higgins to coach them. To get a professional position one has to fit the image of a top professional.<br />
<br />
Another problem is technological unemployment. Machines are taking or eliminating jobs. Rapidly. That means many middle class persons are going to descend in their economic status. It's going to get rough for everyone, even for the top 1%. Eventually even they will be replaced.<br />
<br />
<b>Is "societal discrimination" as important as some think?</b><br />
<br />
There is a widespread belief that disparities of socio-economic condition are entirely the result of discrimination, in the absence of which everyone would be educated, middle class persons. But is that more myth than real? Or could disparities in the treatment of people be more the result of differences in their attitudes or merits?<br />
<br />
Obviously there is some discrimination, enough to seize on as a explanation for much of what we observe, but that doesn't make it the explanation for everything. Some disadvantages are a matter of choice, and will not be overcome by "ending discrimination".<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It means he's up against middle-class morality for all the time. ...<br />
I ain't pretending to be deserving... no... I'm undeserving, and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it, and that's the truth. -- Alfred P. Doolittle, <i>My Fair Lady</i>.</blockquote>
<br />
______<br />
<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><i>IQ and Race</i>, Thomas Sowell, 11/26/2012. http://mobile.wnd.com/2012/11/iq-and-race/</li>
<li>Intelligence, <i>New Findings and Theoretical Developments</i>, Nisbett, Blair, Dickens, Flynn, Halpern, Turkheimer, February–March 2012, <i>American Psychologist https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-67-2-130.pdf</i></li>
<li>Commentary on the above, by Turkheimer, et. al., <i>Vox Media</i>, May 18, 2017.</li>
<li>The bonobo genome compared with the chimpanzee and human genomes, Kay Prüfer, Kasper Munch, Ines Hellmann, et al., 486/7404, <i>Nature Letters</i> https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7404/full/nature11128.html</li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-16550603983129916132017-05-20T08:46:00.000-05:002017-06-20T10:49:56.430-05:00A prophetic 1944 interview<span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);">Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 - December 19, 1968) was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time <span class="ecyshortcuts">presidential candidate</span> for the <span class="ecyshortcuts">Socialist Party of America</span>. <span class="ecyshortcuts">He</span> said this in a 1944 interview:</span></span> <br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);"><span class="ecyshortcuts">The American people</span> will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.... I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the <span class="ecyshortcuts">Socialist Party</span>. The <span class="ecyshortcuts">Democratic Party</span> has adopted our platform.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);"></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);">This statement reveals several key ideas:<br /><br />The <b>first</b> is that a third party can win support for its policy positions without winning any elections if one of the two main parties adopts its positions.<br /><br />The <b>second</b> is that it is a winning political strategy to advantage a small segment of the voters at the expense of a smaller segment. Do that for enough small segments and eventually you will have socialism.<br /><br />The <b>third</b> is that it is a winning strategy to avoid allowing your ultimate objective, or the constitutional implications, to be framed as the question to be decided by the voters. People wouldn't vote for socialism, or for violating the Constitution, if the question were framed in those terms, but will vote for incremental steps toward it, and fail to understand the opponents when they try to explain to voters what those steps lead to, or that they are unconstitutional.<br /><br />The problem for libertarians is that liberty doesn't sell as well as government benefits. People don't really appreciate liberty until they have lost it, and too often they will not even realize they have lost it, or they will attribute the loss to something other than their own past election choices. It is easier for most people to imagine a prospective financial gain or loss than a loss of liberty. Money can be counted in a way that liberty can't.<br /><br />The same may be said of constitutional compliance. Few politicians make it a leading issue in campaigns. Most people don't understand it and have come to think that calling the opponent's position "unconstitutional" is just rhetoric. The few who do understand usually don't have enough influence over the others. The number of people who can understand what is and what is not constitutional is fairly small, and always has been. The only time in history it was large was during the first three American revolutions: the War for Independence, the ratification of the Constitution, and the <a href="http://www.constitution.org/rf/vr.htm">Election of 1800</a>, the last of which entrenched the Jeffersonian position on constitutional interpretation for the period from 1800 through 1824, and then to a declining degree for most of the rest of the 19th century. But even during the ratification debates it is unlikely that the majority of the people really understood the proposed Constitution in its entirety. Some focused on particular provisions that seemed dangerous, and opposed it until their fears were alleviated. Most probably supported it because George Washington did, demonstrating that the way to get complicated reforms is not to educate all the people but to get the support of charismatic personalities the voters like and trust.<br /><br />Most of Ron Paul's constituents don't vote for him because they agree with his positions. They vote for him because they like and trust him. It is more important for most voters to be comfortable with the personality than with his positions.</span></span><span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);">"Bait and switch" works in political selling as well. Voters are offered some charismatic personality or government benefit and never told that either represents a violation of the Constitution. Some will argue that the people have voted for the departures from constitutional compliance and thus ratified them in some sense, but that is deceptive, because the people were deceived by not having the constitutional implications of their choices explained to them. They did not vote for violation. The issues weren't framed to them that way.</span></span><span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0 , 0 , 0);">That doesn't mean it is not a productive activity to educate people on constitutional compliance. We need to create a learning environment in which some of those charismatic personalities can "get it" and then bring their insights with them when they take office. We have to spread the education around because it is not always easy to discern who will be the charismatic personalities of the future, and because such people are herd animals like any other who are going to want the reassurance of like-minded people before they will venture forth with constitutionalist positions. The trick is to both educate those individuals and enough of the individuals around them.<br /><br />What we learn from the study of the <a href="http://www.constitution.org/col/03317_diffusion.htm">diffusion of innovations</a> is that most people don't adopt new things because they learn about them from some kind of broadcast message. They are influenced more by the examples of those they look to as role models, and that chain of influence tends to sort itself into levels, with "early adopters" at the top, "secondary adopters" below them, "tertiary adopters" below both, and "quadranary adopters" below the first three. We also learn that most people don't adopt new things in long leaps or from single exposures to messages or examples. Except for the early adopters people generally adopt in small steps spaced over a period of time in response to repeated messages. That means you need to target people who are ready to take the next step, figure out where they are and how far you can get them to go on that occasion, then move on to others, but return to the first before they go cold and move them on to the next step, repeating the process until you get many people recruited. Then you need to keep them recruited with positive reinforcements, because most adopters won't stick to a new things unless it rewards them in some way, and because there are usually competing innovations that may win them over if you neglect to hold them.</span></span>Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-32903702321131256032017-05-08T09:43:00.001-05:002017-05-09T14:40:21.644-05:00Intent of the 14th AmendmentTo my 2000 article on the Intent of the 14th Amendment I make the following clarifying points:<br />
<br />
1. The 14th Amendment did not confer U.S. citizenship on individuals born on U.S. soil, whose parents were not subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign power. That was already the established rule, inherited from English law, and U.S. citizenship arguably began on non-state territory with adoption of the Articles of Confederation (ratified 1781) and the adoption of the Northwest and Southwest Ordinances (1787), which transferred sovereignty of the western territories, previously subject to conflicting claims by the states, to the emerging United States (a term that originated during the earlier (1774) Articles of Association under which the War of Independence was fought.<br />
<br />
2. Adoption of the U.S. Constitution made all persons born on the soil of any of the states U.S. citizens as well as those born on any of the non-state territories, and conferred on Congress the power to make rules for naturalization. That was not the power to make rules for immigration, which stem not from the Naturalization Clause but from the Law of nations Clause, since entry onto the territory of a nation without permission was an offence against the law of nations.<br />
<br />
3. The U.S. Constitution put restrictions of the states in Art. I Sec. 10, and since all restrictions on government powers are rights, or more precisely, immunities, it thereby established rights of U.S. persons (not just citizens) in the states against their states, justiciable in U.S. courts.<br />
<br />
4. The language of the Bill of Rights (1791), except that of the First Amendment, seemed to apply equally to the U.S. and state governments, and like Art. I Sec. 10, to make an exception to the omission from Art. III of federal court jurisdiction over cases between a citizen and his state, but it attached rights to persons, not just citizens. (The Framers, in writing Art. III, presumed a person who was a resident of a state would also be a citizen of that state, and did not anticipate states would later assert a different position.)<br />
<br />
5. However, the states defined state citizenship as well, and in ways that did not include the same individuals as were included in U.S. citizenship, such as blacks.<br />
<br />
6. Some of the southern, slaveholding, states belatedly realized that if the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause applied to them, and federal courts had jurisdiction, slaves could sue in federal courts for their freedom, as deprivation of liberty without due process of law.<br />
<br />
7. This led to two main cases. <i>Barron v. Baltimore</i> (1833) and <i>Dred Scott v. Sanford</i> (1857). In <i>Barron</i>, slavery was not the issue. The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment was the issue. But it was realized, when it got to the Supreme Court, that if the Court decided in favor of <i>Barron</i>, it would establish a precedent that would allow slavery to be challenged, so it decided against him, and CJ Marshall (wrongly) held the U.S. courts did not have jurisdiction to decide cases over the Bill of Rights between a citizen and his state, as that was already a federal question, despite Article III only mentioning "citizen" of a state in the list of court jurisdictions.<br />
<br />
8. In <i>Dred Scott</i> slavery was the issue. The problem was that the federal courts could not avoid jurisdiction because persons of different states were the opposing parties. The Bill of Rights, and other provisions of the U.S. Constitution, associate rights with personhood, not citizenship, and it was already established precedent that blacks were persons, so CJ Taney for the U.S. Supreme Court weaseled out of the trap by (wrongly) holding that blacks were not and could not be citizens, and thus, federal courts would not have jurisdiction, since Art. III uses the term "citizen" instead of "person" in defining jurisdiction. The effect was to make the rights of persons not citizens non-justiciable in federal courts, contrary to the obvious intent of the Bill of Rights.<br />
<br />
9. By the time the view developed that both precedents had to be overturned, and that it would take an amendment to do that, many more precedents had been built on those two cases. So it was not enough for an amendment to just refer to the two cases and explicitly overturn them. It had to adopt general language that would cover the entire system of precedents based on them, past and future.<br />
<br />
10. That left the problem that the states could not be allowed to deny rights to persons on their territories by defining them as noncitizens. That could make the U.S. Constitution a nullity in such states, by doing something outlandish like defining Jim Bob and Red Neck as the only citizens. So what the 14th Amendment did do was make all U.S. citizens state citizens if they reside in the state (although it neglected to define residency). That included blacks. However, it also neglected to make clear that most rights belong to persons and not just citizens.<br />
<br />
11. Some would argue that the language they chose was not very clear, and that a better wording was needed, but if one tries to find better language, it is not all that easy. (If I had been there, I could have done it, as I have, but I was born too late.)<br />
<br />
12. There is actually no U.S. Supreme Court decision that sustains the offspring born on U.S. soil of parents who have entered U.S. soil illegally to be natural born U.S. citizens. Such parents are arguably not "subject to the jurisdiction" in that they did not seek and obtain consent to enter. All the cases have either been parents who entered legally, or for which the legality of their entry was not before the court. There is a presumption that those born on U.S. soil are natural born citizens, subject to proof to the contrary, and in the absence of someone to argue that position, the presumption stands. If someone wants to get a precedent to that point, one needs to take a case to the U.S. Supreme Court.<br />
<br />
<b>1866 Civil Rights Act.</b><br />
<br />
Following the War of secession, Congress adopted the 1866 Civil Rights Act, under its sovereign power as the victor in the war. But there was no constitutional authority for most of its provisions. So the need was recognized to enact an amendment that would authorize that act, albeit retroactively. The problem was how to word it so that it would encompass the entire act. The 14th Amendment, declared adopted in 1868, needs to be understood as their attempt to do that. The result is rather broad, sweeping language.<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Merriweather, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
The bill plainly sought to overrule the Black Codes by affirming the full citizenship of newly emancipated blacks and by defining citizenship in terms applicable to all persons. Under the bill, the designation as an American citizen meant that one possessed certain specific rights, such as the right to make and enforce contracts, the right to file lawsuits and participate in lawsuits as parties or witnesses, and the right to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real property. In defining citizenship in this manner, the act effectively overruled state-sponsored Black Codes.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Merriweather, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding: 0px;">
At the same time, the act specified that these rights were "civil rights," giving the first clear indication that, in the context of race relations, there were different levels, or tiers, of rights at stake. "Civil rights" at this time were understood in terms of property rights, contract rights, and equal protection of the laws. These rights were distinct from "political rights," which involved the right to vote and hold public office, and "social rights," which related to access to public accommodations and the like. Thus the bill reflected the common view that political participation and social integration were more or less "privileges" and not basic elements of citizenship.</div>
<b>Section 1</b><br />
<br />
The 14th Amendment begins:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.</blockquote>
It is a source of some confusion that the first sentence did not use the legal term of art "natural born citizen" used in the Eligibility Clause of Article II, leading some to argue that the 14th Amendment created some new kind of citizenship. It did not. The words<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
All persons born ... in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States ...</blockquote>
Mean the same thing. The rule, <i>jus soli</i>, which was already established in Anglo-American common law, goes back to <i>Calvin's Case</i>, 7 Coke Report 1a, 77 ER 377 (1608). In 1868 "in the United States" included all the territory of all the states and also the (incorporated) western territories. Citizens of those western territories were also citizens of the United States.<br />
<br />
The first sentence then introduces something new:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
and of the State wherein they reside.</blockquote>
That made U.S. citizens, with all their rights, citizens of a state in which they lived. It did not specify how long they needed to reside there, and that was arguably a serious oversight, but the words have so far not been abused as much as they could have been.<br />
<br />
The third sentence begins:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;</blockquote>
This is the Privileges or immunities clause, which was ignored by the Supreme Court in reaching its decision in the Slaughterhouse Cases, and which has been ignored ever since. Note that it is the "privileges or immunities" of <i>citizens</i>, not <i>persons, </i>which is used in the remainder of the sentence.<br />
<br />
The words "privileges and immunities appear in Article IV:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Section. 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.</blockquote>
Does it make a difference whether the conjunction is "and" or "or"? Some have argued that in Article IV the "privileges" must be identical to the "immunities", but earlier usages of those terms both ways establishes that the two may be different, although perhaps overlapping.<br />
<br />
The "privilege-immunity" distinction therefore goes back to the Framing in 1787, even though the Bill of Rights uses the term "rights". It was recognized by Madison when he introduced the Bill of Rights that there are different kinds of "rights" with different sources:<br />
<br />
Madison, from the Debates on the Bill of rights:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In some instances they assert those rights which are exercised by the people in forming and establishing a plan of Government. In other instances, they specify those rights which are retained when particular powers are given up to be exercised by the Legislature. In other instances, they specify positive rights, which may seem to result from the nature of the compact. Trial by jury cannot be considered as a natural right, but a right resulting from a social compact which regulates the action of the community, but is as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-existent rights of nature.</blockquote>
Madison here recognizes that trial by jury is not a pre-existing natural right, but a right arising out of the social compact. There are other such rights, explored at "The Social Contract and Constitutional Republics". The rights that pre-exist the Constitution include natural rights, social rights, arising out of what Madison called the "social compact", and what we may call "dominion" rights, arising out of the dominion, the society with exclusive possession or sovereignty over an established territory. Those would include the rights of denizenship, to remain at or return to one's place of birth or residency.<br />
<br />
What are sometimes miscalled the "rights of citizenship", such as to vote, other than to ratify a constitution, which is a social right, or hold office, are not among the pre-existing rights, but are "privileges" created by the Constitution or by government. The pre-existing rights are in general protected by restrictions on the delegated powers of government, and as such are "immunities".<br />
<br />
So we have two kinds of things: "rights" that stem from nature, society, or dominion, and are protected by immunities, or restrictions on the powers of government (or the nondelegation of them), and "privileges" that stem from a constitution or a government, that may be established but which may be removed at any time.<br />
<br />
Some scholars have attempted to research the historical record to find examples, sometimes called "rights", sometimes "immunities", and sometimes privileges", indicating a lack of consistency in the use of such terms.<br />
<br />
An early attempt to define privileges and immunities is found in the opinion of Judge Bushrod Washington the case <i>Corfield v. Coryell</i>, 6 Fed. Cas. 546, no. 3,230 C.C.E.D.Pa. 1823:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;">... what are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999;">[Volume 4, Page 503]</span><span style="background-color: white;"> several states?" We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are, in their nature, fundamental; which belong, of right, to the citizens of all free governments; and which have, at all times, been enjoyed by the citizens of the several states which compose this Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign. What these fundamental principles are, it would perhaps be more tedious than difficult to enumerate. They may, however, be all comprehended under the following general heads: Protection by the government; the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety; subject nevertheless to such restraints as the government may justly prescribe for the general good of the whole. The right of a citizen of one state to pass through, or to reside in any other state, for purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise; to claim the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the state; to take, hold and dispose of property, either real or personal; and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by the other citizens of the state; may be mentioned as some of the particular privileges and immunities of citizens, which are clearly embraced by the general description of privileges deemed to be fundamental: to which may be added, the elective franchise, as regulated and established by the laws or constitution of the state in which it is to be exercised. These, and many others which might be mentioned, are, strictly speaking, privileges and immunities, </span></blockquote>
But these are examples pulled from memory as the judge wrote. The are not systematic analyses of the principles by which privileges or immunities can be identified, which is what we provide here.<br />
<br />
<b>Due process</b><br />
<br />
The last sentence of Section 1 states:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.</blockquote>
This is clearly taken from Article IV Section 1. But after the Slaughterhouse cases, which ignored the Privileges or immunities Clause to reach its verdict, this has been the only clause on which subsequent Supreme Court cases have been based, although they have introduced ideas like "procedural due process" and "substantive due process" to try to recreate them.<br />
<br />
<b>Slaughterhouse Cases</b><br />
<br />
The <i>Slaughter-House Cases</i>, 83 U.S. 36 (1873), was the first United States Supreme Court interpretation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment which had recently been enacted. It was a pivotal case in early civil rights law and held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the privileges or immunities of citizenship of the United States, not privileges and immunities of citizens of a state from their state governments. But the entire point of the 14th Amendment had been to protect state citizens from being deprived of privileges or immunities common to citizens (and resident persons) of the United States. To this day the interpretive error of these cases has not been corrected, although it has been worked around.<br />
<br />
It came closest to being corrected in two cases, <i>Roe v. Wade</i>, and <i>McDonald v. Chicago</i>. In the first, the Supreme Court heard an appeal of the case decided in the district court, which found for the plaintiff on the grounds of the Ninth Amendment right of privacy being one of the privileges or immunities protected by the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court justices all struggled to avoid reaching that result, through convoluted reasoning, but in the end decided the case on due process grounds.<br />
<br />
Read carefully, that case reveals the real reason for the reluctance of the Supreme Court to accept the Privileges or Immunities clause, and incorporate it, because that would require then to incorporate the Ninth Amendment, and when a court did that, it found a "right of privacy" that provided a basis for making abortion a right. The Supreme Court, even though it did allow abortion to be treated as a right, is reluctant to find any more rights than those enumerated in the Bill of Rights and elsewhere in the Constitution.<br />
<br />
This controversy over the Ninth Amendment has been central to constitutional scholarship, with former judge Robert Bork likening it to an "ink blot" that should not be used because one could not be sure what it means.<br />
<br />
<i>McDonald v. Chicago</i>, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), was expressly argued on the Privileges or Immunities Clause, but the Supreme Court of the United States found that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms" as protected under the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment against the states, not the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Justice Thomas dissented on that.<br />
<br />
<b>Public debt</b><br />
<br />
The 14th goes on to say:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.</blockquote>
Some have tried to misread this to say that no federal debt shall be questioned. Of course, it only applies to federal debt incurred during the War of Secession, but it did have a profound impact on debt and money in the United States.<br />
<br />
During the war the Union did not have enough gold or silver to pay its debts, so it issued paper money (greenbacks), fiat currency that the Union required its suppliers to accept as legal tender. But when those suppliers tried to pay their own suppliers with greenbacks, and those suppliers refused to accept the greenbacks, litigation ensued, called the Legal Tender Cases, that established that federal fiat currency was legal tender, not just on federal territory, but within the states as well. That situation continues to this day.<br />
<br />
<b>Enforcement</b><br />
<br />
The 14th Amendment ends with<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Section. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.</blockquote>
So what did that allow, with the Privileges or Immunities clause read out of the amendment? Evidently, a great deal. Congress went on to enact what became 18 USC 241 and 242, making it a criminal offense for a state actor (but not a federal actor), or a private party acting at the instigation of a state actor, to deprive or conspire to deprive a state citizen of his rights, and 42 USC 1983, allowing a civil claim for damages against the state, or at least a state actor. However, such civil claims have been circumscribed by the doctrine of state sovereign immunity.<br />
<br />
<b>Ratified?</b><br />
<br />
There is a lingering controversy over whether the 14th Amendment was actually ratified. The ratifying states did so under duress, and there is some doubt whether their ratifications were accurately reported.<br />
<br />
Courts do not allow arguments that the 14th was not ratified. Any party or lawyer who attempts to make such argument would be thrown out of court, and the lawyer fined or disbarred. The reason is that such arguments conflict with established jurisprudential doctrine ("custom, policy, and practice").<br />
<br />
About the only way a conscientious litigator could introduce doubt about ratification into the record would be to preface an argument with "If, <i>arguendo</i>, the 14th Amendment had been ratified ..."<br />
<br />
<b>The way forward</b><br />
<br />
The challenge is to steer cases to the Supreme Court that will encourage them to undo the damage done by the opinion in the Slaughterhouse Cases. That was almost done in <i>McDonald v. Chicago</i>, but the Court backed away from reestablishing "privileges or immunities". That case was a Second Amendment case, and now that it is a win for them, the same litigants might not be so anxious to push the envelope further.<br />
<br />
The key to advancing jurisprudence and overturning wrong opinions is to set up cases carefully. That is not easy, considering the high costs of litigating before the Supreme Court.<br />
<br />
One approach would be to bring a case that requires invoking the Ninth Amendment, since that is the great hurtle to be overcome. Such a case might be over mass surveillance, for which the Fourth Amendment is inadequate. But as long as (mostly conservative) judges think of the Ninth as some kind of "inkblot", opening the way to finding unenumerated rights would present them with a kind of "<i>terra incognita</i>" they may be reluctant to explore. The solution is to encourage scholarly discussion of just what are the "unenumerated rights", which, by the way, are not really "infinite". An attempt to do this is presented in the chapter "Immunitates". Yes, there are many such rights (or more properly, "immunities") but the list is not infinite. It needs to be examined and debated, and any missing rights identified and included.<br />
<br />
This is mainly a task for libertarian legal scholars, since conservatives seem more likely to see an inkblot. It would also help to get some libertarians appointed to the Supreme Court.<br />
<br />
If this were done, the next step would be to revive the Tenth Amendment, and roll back all the federal criminal statutes based on the Necessary and Proper Clause, as <i>Wickard v. Filburn</i> was.<br />
<br />
<b>Links:</b><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (14 Stat. 27). http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/law/law/civil-rights-act-1866</li>
<li>Intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was to Protect All Rights, Jon Roland, 2000. http://www.constitution.org/col/intent_14th.htm</li>
<li>Presidential Eligibility, Jon Roland. http://constitution.org/abus/pres_elig.htm</li>
<li>Debates on the Bill of Rights, http://constitution.org/ac/001/r01-1/bill_of_rights_hr1789.htm</li>
<li>The Social Contract and Constitutional Republics, http://constitution.org/soclcont.htm</li>
<li>Natelson, Robert. "The Original Meaning of the Privileges and Immunities Clause", <i>Georgia Law Review</i>, Vol. 43 1117-1193, at 1183 (2009).</li>
<li> <i>Corfield v. Coryell</i>, 6 Fed. Cas. 546, no. 3,230 C.C.E.D.Pa. 1823, http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/a4_2_1s18.html</li>
<li>Slaughter-house Cases, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter-House_Cases</li>
<li><i>Roe v. Wade</i>, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade</li>
<li>Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution</li>
<li>Presumption of Nonauthority and Unenumerated rights, http://constitution.org/9ll/schol/pnur.htm</li>
<li><i>McDonald v. Chicago</i>, 561 U.S. 742 (2010). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._City_of_Chicago</li>
<li>Legal Tender Cases, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Tender_Cases</li>
<li>14th Amendment ratified? http://constitution.org/14ll/14ll.htm</li>
<li><br /></li>
</ol>
Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-91673320496587672742017-04-27T22:56:00.000-05:002017-04-27T22:56:45.499-05:00Effective judicial oversightMany complain about judicial corruption and call for judicial accountability, but generally fail to propose effective processes for achieving it.<br />
<br />
In an effort to make judges independent of political pressures, they are generally left with great discretion to be used justly or not. In some states they are elected, and come under they sway of the law firms that support them. They are generally under the loose supervision of an "administrative" judge, who has his own docket and can't exercise daily oversight, even if he were inclined to do so. He is usually limited to assigning judges to courts, and can reassign them to no court as a way to get rid of them. Judicial decisions can be appealed, but the appeal process is so difficult and uncertain that the risk of being overturned is small, and can be ignored. Judges are generally not removed for having too many of their decisions overturned, and if they are it is likely to be for making right decisions rather than wrong ones.<br />
<br />
There are judicial misconduct boards, but they tend to get so many complaints that they come to dismiss them out or hand, and such boards do not investigate complaints made while trials are still underway.<br />
<br />
What is needed are grand juries with agents who can sit in on trials and intervene if misconduct occurs. That would be a major undertaking. It would need to be able to rapidly respond to complaints made during trials in time to be effective, and they could not be visible enough for parties to play to them rather than to their judges. We can imagine having school classes of students assigned to observe trials reporting on any irregularities they might observe, and calling in judicial inspectors as needed.Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-84925723800761112832017-04-26T15:20:00.000-05:002017-04-26T16:09:08.454-05:00Scientists abandoning their training in policymaking<span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #161818; font-family: "gibson w01"; font-size: 18px;">In 1970 I attended the First National Congress on Population and Environment, with mostly scientifically-trained people. I was impressed by how the scientists abandoned their scientific training when they went into policy analysis, and resorted to intuitive leaps that they then tried to justify with seemingly scientific reasoning. I was coming from a background in computer systems, so was skeptical of this kind of unsystematic thinking. So was Jay Forrester, of MIT, who wrote “The Counterintuitive behavior of Social Systwms”. </span><a href="http://constitution.org/ps/cbss.pdf" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); color: #008ccc; cursor: pointer; font-family: "Gibson W01"; font-size: 18px; text-decoration-line: none;">http://constitution.org/ps/cbss.pdf</a><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #161818; font-family: "gibson w01"; font-size: 18px;"> I subsequently tried to leaven the more extreme analyses with doses of systems analysis.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #161818; font-family: "gibson w01"; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #161818; font-family: "gibson w01"; font-size: 18px;">I became involved with the Limits to Growth computer modeling effort that forecast a peak in growth followed by decline and collapse as resource limits were reached. The result was an article, "The Disturbing Implications of World Dynamics", <i>The Futurist</i>, Mar 1971. Review of the book and discussion of its methodology and the Limits to Growth computer model. I concluded that the LtG model made some incorrect assumptions about the alternatives we had: that resources were limited to those available to surface extraction. Leaving aside the alternative of mining asteroids, there was also the alternative of extreme conservation in compact "starship cities" on or beneath the surface of the Earth. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #161818; font-family: "gibson w01"; font-size: 18px;">That led to my article "Three Futures for Earth", <a href="http://pynthan.com/vri/3f4e_002.htm">http://pynthan.com/vri/3f4e_002.htm</a> in which I laid out a more comprehensive analysis of the full range of alternatives available to us. That analysis remains valid, although if I were to rewrite it today, I would forecast that the cities would house few if any human beings, their role being replaced by machines. They would not be places out of <i>Star Trek</i>. The crew would be replaced by Data or its equivalent. That would leave humans to live in the wilderness, as wild animals perhaps with a 19th century technology. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #161818; font-family: "gibson w01"; font-size: 18px;">I have written a novel in which this scenario is presented, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MPW3Y10" target="_blank">Wayward World</a></i>. </span>Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-10768174694111855332017-04-22T04:33:00.000-05:002017-04-22T04:46:05.287-05:00History of legal corruption in the United StatesHaving been asked for a quote of a prominent legal figure on prosecutorial corruption, especially the kind that results in wrongful convictions, it is difficult to find something pithy.<br />
<br />
There is nothing new about prosecutorial corruption. It is as old as prosecutors. We can see it in the prosecution of John Lilburne, in the prosecution of Penn and Mead, and the subsequent prosecution of the jury foreman, Edward Bushell, for acquitting them. Those are the classic cases. Everyone knew the prosecutions were corrupt, but you won't find compact quotes to that, partly because the prosecutions failed.<br />
<br />
Corrupt prosecutions were a major issue in the British colonies, which led to many of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence.<br />
<br />
It was also an issue in prosecutions under the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, such as that of John Fries. But although unconstitutional, they were not called "corrupt" at the time.<br />
<br />
Prosecutorial corruption is part of the larger problems of judicial and legal corruption. From devotion to the ideals of justice in the Early Republic, there has been a steady and sometimes rapid decline in legal ethics in the United States, until now the entire profession has become corrupt in different ways and to varying degrees. It is difficult today for an honest lawyer to practice conscientiously and not be disbarred. Requiring lawyers to be members of the Bar is another way they are controlled for corrupt purposes.<br />
<br />
It is important to understand that the modern institution of the "public prosecutor" is relatively recent. Before about the 1890s most cases were prosecuted by private attorneys either hired to do it or appointed by the judge from among the lawyers locally available. This became too much a burden on them, so they sought to have a office of public prosecutor created that would be fully funded. The public wanted the elect the person who held that position, because they didn't trust anyone who might appoint them. Seemingly a good idea, but the public mostly didn't know enough about candidates for the office to select only those of good character. They wound up voting for those with the most convictions, regardless of how those convictions were obtained. We would have been better off if public prosecutors were selected at random.<br />
<br />
Originally grand juries were supposed to screen proposed prosecutions to weed out any corrupt ones, but grand juries became captured by public prosecutors, or in some states, beginning with California, reduced to a role as auditors of public administration.<br />
<br />
It didn't help that many judges rose from the position of public prosecutor, and carried a prosecutorial bias with them.<br />
<br />
So now we get prosecutorial corruption that is massive. A new prosecutor in Dallas found that his predecessor has conspired with police to use bags of plaster of Paris as evidence of cocaine. He then tried to get most of the resulting convictions overturned. But he was exceptional.<br />
<br />
One prominent legal figure who has condemned legal corruption, and not just prosecutorial corruption, is Alan Dershowitz, in private conversation. Whether one could get him to make a statement on the record is another matter.<br />
<br />
Links:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://constitution.org/jury/pj/pj-us.htm">http://constitution.org/jury/pj/pj-us.htm</a><br />
<a href="http://constitution.org/jury/gj/gj-us.htm">http://constitution.org/jury/gj/gj-us.htm</a>Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-59213268258529670522017-04-22T02:53:00.001-05:002017-04-26T04:13:08.160-05:00Arrest Assange? For what?CIA Director Mike Pompeo has announced that they have "found" a legal basis for arresting Julian Assange for his handling of classified information, and he seems to be supported in this position by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Both men are constitutionally illiterate, and should never have been appointed to those positions.<br />
<br />
Some constitutional background on the Assange situation.<br />
<br />
First, there are only two bases for charging someone under the Espionage Act.<br />
<br />
1.
Prosecution under the "contract" that government personnel are required
to sign who get access to classified information. It consents to
criminal prosecution for improper disclosure of such information. That
is the usual ground cited for such prosecution. However, such a contract
is a kind of oath, and violation of an oath is perjury of oath. But
there is no law making perjury of oath a crime, nor does the
Constitution grant congress the authority to pass such a statute.
Moreover, criminal prosecution of perjury is a common law crime, and
common law crimes are not permitted under the Constitution, as was
correctly decided in the 1812 case of <i>U.S. v. Hudson</i>.<br />
<br />
There is also no authority to make conspiracy or complicity a crime. This was discussed in the Eleventh Congress and it was agreed that no authority existed.<br />
<br />
Even if the
contract were to authorize criminal prosecution of the person who
signed the contract, it would not apply to parties who did not, such as
those who might receive or pass on such information. <br />
<br />
So the Act, if constitutional, would allow prosecution of Chelsea Manning but not Julian Assange.<br />
<br />
2.
Persons can be prosecuted under the treason Clauses for giving "aid and
comfort to an enemy", by disclosing classified information, but the
treason Clauses only apply to U.S. citizens, not foreign nationals. To
Manning but not to Assange.<br />
<br />
It is not the First Amendment that
protects Assange, but the Tenth. There is no constitutional authority to
prosecute him for what he did.Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094628.post-34226273944846965362017-04-21T08:03:00.000-05:002017-05-01T08:04:19.737-05:00Chemerinsky on judicial abuses<br />
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, "Times New Roman", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;">
Many if not most of Chemerinsky’s complaints are valid, just misattributed. Judicial abuses are not a matter of conservative vs. progressive judges, as you point out, or of Art. III, which were corrected by thew 14th Amendment.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, "Times New Roman", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; padding: 0px;">
The Eleventh Amendment, properly interpreted did not confer sovereign immunity on the states, and if it did the 14th overrode that. The Eleventh was about getting money judgments against states that could be collected by executing on assets of the judgment debtor’s choice, like a capital building. There can not be a constitutional bar against a state being sued. States must appropriate a claims fund for the payment of judgments upon application thereto, without relitigating the case in opposing payment. The same principle applies to official immunity, which should never be taken as a bar against suit. Nor should an official be immune for acts committed outside his authority, even if he is “on the job” at the time. The act can be lawful or unlawful from one penstroke to the next.</div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Lato, "Times New Roman", sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">- See more at: http://www.libertylawsite.org/2017/04/21/whining-about-article-iii/#comment-1537324</span>Jon Rolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14009899449185140706noreply@blogger.com0