Originalism does not support social conservative agenda

We often get the argument that rights have to be explicitly listed (enumerated) or at least mentioned to be judicially enforceable. Justice William O. Douglas, in Doe V. Bolton,  in his concurring opinion in the companion case stated more emphatically, "The Ninth Amendment obviously does not create federally enforceable rights."

Not just obviously, but obviously wrong. The Ninth Amendment states, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Suppose none of the rights in the first eight amendments were enumerated there. Would none of them be "judicially enforceable"? Of course not. Those rights (except for the twenty dollar rule of the Seventh) pre-existed the Constitution, and would be as judicially enforceable as they are when listed. So where would we find them? The same places as the Founders did when they compiled them. In the pages of court cases and legal commentaries. And that is also where one can look to find the additional rights referenced in the Ninth, which include all the rights that are listed. That is where I looked to come up with a more comprehensive list, at http://constitutionalism.blogspot.com/2016/05/immunitates.html , where I call them "immunities", because they are restrictions on delegated powers, as distinct from "privileges", which come from government. A casual reading of them should identify many that are familiar. I also composed a Civil Rights act that would make the explicit.

Civil Rights Act

113th Congress

1st Session

S. ____

To provide remedies for violations of rights, privileges,
and immunities of persons by government actors.

IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE

January 25, 2013

Mr. ROLAND of Texas introduced the following bill; which
was referred to the Judiciary Committee.

A BILL

To provide remedies for violations of rights, privileges,
and immunities of persons by government actors.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in
Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the 'Civil Rights Act of 2013'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND AUTHORITY.

1. The Congress finds that it has comminatory and punitive
powers over government actors, including:

a. Military personnel under U.S. Const. Article I
Section 8 Clause 14.

b. Militia personnel under U.S. Const. Article I
Section 8 Clause 16.

c. Civil officers, their subordinates and agents, of
all branches and departments of the government of the
United States under U.S. Const. Article II Section 4.

d. Civil officers, their subordinates and agents, of
all branches, departments, and subdivisions of the
governments of the States of United States under the
amendment to the U.S. Const. proposed in 1866 and
presumed ratified in 1868.

2. The Congress finds that it has comminatory and punitive
powers over such government actors, expressed in the U.S.
Constitution as "treason, bribery, and other high crimes and
misdemeanors", includes:

a. Common law crimes established in the territory of
what would become the United States as of 1787.

b. Offenses inconsistent with the duties of
government actors, including offenses of the kind
subject to court-martial under the Uniform Code of
Military Justice as of the date of enactment hereof, such
as:

1. Dereliction of duty, bribery, yielding to
intimidation, or bias.

2. Insubordination, failure to obey a lawful order of
a superior, or to comply with a lawful statute or
regulation.

3. Perjury, fraud, or conduct unbecoming.

4. Abuse of power, tending to the infringement of the
rights of any person.

3. The Congress finds that it has power, under U.S. Const.
Article III Section 2 Clause 2, to establish jurisdictions
for civil causes of action among private parties of diverse
residency or citizenship in the courts of the United States.

SEC. 3. ENACTMENT AND REPEALS.

Statutes codified in 18 USC Chapter 13 and in 42 USC
Chapter 21 are hereby amended as follows:

1. All offenses and remedies under these titles shall be
equally applicable to government actors of both the United
States and the States of the United States, except that
impeachment and removal by Congress shall apply only to
United States actors whose appointments are subject to
congressional consent.

2. Prosecution of a criminal case in the courts of the
United States shall be conducted by a private person
appointed by a duly met grand jury who has not served as a
government actor of the United States in the preceding year,
unless no such person can be found, in which case a
government actor may prosecute.

3. Prosecution of a civil case in the courts of the United
States shall be conducted only by a private person who has
not served as a government actor of the United States in the
preceding six months.

4. Prevailing private prosecutions, criminal or civil,
shall be entitled to reasonable damages, fees, and costs in
an amount not less than the value equivalent to one
terajoule of electric energy, for the trial and each level
of appeal, payable from the assets of the losing level,
branch, and department of government, United States or
State.

5. The rights of persons the infringement of which shall
provide a basis for a criminal or civil prosecution shall
include, but not be limited to, the following:

a. All rights already established in the above
titles.

b. Due process

1. General

1. Due notice of time, place, manner, parties, and
subject of any proceeding with sufficient time to
respond.

2. Fair hearing and decision on the legal merits,
with redress for just grievances, including damages,
property, or injunctive or declaratory relief.

3. Not to have just remedies made inaccessible or
excessively difficult or costly.

4. Mandated testimony of witnesses.

5. Unimpeded access to courts, court filing, and
grand juries, subject only to routine scheduling.

6. Direct presentation of complaints to a grand jury
without the presence of any other government actor
without the consent of the grand jury.

7. Standing to privately prosecute a public right
without having been or expecting personal injury.

8. Not to be subject to retaliation.

2. Criminal trials:

1. Indictment by twelve members of a randomly
selected grand jury of 23 who elect their foreperson,
upon a finding that the court has jurisdiction and
that there is sufficient evidence for a trial, except
for persons subject to military or militia discipline.

2. Service as prosecutor upon receipt of an
indictment by a grand jury, subject only to
consolidation by the grand jury if more than one person
seeks to prosecute the same offense.

3. Trial by a randomly selected jury of twelve in
criminal cases for which the penalty is more than 90
days.

4. No excessive bail when there is little flight
risk.

5. No excessive fines imposed.

6. No cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

7. Speedy and public trial before an impartial jury
of the state and district previously defined by law,
wherein the offense shall have been committed, and to
have the location of commitment be deemed where there
was concurrence of mens rea and actus reus.

8. Not to be twice prosecuted for the same offense or
same facts under different jurisdictions.

9. To be informed of the nature and cause of the
accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses
against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining
witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of
Counsel for his defence, but not to have counsel or an
attorney imposed on him without his consent.

10. Not to be compelled to be a witness against
himself.

11. Not be disabled in the exercise, or deprived, of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of
law, by unanimous verdict of a jury of twelve.

12. Unimpeded presentation of all evidence by the
defendant, without being subject to a motion in
limine.

13. Unimpeded presentation of all legal argument to
the jury, up to the final instructions to the jury,
except for argument on a motion in limine that cannot
be made without disclosing evidence properly
excluded.

14. Unimpeded presentation of alternative
instructions to the jury.

15. Not to have a sentence that does not separately
disable the exercise of the immunity, and order
deprivation of it, within the scope of that
disablement

3. Civil trials:

Trial by a randomly selected jury of twelve in which
the amount at issue, including costs, exceeds the
equivalent of at least 15.46875 troy ounces of pure
silver.

4. Appeals

Appeal from a jury verdict only on a writ of error or
habeas corpus, according to the rules of the common
law in the United States as of 1787, unless the
Constitution is amended to provide otherwise.

c. Nonauthority

1. Presumption of nonauthority for any claim to
authority, to be strictly proved by an unbroken
logical chain of derivation from a constitution.

2. Not to have any government actor exercise a power
not delegated, regardless of whether one may be
personally injured by such exercise.

3. Not to have government actors exercise powers on
the pretext of being "necessary and proper" when they
are not just to perform his official duties but to
get a desired result beyond such duties.

4. To have delegated powers construed as narrowly,
and rights, privileges, or immunities construed as
broadly, as the language of the Constitution as meant
and understood when ratified permits.

5. Priority docketing of all prerogative writs filed
by a any person as demandant in the name of the
people with a court of competent jurisdiction and
served on the respondant, within three sederunt days,
unless the respondant requires more, but not more than 20
calendar days, including but not limited to, demurral, quo
warranto, habeas corpus, procedendo, mandamus, prohibito,
certiorari, and scire facias, and to have default judgment
even if no proof is presented or a hearing is not held.

6. Unimpeded and unpunished communications, including
speech, press, and education, except such as
instigate or direct a felony, misdemeanor, or tort.

7. Unimpeded assembly and exercise of rights in
concert with others.

8. Unimpeded assembly as militia for organizing,
training, and response to threats to public safety,
subject only to direction by state militia officers
during a call-up.

9. Unrestricted keeping and bearing of weapons,
equipment, and supplies commonly used by military
forces, or suitable for militia, subject only to
court order of disablement for being a threat to oneself or
others, or to the lawful orders of militia officers during a
call-up.

10. Unimpeded and unpunished petition for redress of
grievances.

11. Unimpeded devotion or practice of religion, not
preferentially supported by public funds, that does
not instigate or direct a felony, misdemeanor, or
tort.

12. Exclusion of government actors from intrusion
into one's real property, body, or use of one's
personal property, for search, seizure, or for any
other reason, without consent, a declared state of war or
emergency threat to public, safety, a warrant supported by
an affidavit of probable cause, and just compensation for
any losses incurred, for each incident.

d. Supervision of government actors

1. Access to observation and recordation of any
government proceeding except trial and grand jury
deliberations or their equivalent, or deliberations
on matters of security requiring secrecy.

2. Receipt of records of all proceedings, and
accounting for all receipts, loans, debts, and
expenditures, and reporting thereof, for eventual
examination prior to an election in which the issues may be
reviewed.

3. Access to all information about oneself, and
either copies at cost of all documentation or to make
one's own copies using one's own equipment.

f. Other

1. Association and contract to do things not
unlawful, including practice of a profession or
occupation, marriage, procreation, and acceptance or
denial of medical prevention or treatment, except prevention
of contagious diseases.

2. Formation, conduct, and revision or dissolution of
corporations, partnerships, and other trusts, in
which settlor, trustee, and beneficiary are distinct
persons who may not be impeded or penalized from
directly appearing in any court in such capacities.

3. Not to have some accorded special privileges or
protections that favor them over the rest of the
people, in ways not essential to the performance of
public duties.

4. Travel within, to, and from the United States and
any State, territory or locality.

5. Not to be removed from the location of one's birth
or lawful residence, or impeded from returning
thereto.

6. Not to be enslaved or submitted to peonage except
as punishment for a crime, but subject to militia,
jury, witness, and other public duty.

7. Not to be impeded or punished for voting if one is
a citizen and resident on grounds of race, color,
creed, previous servitude, gender, age 18 or above,
or failure to pay a tax.

8. Custody and care of close relatives who are non
sui juris.

9. Not to be neglected or abused while in custody.

10. Not to be denied any right, privilege, or
immunity for failure to have or present a name or
other form of identification.

11. Not to be deported without proof that one has not
been born or naturalized as a citizen, unless one is
born to a person not subject to the allegiance of the
United States, such as a foreign diplomat or an
invader.

g. The foregoing list is not exhaustive, and further
rights, privileges, and immunities are to be found in
the historical record. The rule of expressio unius
est exclusio alterius shall not be applied.

SEC. 4. REMEDIATION.
Persons whose rights have been violated within the
preceding 20 years from enactment hereof shall have standing
to seek relief under its provisions.

SEC. 5. TRANSITIONAL.
Older victims of past abuse shall have their cases docketed
ahead of younger persons to allow for them to receive
redress while they remain alive.

That would make them enforceable under the 14th Amendment without a new constitutional amendment.

This recognizes that people have a right to do, or not do, anything for which there is not a constitutional delegated power to restrict.

Now these would be rights with respect to the U.S. Congress. What about rights with respect to state legislatures? State constitutions delegate powers that often go beyond federal powers, especially general "police powers" to legislate for the health, safety, and morals of the people. I would not allow powers legislated by the states that exceed those delegated explicitly, on the grounds that such delegation of police powers is "void for vagueness". In general, I would recognize the above immunities as applying equally to the states. 

So are these "fundamental" inquiring strict scrutiny? Yes.

The Fifth Circuit, in Roe v. Wade, correctly found the Texas statute unconstitutional, on grounds of a Ninth Amendment right to "privacy", which is a one-word way of saying, the right to be left alone, which is a summary of the principle that constitutional rights are immunities from the application of undelegated powers. The Fifth Circuit got that right as well. But when it was taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, that was determined to extend the right nationally, instead of simply copying the opinion of the Fifth Circuit as its own, the nine U.S. justices mangled all logic trying to find a way to avoid finding the right in the Ninth, with Justice William O. Douglas opining as above. That opinion was a monument to judicial incompetence. For an analysis see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade .

The 14th Amendment made all of the Bill of Rights "judicially enforceable" in federal courts. That includes the 9th and 10th amendments. So how does that bear on a case like Roe v. Wade? The problem for application of the principles of the 9th and 10th amendments to the states is the "police powers" doctrine, under which states assert a general power to enact all legislation the serves the "health, safety, morals, and good order" of the state. That is a very broad delegation of power, enough to override every other provision of the state constitution. So if we apply the principles of the 9th and 10th amendments to the states, police powers have to go. They are far too broad to be compatible with those principles. What that is saying is that if a state wants to punish a provider of abortion, then it needs a provision in its constitution that explicitly delegates the power to pass and enforce such legislation. No more broad powers that the legislature has discretion to use without limit. That means, applying the 10th Amendment, powers not expressly delegated to the state are reserved to the people, and that state powers have to be "enumerated". So it is not enough to pass a statute. A state has to also amend its constitution. Now that doesn't necessarily fix everything. The statute could still be found to be unconstitutional on other federal grounds, as the opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court tried to do. But it would reframe the terms of debate.

Should state legislatures be able to pass anything "the people want" without a constitutional amendment? How does anyone know the statutes being passed by state legislatures are what the people want? General police powers would permit, for example, the legislature to pass a statute that would declare all democrats to be outlaws, enabling anyone to kill one with impunity. That might pass the legislature, but do the people really want that? Introduce an amendment, which has to be ratified by the people, and see if they will do it. I hopefully expect they would not. Legislatures do not do what the people want. They do what their immediate circle of acquaintances want. It might pass 14th Amendment scrutiny, since it is not applying the statute unequally, or using the coercive powers of the state in violation of "equal protection". But I would expect the Supreme Court to find it to be an equal protection violation.

When it comes to same-sex marriage, it is a profound misreading of the decision in Obergefell v. Hodges to say it "redefined marriage". It did no such thing. It found that if the state licenses one kind of marriage, it has to license all kinds. A state license does not define anything. All one has to do to avoid the appearance of that is for the state not to license any marriages. There is no need for it to do so, or to license any other kind of partnership. This is a fundamental failure to distinguish between a license and a practice. People are going to do it whether they are licensed or not. A license won't make any difference. As for prohibiting the activity, people are going to do it whether it is legal or not. Law is not a competent way to try to regulate private behavior. 

Make it illegal to "desecrate" the flag? Get a clue. Burning a flag is not "desecrating" it. It is the prescribed method of disposal of a flag that has become "soiled". Burning one is a way of protesting that is has become soiled by some government action. It is an act of respect for the country, not of rejection of it. It is complaint of some government abuse. 

One could go on listing social conservative demands, but every one of them is a misunderstanding of constitutional principles. Social conservatives mangle the Constitution almost as badly as progressives do.

Did the federal jury do right?

A federal jury convicted Dylan Roof of s federal "crime' under 18 USC 922, for use of a firearm in the murders of people in a church in South Carolina. The CRKBA is celebrating it as a victory for "law" over the efforts of the anti-gunners to pass still more unconstitutional statutes. It argues for "enforcing the laws on the books", when some of those laws are anathema to its charter. That is wrong, because the jury was enforcing an unconstitutional statute, and if it can convict of one unconstitutional statute , it can convict of any others that the anti-gunners may get passed.

No, the federal jury did not do right. They convicted Dylan Roof of a federal "crime", when what he did was only a state crime. There is no constitutional authority for Congress to have passed the statute under which he was charged and convicted (Arms Control Act of 1968). Only the state had jurisdiction, under a state statute. The duty of the jury was to acquit, and send a message to the court that it was acting outside of its constitutional jurisdiction.

Now in principle, had he been charged with treason, that charge would have been constitutional, but the charge was not treason. It was violation of a statute that takes its authority from the court decision in Wickard v. Filburn. Not from the Treason Clauses.

The CRKBA does not do its job when it celebrates the enforcement of an unconstitutional statute. Its job is to hold government to its constitutional bounds. If it and we celebrate enforcement of unconstitutional statutes, there is no limit to what other statutes the government may enforce in the future. That plays into the anti-gunners hands, not thwarts them.

Why LGBT mania?

Transgender persons comprise less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the population. That number can't explain the intensity of the drive for "LGBT rights" that seems to have swept public debate, an intensity that would seem to require the support of a numerical majority, or at least a majority of the more influential members of society. This phenomenon requires investigation.

Liquid Fuel Thorium Reactor

Liquid Fuel Thorium Reactor (LFTR)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4

Uploaded on Oct 4, 2011

http://patreon.com/thorium Thorium is plentiful & can be used to generate energy without creating transuranic wastes. Thorium's capacity as nuclear fuel was discovered during WW II, but ignored because it was unsuitable for making bombs. A liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) is the optimal approach for harvesting energy from Thorium, and has the potential to solve today's energy/climate crisis. LFTR is a type of Thorium Molten Salt Reactor (Th-MSR). This video summarizes over 6 hours worth of thorium talks given by Kirk Sorensen and other thorium technologists.

THORIUM REMIX 2011 starts with a 5 minute TL;WL summary, to hold you over until you find your Ritalin. YouTube Closed Captioning is available in English, and many other languages.

To learn more about the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor visit: http://energyfromthorium.com/

See http://THORIUMREMIX.com/ for full list of multimedia source material.

Key YouTube video components:

Kirk Sorensen @ TEDxYYC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vzot...

Kirk Sorensen @ Protospace - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVSmf_...

Kirk Sorensen @ MRU - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3rL08...

Kirk Sorensen @ TEAC3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-uxvS...

Kirk Sorensen @ Dr. Kiki Science Hour #84 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEpnpy...

After Fukushima: The Fear Factor - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVQ0Nv...

Robert Hargraves @ TEAC3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOoBTu...

Alexander Cannara @ TEAC3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUVq81...

James Kennedy @ TEAC3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrDeB8...

Q: What is thorium and what makes it special?

A: Thorium is a naturally-occuring mineral that holds large amounts of releasable nuclear energy, similar to uranium. This nuclear energy can be released in a special nuclear reactor designed to use thorium. Thorium is special because it is easier to extract this energy completely than uranium due to some of the chemical and nuclear properties of thorium.

Q: What is a liquid-fluoride reactor?

A: A liquid-fluoride nuclear reactor is different than conventional nuclear reactors that use solid fuel elements. A liquid-fluoride reactor uses a solution of several fluoride salts, typically lithium fluoride, beryllium fluoride, and uranium tetrafluoride, as its basic nuclear fuel. The fluoride salts have a number of advantages over solid fuels. They are impervious to radiation damage, they can be chemically processed in the form that they are in, and they have a high capacity to hold thermal energy (heat). Additional nuclear fuel can be added or withdrawn from the salt solution during normal operation.

Q: Are the salts safe?

A: Very safe. Unlike other coolants considered for high-performance reactors (like liquid sodium) the salts will not react dangerously with air or water. This is because they are already in their most stable chemical form. Their properties do not change even under intense radiation, unlike all solid forms of nuclear fuel.

Q: What is nuclear waste and how does a liquid-fluoride reactor address this issue?

A: So-called "nuclear waste" or spent-nuclear fuel is produced in conventional (solid-core) nuclear reactors because they are unable to extract all of the nuclear energy from their fuel before they have to shutdown. LFTR addresses this issue by using a form of nuclear fuel (liquid-fluoride salts of thorium) that allow complete extraction of nuclear energy from the fuel.

"Fluid Fuel Reactors", James A. Lane, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, 1958.
http://moltensalt.org/references/stat...

Thorium distribution on moon near side. Redder color is more abundant. Satellite surveys.

Thorium distribution on Mars. Redder color is more abundant. Mars Odyssey 2001 satellite survey.

Clinton misbehavior not constitutional crimes

Many people are shocked to find out, but under the Constitution, as strictly interpreted,

1. There is no authority to make bribery a crime, just a impeachable/removable offense (high crime or misdemeanor). So while what seems to have been done with the Clinton Foundation might have violated some state laws, the federal statutes that would seem to cover it are unconstitutional.

2. Disclosure of classified information is a kind of treason, but the Constitution does not grant Congress power to punish that either.

3. Pedophilia and other sex crimes are state crimes, not federal.

The FBI can investigate anything, but not charge federal crimes if there are none. Have to turn over their findings to the states.

The only crimes punishable under grants of power to Congress are counterfeiting, felony on the high seas, or offenses against the law of nations (which includes piracy), deprivation of the privilege of voting on several grounds, enslavement (13th Amendment), or deprivation  of rights by state actors (but not federal).

The commerce and necessary and proper clauses do not provide authority to make anything a crime, despite all the federal criminal statutes based on them (which are in turn based on one Court decision, Wickard v. Filburn).

Is any of this new to the people on this forum?

Eighty ambiguous phrases

My analysis of the U.S. Constitution counts about 80 words or phrases that are somewhat ambiguous, and give rise to most of the interpretation/construction controversies. I have highlighted those at http://constitution.org/cons/constitu+.htm , Most of the rest of the Constitution is fairly unambiguous. One might quibble about this analysis and my count, but let's accept it for the moment. Textualism works well enough for that part of it, whether one considers the document written in lay English of 1787, or in legal English.

Most of those eighty are written in legal English, which requires reference to 1000 years of English legal history, and may extend back 2000 years to Roman or Greek law or another 1000 years to Hebrew law.

It is not necessary, initially, to develop a single comprehensive theory of legal construction (originalism) for all eighty. Take one at a time, and develop a theory for that one. Then move on to the next one. If two or more theories have commonalities, unite them into one for those phrases.

Perhaps we eventually arrive at one theory for 70 of the phrases, another for two or three more, then a few more for the rest. That narrows the scope of the theoretical search, making it more comprehensible and more manageable. Who knows, we might actually wind with one that unites them all.

This is the approach I have tried to take. The combined theory is not simple, but it works. It can be applied quickly and definitely.

To solve a theoretical problem, first divide it into manageable parts.

Can seditious libel be made a crime under the U.S. Constitution?

Professor James G. Wilson asks whether it is constitutional to make seditious libel a crime. As a consistent originalist I can answer that. The answer is no.

Sedition and seditious libel are common law crimes, and it was correctly ruled in U.S. v. Hudson that there are no common law crimes under the U.S. Constitution, even in federal enclaves or incorporated U.S. soil outside a state. Common law crimes are intrinsically ex post facto, since the crime is not defined until the judgment is announced, and that is after the fact.

There is no power delegated to Congress to make it a crime. The only delegated criminal powers are: counterfeiting, offenses against the laws of nations, and felony on the high seas. Piracy is an offense against the law of nations. Treason is defined in the Constitution, but there is no authority delegated to actually punish it.

Arguably subsequent amendments expanded the list of offenses that could be punished as crimes: enslavement, violation of rights by a state actor (but not a federal actor), or deprivation of the privilege of voting on several grounds.

So what about all the federal criminal statutes outside the above list? All unconstitutional. Perjury? No. Fraud? No. Contumacy? No. Interfering with the enforcement of laws? No. Conspiracy? No. High crimes and misdemeanors? Only removal from office.

So, a consistent application of originalism makes some determinations easy, if distasteful.

Trump's first 100 day agenda

President-elect Trump has proposed a list of initiatives he intends to make during his first 100 days in office. The list can be found here. My commentary under each.

* FIRST, propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress;

Limits on the number of terms in Congress is a bad idea. It takes most members at least 12 years to learn enough to be marginally effective. A limit on number of consecutive terms might make some sense. But a limit on consecutive years for professional staff is more important. They hold the real power, and have the knowledge and connections to get anything done. Most members are only experts on getting elected. They don't acquire policy expertise by serving, not even enough to identify who the experts are.

* SECOND, a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health);

Attrition rates are not very high. Better would be focused cuts.

* THIRD, a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated;

The proper measure of regulations is not their number, but their length in words.

* FOURTH, a 5 year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service;

Restricting lobbying would violate the First Amendment. Better would be to ban members from fundraising while Congress is in session.

* FIFTH, a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government;

Again, violates First Amendment.

* SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.

Again, violates First Amendment.

On the same day, I will begin taking the following 7 actions to protect American workers:

* FIRST, I will announce my intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205

This misunderstands the problems with NAFTA, which reduced the tariffs of Mexico on our goods, which made it cheaper to ship parts to Mexico to build things.

* SECOND, I will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership

It's not really in effect yet.

* THIRD, I will direct my Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator


Useless. We all know they are. Labeling them won't change anything.

* FOURTH, I will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately


Aspirational. Need to be more  specific

* FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars' worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.

There aren't that many restrictions now

* SIXTH, lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward

This one would be useful, but not mainly for U.S. benefit, but for Canada.

* SEVENTH, cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America's water and environmental infrastructure

This one would be useful, but most of that money not spent yet.

Additionally, on the first day, I will take the following five actions to restore security and the constitutional rule of law:

* FIRST, cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama

Need to cancel all executive orders, which are properly only directives from an executive to those under his supervision, which are supposed to expire when he leaves office.

* SECOND, begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States

Presumably already under weigh.

* THIRD, cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities

"All" is a tad broad, as some represent long-term commitments.

* FOURTH, begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won't take them back

What would do the most good would be to make it a crime, not just a "deportable offense", to enter the country illegally. It is not now. Cancelling visas won't work.

* FIFTH, suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.

Some groups can be considered safe without much more vetting, such as victims of terror, those who helped us in war.

Next, I will work with Congress to introduce the following broader legislative measures and fight for their passage within the first 100 days of my Administration:

Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act. An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.

Is this going to be paid for with more borrowing?

End The Offshoring Act. Establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free.

Won't work. Bilateral tariffs don't work in a multinational trading system.Tax and trade policy is not going to bring good jobs back. The good news is that work is coming back. The bad news is that when it does it will be done by machines.

American Energy & Infrastructure Act. Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral.

Picking winners and losers.

School Choice And Education Opportunity Act. Redirects education dollars to give parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable.

How is this paid for?.

Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act. Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications.

Okay if done right.

Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act. Allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-side childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families.

Doesn't work to create savings accounts for people not getting enough money to save.

End Illegal Immigration Act Fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that the country Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first.

Need to make it a crime to enter illegally

Restoring Community Safety Act. Reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a Task Force On Violent Crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist local police; increases resources for federal law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent offenders behind bars.

Already trying to do that. Not so easy.

Restoring National Security Act. Rebuilds our military by eliminating the defense sequester and expanding military investment; provides Veterans with the ability to receive public VA treatment or attend the private doctor of their choice; protects our vital infrastructure from cyber-attack; establishes new screening procedures for immigration to ensure those who are admitted to our country support our people and our values

Okay if done right.

Clean up Corruption in Washington Act. Enacts new ethics reforms to Drain the Swamp and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.

Aspirational. Need to be more  specific.


A start, but more attention needed for constitutional compliance.

Pardon before conviction?

Can the President pardon people who haven’t been convicted?

Jacob Leibenluft, in his article in Slate, has missed an important point. To understand the pardon power, we need to examine just what is happening when an executive with pardon power grants a pardon. What he is saying, essentially, is “I won’t enforce a sentence against x for y, and I bind my successors not to do so as well.”

Where the question gets interesting is when we ask if he can grant a pardon for a conviction that has not yet occurred, or prevent a trial from being held. From my historical research, and despite Ex parte Garland, I find the answer to both is no. A pardon has to specify a sentence as well as the defendant, and that can’t be known before conviction. Granting a pardon to someone for anything he might be convicted of, in advance of such conviction, is in conflict with the constitutional prohibition against granting titles of nobility, and exempting someone from prosecution for anything at all is making that person a noble, even if it comes only with a title of “he who is above the law”. Leaving aside the obvious likelihood that the Court in Ex parte Garland was corrupt, this point was not argued before the Court and therefore the precedent does not cover it.

Even if we ignore the problem of conflict with the title of nobility prohibition, it cannot be logically inferred from the pardon power that a pardon can prevent prosecution. The president may refuse to carry out a sentence but he has no power to prevent a charge from being filed, an indictment obtained, and the court from trying the accused. The court might be reluctant to do so if the sentence won’t be imposed, but a trial serves many purposes besides executable conviction, one of the most important of which is to bring out the truth, and it may be important to proceed with trial even if the conviction won’t be executed.

There is also an issue of whether a president can bind his successors not to enforce a conviction. That is an implied power of a monarch, but not of a president. My finding is that the pardon power of the president is not the power to bind his successors.

Voting for the least embarrassing

I have found this presidential election enlightening for the motives I found among the partisans for each of the main candidates. They had very little to do with policy or promises. They had everything to do with how the candidate projected strength or resolve.

Trump made the point that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his followers would still support him.That is likely to be almost literally true.
Supporters of a candidate tend not to care about the faults of a candidate as long as he or she doesn't make them look bad, or weak. In general, they want their leaders to project the qualities they admire, whether or he or she has those qualities. It is appearances that matter. The worst thing a candidate can do is be a laughingstock. We don't want other people to think our leader is a joke.
So most people don't care what a candidate has done or is likely to do, because most of that is not likely to affect him personally. Of course, delivering on benefits matters, because that is likely affect him personally. "Sp steal or kill all you want, candidate, as long as you don't steal from or kill me, or look foolish doing it. I don't want to have to apologize for you.

Now clearly people are going to differ in what they think will reflect badly on themselves.

Type 1. Some want the candidate to be cultured and refined, never vulgar or uncouth. They also want him to be tall, attractive, witty, and well-spoken. In their social class that is what matters to having prestige. Such persons like soaring rhetoric that makes them feel exalted, as long as it doesn't ask  them to sacrifice anything important to them, such as the lives of people they don't know.

Type 2. Others want the candidate to project strength or "toughness". Never mind if the exercise of it may be misdirected. If one wants the candidate to be tough in some ways, it may not matter if that toughness strikes at the wrong things (as long as it is not oneself). Such tastes tend to be for force and the willingness to use it, and often reflect a sense of personal or physical inadequacy.

When party leaders try to recruit candidates they usually seek someone of Type 1. But these days candidates of Type 1 are often taken to be or represent "The Establishment". Candidates of Type 2 may seem to represent "The People", even if they are less well educated than candidates of Type 1, who don't need to know anything as long as they are tough enough to find the people that do. Of course, candidates of Type 2 can seem alarming to voters who want Type 1 candidates, and vice versa. One never knows what they might do, and it is easy to imagine the worst. It may come as a surprise to them if the Type 2 candidate, if he wins, governs more like a Type 1.
On the other hand, if Type 2s establish a pattern of winning, it also becomes more likely that they will eventually set up for a Type 2 who does fulfill the worst fears of the Type 1s.
One of the characteristics of Type 2 is a rejection of complexity, or at least of the need to address it in making decisions. This is the basis of the old maxim of politics, "If you have to explain it, you're losing." Type 2 people just want things fixed. They don't want to know how. But Type 1 people often know how complex the world is, and that there often are no simple solutions. Perhaps not any solutions at all that Type 2 people would accept. Or any experts that can tell us what to do. People in government often pretend to be more expert than they are, than anyone is. And they often don't know enough to know who the experts are, or whether there any any experts.

That leads to my proposed Epitaph for Humanity:

They were smart enough to create problems for themselves they weren't smart enough to solve.

Wayward World

New Amazon Kindle book by Jon Roland
Wayward World: A new kind of hero must set history on a different course to save Earth from destruction a thousand years in the future.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MPW3Y10

You don't need a Kindle device to read it. Almost any browser will do, with a plugin, or get the app.
This is a fundraising project for the Constitution Society. All the revenues go to it.

Still making some minor edits to it that should be live in a day or so.
Internet slow for you? If you can get to the book, reading it can give you something to do while you wait.

An interstellar planet is on a collision course with Earth in 1000 years. To get humanity ready to divert it, human technical progress needs to be advanced more rapidly, and history will take a wrong turn in 1265. Our heroes have to take Earth on a different course, without being around for the entire thousand years, so they have to set up institutions that can continue to move things forward and avoid several disasters that will set humanity back even further. They face strong resistance and many hazards, but are led by one who has the skill and charisma needed, if she can survive long enough.

One of the advantages of the Kindle edition is that it has live links to many web pages that provide background on much of the content discussed in the chapters.

Why Brexit? Meddlesome regulations.

I expected something like Brexit would happen eventually. Perhaps not first with Britain. Once the Brussels Bureaucracy began to flood the EU countries with meddlesome and often silly regulations that ordinary citizens and businesses were expected to follow, it became inevitable. It escapes me how anyone can  think that meddlesome regulations from a nascent administrative state without real lawmaking authority and electoral accountability would unite the confederated but still sovereign nations of the EU, rather than divide them. Perhaps some ideological bureaucrat might delude himself into believing that, but it doesn't work that way.

Just Google "silly EU regulations" to find many of them. Such things are intensely irritating to people. It is an accumulation of thousands of small irritations that combine to drive people to rebel. The entire Brussels Bureaucracy needs to be sent home to find real jobs.

I have discussed this with several British friends, who all seem to agree it is the regulations that drove Brexit. Nobody minded the lower barriers to trade, investment, and travel (except of Muslim immigrants that are trying to conquer Britain by infiltration).

Muslim immigrants shouting to native Britons, ""his is our country now. Get out!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlBsG1UJoLc

The EU Parliament is not a true lawmaking body that can make laws for citizens of EU countries that are lawfully enforceable. Neither is the Brussels Bureaucracy authorized to make laws or "regulations" for ordinary citizens. Unless national authorities yield to them in a surrender of sovereignty. People want to elect their lawmakers so they can turn them out at the next election.

The EU has been experimenting with various ways to bring their members together. The one kind of experiment that could work would be a European Constitution. But the one attempt at that was so incredibly incompetent that it is no wonder the voters of France and the Netherlands rejected it. Nothing but vague, aspirational political slogans. To get a model for a constitution that might work see http://constitution.org/reform/us/constitution-us-model.html Compare it to the proposed 2004 EU Constitution http://www.unizar.es/euroconstitucion/Treaties/Treaty_Const.htm and note the differences.

What really works to unite nations is an external enemy. It appears that Russia is trying to become that enemy. We will see if that survives Putin. Fortunately he can't live forever.

So where does Britain go from here? Union with the United States  would make some sense. The UK would have to lose the monarchy, and if it loses Scotland that might follow. If it does lose Scotland then another kind of union might be in order, something more like my model. It would also need a written constitution. The present legacy of "constitutional" documents doesn't really do the job. Neither do the Canadian and Australian constitutions. The Australian is still an act of the British Parliament. There is still a movement in the UK to seek a written federal constitution, but it seems to be dominated by socialists.

See http://constitution.org/ech/eng_const_hist.htm and http://constitution.org/sech/sech_.htm

Conquest by infiltration

Three schools of interpretation

The English common law tradition has essentially three schools of interpretation: royalist. tory, and whig.

One point on which the schools did differ was whether a delegation of power included incidental powers of carrying such a delegation into execution. Originally, going back to before the 17th century, it did not. By 1776 the tories were tending to hold that it did, and the whigs were the ones taking a  more conservative position. It was that split that led in the Constitutional Convention to the inclusion of the Necessary and Proper Clause to expressly delegate incidental powers, to carry into execution the other express powers. However, from the legacy of this split we can find that such incidental powers were only to make a limited official effort, not to do whatever might be thought expedient to get a desired outcome.

Some Latin legal maxims shed some light on this question:

1. Potestas stricte interpretatur. A power is strictly interpreted.
2. In dubiis, non præsumitur pro potentia. In cases of doubt, the presumption is not in favor of a power.
3. Delegata potestas non potest delegari. A delegated power cannot be delegated.
4. Ubi jus ibi remedium. There is no right without a remedy.

Another point of division was on the role of the jury. The whig position, notably asserted by John Lilburne in his trial, was that the jury had the right and duty to judge the law, and could override the judge on a point of law in favor of the defendant. The tory position was that the jury lacked the duty to do so, although they begrudgingly conceded the jury had the power to do so, especially as all arguments on issues of law were then made to them as well as to the judges. The tory judges later asserted their position on this by having the lawyers make legal arguments to them in writing out of the hearing of the jury, which is still the practice today.

How to get people today to adopt sound reforms?

How to get people today to adopt sound reforms?

That is the question many concerned people ask themselves as they try to develop and sell reforms that would actually work.

People today are distracted by many entertainments. Many consider politics a form of entertainment, and show this by electing entertainers to high office, usually on promises to "do something" they cannot possibly do, or that would have bad outcomes if they did. Proposals for sound reforms are drowned out by a flood of unsound proposals. Everyone tries to put forward his own, and most don't have a clue how to do it, nor does the public have a clue how to select the better ones..

In the past the main vehicles for reform were long treatises. We have many of them online in our Liberty Library. We don't see many such treatises being written today, because people don't read them. Not many people read those past treatises, except for a few students and scholars. Our website, can be considered a kind of modern treatise, a compilation of many articles on many subjects, but most visitors seem to go to particular pages based on web searches, and no further. Attention spans seem to be limited to a few hundred words at a time, or 140 characters.

But this is not a litany of alarm. I and others have done that elsewhere. This is to explain a way I have tried to solve the problem.

The way is a novel, now nearly completed, I have spent the last three years writing.

Wayward World

A new kind of hero must set history on a different course to save Earth from destruction almost a thousand years in the future.

The title link takes one to the novel online. To access the chapters one needs the chapter password "wweditor". I put it online to facilitate getting help with editing.

In planning the novel I first had to identify a single wrong turn in history that, had it been taken differently, history might have taken a much better course. There are many wrong turns in history.  some are more critical than others, and and some occurred during periods where taking a different turn might have had a more lasting effect. Most situations requiring reform are the result of historical wrong turns, and most reforms are attempts to correct the historical mistake.

One wrong turn turn stood out. The Battle of Evesham on August 4, 1265, when royalist forces led by Prince Edward, later to become Edward I, slaughtered Earl Simon de Montfort and most of his reformist followers. A faction of English and Welsh barons, led by Simon, had seized control of King Henry III and established the first English parliament at Oxford, to which commons could elect representatives. Although weak parliaments continued to be held thereafter, centuries of civil war among claimants to the English throne retarded progress of England through what would otherwise have been an earlier flowering of the Renaissance and the industrial revolution in the British Isles, by involving merchants and craftsmen in the making of law. It is plausible that Evesham set back human progress by perhaps 400-500 years at a critical stage in progress in Europe, that might have accelerated if the Montfortean reforms had become established in 1265.

The late 13th and early 14th century also presented many opportunities for reform. The Roman Catholic Church was without a pope and its cardinals could not agree on a successor. The Holy Roman Empire was without an emperor, and its electors also could also not agree on a successor. Northern European lands were experimenting with various reforms.  Spain and Portugal had established early parliaments, each called a  cortes, to which commons could elect representatives. Venice, Florence, and Genoa experimented with republican government using random selection. The Egyptian Emir, Baibers, swept across the Holy Land, driving out Christians and Jews and consolidating Arab control of the region for the next 800 years. The Mongols were destroying the lands in the Caucasus region, and also conquering what later came to be called China, but were temporarily set back by deaths of some of its leaders. The Persian llkhan had conquered Baghdad and killed most of its people. The peoples of the Indian subcontinent were at war in ways that presented opportunities. The Aztec and Inca empires had not yet emerged in the New World.

The situation presented an opportunity for an enlightened, gentle military leader, based in  the British Isles, to put the stamp of her personality on most of the world, as had not been done since Alexander. After some deliberation, I concluded this could only be done by an extraordinary young woman who was formidable both in personal combat and as the head of military forces intensely devoted to her. She had to have superior abilities, not superhuman, just superior. Not only as a leader, but as a charmer. I have known such women, perhaps none as intelligent as our Ariel, but serene, regal, beautiful, and professional.

If we examine most examples of science fiction today, most of the leading characters, such as the crew of the Starflight Enterprise, are regularly exercising abilities far beyond the reach of someone with an IQ of less than 200. They might claim not to be genetically enhanced, but they would have to be to do what they do.

So what are the biological limits on how much intelligence the human brain can achieve? I examined the abilities demonstrated by savants on specialized problems, then extrapolated them to the brain as a whole, and to a full array of problems. I came up with a functional IQ about 5 times that of unenhanced humans. This is not the extravagant intellectual power of a Lucy, which is not plausible. However, the motivations of the character are plausible. It is considered standard plot design to give heroes flaws or weaknesses. Ariel has no flaws. like many of the women I have known on whom she is modeled. She does have weaknesses, mainly arising from her love for others, but we see in Chapter 25 what happens to a villain who tries to exploit it. Unlike conquerors of the past, Ariel loves deeply. It is what motivates her.

On the whole, the enhancements made are essentially those that might be made by progress in human genetic design and market demands for them that can be expected during the next 200 years. They are a break in 1224 (when Rebecca was conceived), but not in the larger course of human history. Our novel merely moves the progress ahead by a few decades, leaving readers to consider how to deal with it.

She also knows how to have fun. From sex to music and other arts. She can learn a new language in a few days. She admires her Jewish tradition as a art form, not because she accepts the faith, like many of my Jewish friends. She laughs easily, and has a wicked sense of humor.

It would not have done to merely introduce supremely talented individuals before the battle. They needed to know things they could not know. That meant finding a way to get information from the future, and the obvious solution was from a future human. But I needed to introduce a plausible way to do that. Modern physical theory provides a possibility. It posits that if a stable wormhole could be created and maintained, and one end accelerated at nearly the speed of light for long enough, the ends of the wormhole could be separated in time, with one end in the past and the other in the future. the past end could be left in the past for use of a future individual.  A stable wormhole would be unlikely to be wide enough to permit passage of even a single subatomic particle or photon. However, it might enable a telepathic connection between the two ends. For that I posited that what we call telepathy is a kind of quantum entanglement, and that human brain functions are themselves a kind of quantum entanglement between parts of the brain. Much of mental capacity can be explained that way. I have also regularly experienced telepathy, so can testify to the reality of the phenomenon.

Information, in the physics sense, is conserved, so that no information can be transferred between past and future without an equal exchange in the opposite direction. Quantum entanglement avoids the problem, because within a quantum entangled system there is no real transmission of information. Within or between minds information exists everywhere at once, without being transmitted. It is a theoretic leap to posit enablement of this connection through a wormhole, but not implausible based on present theory. It makes a convenient plot device for this story.

The awareness (not "information") conveyed could not require the 13th century young people to recreate industrial civilization within a single year. They had to build on what was available in 1264. Fortunately, that foundation did exist then, mainly in Northern England, with clever action on the part of our Three recipients of future knowledge. Such a thing could not have been done sooner, or done anywhere else. With their new awareness, it was just barely barely possible to create and use the needed weapons in the time available.

The Three could have intercepted the royalists somewhere else than at Evesham, but Evesham was the perfect spot. It had a hill for artillery emplacement. The royalist forces could be expected to form themselves in the same arrays used in the other timeline, making them vulnerable to bombardment. That presented the Three with an opportunity to only defeat the royalists, but to crush them, as they had not been following their defeat at Lewes. The royalists had to be defeated so thoroughly that they could never make a comeback. In 1265 the royalists were on the ascendant, for reasons that would survive a battlefield defeat.

When Ariel saw that not all the royalist leaders were killed, she sallied forth to finish them off. They could have surrendered, but were unlikely to do so to a single knight. That gave her the warrant to kill them all.

That still left the problem of the king. Prince Edward was mortally wounded by the barrage, but the king had to die of an accident, so the reformists could not be accused of regicide. Dragging the king by his stirrup through the battlefield accomplished that. That left the realm without a king, and since Simon did not want to assume the position, there was an opportunity to replace the monarchy with a republic. The main other plausible claimant to the throne was Simon's son Harry, as he king's nephew, who also didn't want the job.

That situation opened the way for the Three to introduce a new Constitution, Bill of Rights, Rules of Order, and other reforms, which they do at the banquet following the battle, in the form of printed booklets using their new printing presses. In accepting them Simon lent his support for adopting them, and that brought the consent of others among the reformers and the nobility (whose privileges were not divested). Once land was granted to the farmers who worked it, there was no going back to the old feudal system most of them knew.

It would not work to make the rest of the novel a manual on the governing documents. That would lose the readers. The relevant elements could be woven into the narrative at various points as the drama permitted, leaving the documents to appendices for those who might want to read further.

If Britain had become a merchant republic in 1265, like Venice, Genoa, the Netherlands, or Portugal, It would very likely have explored, and discovered both the New World and the way around Africa to India. If so, it would have displaced Spain, Portugal, and the Dutch as exploring and colonizing powers, especially if it had first incorporated northern European lands, perhaps including the Netherlands. If this had occurred under thew enlightened leadership of someone like Ariel, those colonies would have been quickly incorporated into a British Federal republic as new states, thereby extending the federal union to most of the world. The Union Constitution provides for that.

It would also work if Ariel continued to lead it, not as a public figure, which her own Constitution would not enable, but as the head of a system of private foundations that control most of the wealth of the world, if she lived a long time, and had fellow descendants of her mother to whom she could delegate authority. Unlike Alexander, she does live a long time, and her relatives are worthy successors. Although the army and navy are nominally under the authority of the Union, in fact they are private, under the personal command of Ariel and Harry (mostly Ariel in practice). That would give her a free hand in putting her stamp on the world under her control.

It is also a plot element that her relatives, the Rebecchim, are not only intellectual superior, but also morally superior. This posits the controversial premise that moral behavior is mostly genetic, which is supported by many breeding experiments. It is not just the result of nurture or accident. None of her family are corrupt or abusive of their power. All are willing to lead austere personal lives, and avoid the trappings of personal wealth. They also thereby set an example for nonenhanced people. This eventually dominates custom and standards of proper private and public behavior, contrary to natural tendencies to acquire and display wealth. Wealthy persons are encouraged to form new charitable foundations, which include churches, universities, and medical institutions.

It is important that despite Ariel's prowess in personal combat, and that she often leads from the front, in most conflicts she directs strategy and tactics, and manages logistics, so that her forces always have what they need, and always know precisely what to do in every situation. They are trained to improvise and use a chain of command to replace fallen officers. Most are trained in multiple skills so they can fill in when  necessary. Like modern armies.

So world government would not be achieved by a UN acquiring the powers of government, but by the spread of a federal union to include ever more lands until it included most of them. More of an voluntary imperial process. Not of conquest or oppression, but of investment and trade. Nations join the federal union when they are ready. Nations don't join before they are ready. Some never do. It is a patient diffusion process, much of it cultural.

Not provided is a technical solution to how to divert Wayward (or the Earth) to avoid a collision. Collisions with Earth are an old trope in science fiction. Usually if the other planet is almost the size of Earth no attempt is made to divert it. Yet our future correspondent Andra said the Wayward aliens had found a way to do it two hundred years before Andra arrived, but too late to use it, so they evacuated. They provided a general outline of the method, involving the diversion of seven Oort Cloud objects, but no details, so Andra could only convey that, and leave it to future humans to work it out. That meant that within 800 years humanity had to develop the technical means, and discover the Wayward World. In 1265 humanity had a head start, and could do it, but there were also natural disasters to get around.

I posit the natural disasters to have been eruption of the two major supervolcanos, Yellowstone and Campo Fliegre, which I had go off within a few years of each other. I considered an asteroid impact, but I needed something more manageable with preparation, which consisted to getting everyone to build survival shelters in their homes, sufficient to enable most of them to survive the events.

I also considered the singularity problem. In Andra's timeline the machines took over all production, and having no more use for human labor, relegated humans to live 19th century wilderness lifestyles, with limited resources. There was no war with the machines. Only a loss of control, followed by benign neglect that would eventually lead to slow extinction. In Ariel's timeline, the now genetically enhanced humans were able to maintain control, which they would not have otherwise been able to do. Their minds were so advanced that passage through the singularity without being pushed aside was possible. That is a long conjecture, but is needed to make the book work.

There is mention of alien outposts on Earth, which evacuated Earth, other than that they may have helped the Waywardians genetically enhance some humans. Providing the motivation for the Waywardians to help the humans was more complicated. That turned out to be a scientific experiment which would test the possible effects of using their wormhole to set past humans on a course to save the Earth.

There are no exotic technologies. No FTL drives. No transporters. No planetary tractor beams. No force shields, Just advanced versions of what we have now, or can expect to develop within a few hundred years. The Oort Cloud objects are diverted using standard gravitational slingshot methods, taking advantage of there being seven such objects in just the right places. The diversion devices are straightforward lasers. Just very powerful ones, enough to burn jets of plasma in the sides of plutoids to provide the gentle nudges of them in the desired directions.

The theory of the wormhole blast upon recombining the two ends is plausible. Accelerating one end would have resulted in a buildup of a great deal of energy, released when the wormhole collapses.

All that having been said, what can we learn from other attempts to deliver political reform ideas through fiction.

The Bible itself, especially the Book of Deuteronomy, is largely a litany of early Jewish law. It has been described as the Hebrew Constitution, although elements of the fundamental laws are found in other books. It is more history, or told that way, but in that resembles a work of alternative science fiction. But it is not fiction as we understand it.

The next example might be Utopia, by Thomas More (1516). Not fiction, but a satirical analysis, with a depiction of a reformed society.

There are tow Wikipedia articles, Social science fiction and Political ideas in science fiction that explore the use of science fiction to deliver political ideas. Alternative history is one of the genres used.

One of the works not discussed in these articles is Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, which is not great science fiction, but presented her philosophy of objectivism in a novel form, mainly as a set of attitudes voiced by her characters. No propositional content, or programmatic reforms. It has become a cult classic, despite its shortcomings.

Normally, the action of such a novel would be carried by dialog, but a 90000 word limit makes that infeasible, which is about the limit of a novel that could be converted into a screenplay for a two-hour movie. Of course, it could be more than one screenplay, or a television series. In which case the narrative track would provide the framework for a series of dialogs. The reader should read the novel with that in mind. I have provided enough dialog to tie the narratives together. If that is not enough I can rewrite. One-off publishing makes it easy to put out new editions.