Original Sin and the US Constitution?

Nothing rankles me more than the Original Sin argument about the United States and the Constitution. That we were founded upon Slavery. Quite the opposite is true. We were founded as a nation based on the stated notion that protection for slavery would only last until 1807, and further, that there could be no Amendment to change that date or goal. Read it. Article 1 Section 9.

So, in the very first Article of the US Constitution there is not only an acknowledgment of the evils of slavery, which was part of the system handed down to us by Britain, there is also a stated date for the cessation of importation of more slaves. This was the only way to get the 13 colonies to agree on the Constitution. And, yes, after 1807 we did have the misguided Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. I say misguided because attempting to compromise with something like slavery is just that; at the very least.

But by 1861 it all came to a head, as it was bound to, and 685,000 Americans, North and South, died to finally end slavery. Was it instantaneously successful? Of course not. But, the point is that we kept hammering it until it took proper shape and today we live in a world which has more slaves than we, as a nation, ever held in bondage.

Is there still work to do? "In order to form a more perfect Union" there always will be. But Original Sin? Sorry, you'll have to peddle that line elsewhere.....

The 14th Amendment

On February 8, 1861 the seven Southern States announced their secession from the Union they had pledged to join under the Constitution which included Article 1 Section 2; and a 3/5 of a person rule as far as slaves were concerned. This gave the more rural Southern states representation based on a population that included many slaves; whose votes went to their owners under the 3/5 provision. This was of course changed by the 14^th Amendment in 1869.

The South violated the Constitution in seceding from the Union by claiming a Right under the 10^th Amendment; which gives the States rights over certain issues; or powers; not relegated to the Federal Government. It sounds nice; but seceding violated Article 1 Section 4 which prohibits states from leaving the Union.

The 14^th Amendment was, however, enacted under strange circumstances as the South was just getting back on its feet and re-establishing their state legislatures. North Carolina and South Carolina were the last 2 states to ratify the 14^th Amendment, and only did so under duress. The 39^th Congress made it mandatory for the states to ratify the Amendment as a condition of rejoining the Union. There are parts of the South where Amendment 14 is openly despised, and there has even been talk of trying to abolish it by Amendment, in much the same way as Prohibition; the 18^th Amendment; was later repealed by the 21^st Amendment.

This may sound far-fetched, but it’s really not. The crux of the argument for repeal would be that the states have a right under Article 1, Section 4; which gives the states the right to proscribe the time, place and manner in which to hold elections. That argument would hold that the state legislatures of the South; particularly North Carolina and South Carolina; were mandated to approve the 14th Amendment as a condition to re-join the Union. But a closer inspection of the text reveals that though they have that right, Congress may change or alter that law except for the choosing of Senators. Still, it would be a messy battle with much at stake.

As time went on the 14^th Amendment became the “go to place” to fit in every perceived “right” which Americans wanted to include. Although I am in agreement with the issues at hand, I also think the 14^th Amendment has become so overburdened that should it ever be repealed or amended it would affect many areas of our society. The 14^th Amendment has become the easy path for expanding rights in all sorts of instances.

This sort of overburdening was not begun until after Women’s Suffrage; the 19^th Amendment; which could have been added to the 15^th Amendment giving the right to Vote to all men of any race. The problem with that would have been the ensuing call for universal suffrage at a time when black men were still routinely barred from voting in the Southern states. The implication of the 19^th Amendment was that it had nothing to do with the precedent set up by the 15h Amendment. In other words; blacks were still not going to be able to vote. This is one of the instances in which bundling like-minded legislation would have resulted in a positive change.

Civil Rights and the Voting Rights Act both have their underpinnings in the 14^th Amendment, and these protections should have been tacked onto that Amendment; making it stronger.

But the 14th Amendment now holds the Miranda Decision; which should have been founded under the 5th Amendment; the right to have due process; which would include an attorney and the right to remain silent.

Abortion and Same Sex Marriage are both rights which should have been held to exist under the 9^th Amendment; “the enumeration of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

This may all seem to be unimportant; and perhaps it is just a “parlor game” which I like to play when I have nothing better to do. But think of it this way; you’re mailing all of your valuables to a new home. Do you put them all in one envelope, or do you break it up into several packages so that you don’t lose it all in one shot? To put it more simply; you just don’t put all your eggs in one basket. This is especially true when there are other baskets lying around, waiting to be used.

"Let the Fire Burn" - A Jason Osder Film (2013)

Many people don’t even remember the 1985 bombing of the MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia. The fact that city police used a helicopter to drop a bomb on the place, killing 5 children in the process and decimating just about the whole block of houses; 61 to be exact; would seem to be something we’d all remember.

 Sadly, this event would become overshadowed by other and more “news worthy” sieges; all of which eventually led to the WACO and Ruby Ridge confrontations; when  various groups of separatists began to assert their perceived “right” to have their own mini-nations. These groups ran the gamut from Black Power to the Aryan Nation and even Christian groups.  And each time there were dead children left in the wake. It’s always that way when adults can’t get along; the children get hurt.

The MOVE group began in 1972 as sort of an extension of the community programs launched by the Black Panthers during the 1960’s and 1970’s. For the most part these were programs involved with education and food for the inhabitants of the neighborhood where MOVE was based at 309 North 33^rd Street in Philadelphia. Frank Rizzo was Mayor at the time.

Between 1972 and 1975 MOVE staged all kinds of protests which violated not only the law, but the sensibilities of the neighbors all up and down the street. The profanity, loud music and children being allowed to run naked through the street had all combined to takes its toll on the residents. The “Back to Nature” rhetoric of MOVE  had become a living hell.

By early 1976 the members of MOVE armed themselves; openly displaying the weapons on the perimeter of the street which they controlled. Naturally the residents who lived on and across the street were upset with this turn of events and the police were called in again to make an attempt at restoring order. This coincided with the release from prison of several of MOVE’s members, and violence erupted. The group claimed that the police had shot an infant, killing him. They displayed the body openly, but would not allow medical officials to examine the corpse.

By 1977 the FBI had an informant in the house. You have to wonder why sanitation laws were not enforced to end this nonsense in a more peaceful manner. The violence does  seem to have been begun by the members of MOVE themselves, but the constant escalation of it without resolution has to be laid at the feet of the law enforcement agencies who could have handled this better.

What happened afterwards turned an essentially 5 yearlong political battle into a siege; and then a war. And when all was said and done the Police in Philadelphia used a bomb to win a war which no one seems to have wanted in the first place. The informant turned over the cache of weapons and guns, but the raid only led to another and another, culminating in the city’s bombing of the house by helicopter on May 13, 1985.

This is a fascinating documentary to watch. As the cameras rolled at the hearings which took place after the whole affair had ended, we hear witnesses who claim there were no loaded guns in the compound; even as we see the news footage of the gun battle which left people on both sides dead and wounded.

The saddest thing of all is that this did not have to happen. This took place at a time when helmets and bullet proof vests were considered heavy duty gear in the streets. The push to arm our police like the military after 9-11 hadn’t happened yet. So this was very carefully arranged annihilation of a group of people who had become a problem for the authorities.

Although I can’t agree with MOVE and the insanity they chose to live in, I have to believe that if the authorities had the ability to get a helicopter; arm it with a bomb; and then destroy an entire city block; they surely must have been capable of finding some other solution.

Note: There will be those who ask what my solution would have been. I can only say that a mass, evacuation, under force; illegal as it may have been; would have been preferable to what did occur under the color of law.

"Uncle Sam Can't Count" by Burton and Anita Folsom (2014)

This was almost a good book. There is much to love about it, and until the last 70 pages, or so, this was also an informative book. That was before the authors unleashed their true agenda against Obamacare, and a few other things not in keeping with their agenda of promoting fracking as the private enterprise answer to government subsidies, even as the government is being asked to fund the Keystone pipeline.

I love history, and for the first 100 or so pages this book truly rocked with the stories of failed government attempts to build canals, planes, guns; even trade in furs during the early days of the Republic. It was wonderful to read, all factually based and backed up by history. That was before we got to the 20^th century and oil.

From the moment Rockefeller enters as a hero the book goes downhill. There is a lot to be said concerning the accomplishments of the world’s first billionaire. But at the bottom of those accomplishments are the land grabs, and drilling sideways into a competitor’s well. But that never gets mentioned. To the authors, he was a visionary.

The Great Depression is distilled into one bad decision at the end of President Hoover’s last year in office. The prosperity of the twenties is touted loudly, while ignoring the fact that the farm foreclosures and falling prices for agricultural produce were even then combining with the over production of automobiles by Ford, and the buying of stocks on margin, to create the biggest disaster in American economics until the “recession” of 2008.

In the world of these two authors the only successful government project was the Manhattan Project, which produced the first 2 atomic bombs. The fact that those bombs killed less people for more money never gets mentioned, although getting a smaller plane for more money was an evil when the government was subsidizing Langley in the race to build the first plane. If this seems to be a strange and unequal analogy, don’t blame me. It is the result of the inconsistency of the authors in attempting to make their case.

The TVA and the Hoover Dam are never mentioned at all in this book, even as the authors take careful aim at all of Roosevelt’s other Depression Era programs as ineffective. It’s pretty convenient to cherry pick the facts in order to obtain the conclusion you desire.

Presidents Reagan and Bush, who first opened up the doors for ethanol; which is one of the biggest frauds ever, are both mentioned before the ball is passed to President Obama, leaving the reader with the impression that he is responsible for the debacle of using food for fuel.

   

Ethanol saves neither fuel nor alleviates pollution. It simply wastes food and drives up the cost of everything. This is something on which the authors and I agree. The only difference is that I blame Reagan and Bush, who started it. If they think that Obama can end the farm and fuel subsidies on his own, then they are living in a dream world.

As I said, there is much to like about this book. I just happen to like my history served up plainly, without the agenda. The funny thing is that until they started hammering me with that agenda I was sort of seeing things in the same light.

The NRA and the March towards Censorship

Dick Metcalf, longtime writer for Guns and Ammo, the official magazine of the National Rifle Association, has been fired. The NRA, avowed champions of the Second Amendment of the Constitution, would seem to have no regard for their own rights under the First Amendment, which guarantees Freedom of Speech. Personally, I have always thought that the Second Amendment was there to protect the First one. Indeed, that has been the spin put forth by the NRA over the past several decades.

Yet, this disregard for that Amendment was on full display last week when the magazine, along with the full blessing of the NRA, dismissed Mr. Metcalf for having done his job when assigned the task of writing an article for the magazine entitled “Let’s Talk Limits”. Bear in mind that the theme of this article was not chosen by Mr. Metcalf, and the finished product was subsequently approved by those same editors who assigned him the task in the first place.

But, Mr. Metcalf apparently drew the wrong conclusion (I have not read the article and am relying upon news stories for this post) and opined that “all Constitutional Rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.” This modest statement of fact implied that Mr. Metcalf; and by extension the magazine itself; were in favor of gun control. Whether or not that is true is beside the point; it's what happened next which should trouble you.

The backlash was faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than the gun lobby. Within days, InterMedia Outlet, the entity which actually owns Guns and Ammo, fired Mr. Metcalf. They also control production of his TV show, the fate of which is now in limbo. The reason given was straightforward enough; several of the leading gun advertisers were cancelling their accounts.

While it is true that Guns and Ammo is a business and runs for profit, it was quite a surprise to see a magazine; which presents itself as so principled when it concerns the Second Amendment;  running for cover so quickly in detriment to the First Amendment, which the vaunted Second Amendment is supposed to protect. You would think that a bunch of gun totin’, highly principled magazine execs would take a stand on free speech and NOT take the money in exchange for that principle. 

So, there you have it, The NRA stands solidly behind your Second Amendment Right to bear arms. But they don’t even care enough about their own First Amendment Rights for me to ever trust them enough to protect mine. Apparently,  it’s just the corporations who make guns that will determine what you can read by virtue of the economic pressure they can bring to bear. Way to go for freedom and democracy!

So, the next time you see an NRA bumper sticker, keep that in mind...

PS: I am a registered gun owner and a supporter of Gun Rights; just not of the NRA.