The Meaning of Constitutionally Limited Government

What do we mean by Constitutionally Limited Government?

I have traveled many pages on Facebook and many more web sites that support the notion of taking back our country and returning our society to a “Constitutionally Limited Government."  While those of us that support limited government generally understand what the phrase means, few of those Facebook pages or web sites actually define the goal. I made a project of that definition.

It quickly became apparent that the project is much bigger than a single post. First we will consider the history and political environment in the Colonies that lead up to the Revolutionary War and the establishment of our Constitution. Then we will examine how the Constitution was constructed; the "clauses", the Enumerated Powers, and the compromises that led to the Bill of Rights, etc. Next we will look at what has happened and try to make sense of the mess. Finally, we will examine ways to get a handle on the situation. Obviously, it will not be possible to return our society to the strict construction of the Constitution. However, it is certainly possible to roll back the federal usurpation of our freedoms. We can reel in further government intrusion into those aspects of American life and freedom where the federal government has no business inserting itself. 

Let's begin with a historical perspective of life and society in the American Colonies in the late eighteenth century. 

The Declaration of Independence established the Colonies intent to separate from the tyranny of the British Empire. The Declaration is a glorious indictment of the taxes, oppression and other injuries to the freedom and liberties of the Colonies by King George III. The Colonies wanted a degree of autonomy that the King was unwilling to allow. King George considered himself King. In his mind it was treasonous for those trouble making colonists to even consider themselves capable of self-government!  Also, the American Colonies were a marvelous source of taxes for the Crown and there was no way he was going to give that up!  Many of the colonists, probably a majority, considered themselves British and loved their association with the Crown and the British Empire. Thomas Jefferson, primary author of the Declaration, stated in 1775,“... there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do."  Even though the colonists loved their British heritage, they had learned to love freedom and independence more. Jefferson worded it this way, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain, unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.“  Our founders recognized that the oppressive government from Britain was not compatible with the “[Right to] Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The body of The Declaration enumerates the Colonies grievances against the Crown. I could not improve on it. Here is a web link to the text of The Declaration of Independence at the U.S House of Representatives records archive web site. Click Here

Fighting erupted between the Colonies and the Crown as early as 1770 and became more intense through about 1775. These skirmishes became the Revolutionary War. The Declaration of Independence was signed in July of 1776. The die was cast with its final clause, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."  The Declaration of Independence was High Treason against the Crown and King George. There was no turning back!

After the Colonies declared themselves free and independent they had to establish a government. One of the first efforts at a constitution was the Articles of Confederation. The Articles established a loose confederation of sovereign States for the thirteen Colonies but did not contain many of the powers needed for an actual government. Essentially the Articles established The United States of America as little more than a club!  There was no president or chief executive, no real judiciary and no taxing authority. Without taxing authority The United States of America could not pay state or national debts resulting from the war. Still, the Articles gave legitimacy to the new nation in the eyes of the rest of the world. 

After the war the founders had to face the fact that while the Articles had been sufficient to get the nascent country through the War of Independence, they were woefully inadequate to govern a real and diverse country. The attitude of the citizenry toward a centralized government was at minimum, very skeptical and at maximum, openly hostile! They had just fought a long and bloody war to rid themselves of the tyranny of a powerful ruler and were in no mood to establish a tyrannical regime of their very own in their new nation. The members of Congress recognized serious weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation and there was general agreement, both in the Congress and in the citizenry, that a central government was necessary. However, there was major disagreement as to how strong the government should be and into what areas of American life that government should be allowed to intrude. 

Over the past two hundred plus years words have changed meaning. In the United States today we refer to a “state” as a political and geographic sub-unit of our nation. Thus Missouri is a state, New York is a state, California is a state, Hawaii is a state, as are all the rest of the “states” in The United States of America. In the rest of the world the word state refers to a sovereign nation. Thus, Italy is a State, Japan is a State, Russia is a State, Bolivia is a State. Political and geographic sub-units in those States are often referred to as provinces or perhaps territories. Citizens of a “State” [note the capital “S”] are fiercely loyal to and proud of their country. The Swiss are very proud to be citizens of Switzerland, the Japanese love their country as do the British, Germans and the Brazilians. Here in the United States of America we are fiercely proud of and loyal to “The United States of America."  We correctly view The United States of America as our nation. In the late seventeen hundreds that was not the case because the Colonies were States, not states!  [Note the capitalization!] New York was a State, North Carolina was a State, Pennsylvania was a State, the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was a State. They were separate, sovereign nations, just as  Germany, France, Japan and Brazil are today. They had their own forms of government, currency, and even State supported and sponsored religions! For example, they levied import duty on products from other colonies. New Jersey might tax tomatoes or tobacco from North Carolina. North Carolina might levy an import tax on beef from Georgia or grain from New Jersey. Citizens of Virginia were fiercely loyal to Virginia, as were the citizens of Massachusetts to their State, and the South Carolinian’s to theirs. The feelings toward their State was similar to Thomas Jefferson's love for Great Britain. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1860, Abraham Lincoln offered Robert E. Lee command of all the Union Army. Lee turned it down because it would have required him to take up arms against his beloved State of Virginia!  

The Founding Fathers wanted to form a “union” of these sovereign nations but recognized that forming such a union would require the States to give up some of their sovereignty to the central government or union. In other words their capital “S” would become a lower case “s” in the word state. 

Essentially there were two schools of thought about how to form that central government. The Federalists supported the establishment of a Constitution defining a central government that managed the currency, dealt with foreign nations by treaty, had taxing authority, a judiciary and established a Congress as the legislative body and a President as chief executive who was charged with administering the laws passed by the Congress. The Anti-Federalists, as they came to be known, generally opposed a stronger central government and considered the Articles of Confederation sufficient but perhaps needing a little tweaking. The Anti-Federalists knew that some sort of union was necessary but they worried about the liberties and freedoms of the citizens being protected and the central government usurping the sovereignty of the states. (The Anti-Federalists hated the title but it stuck to them anyway.)

This schism was a major problem in crafting the new Constitution; how to provide the strength the union needed and protect the Right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. The writing of our Constitution was a tumultuous process. Every phrase and in some cases almost every word in a phrase was the subject of fiery debate. Ending slavery, preserving state sovereignty, election procedures, preserving the rights of citizens and many other issues were all contentious. Many compromises were worked out and the final draft of the new Constitution was sent to the states for ratification in 1787. 

Even the ratification process was not peaceful. Many Anti-Federalists felt that the rights of the people were still not sufficiently protected and used the ratification process to drive home that sentiment. The Massachusetts legislature voted for final ratification with a rider attached. That rider was a version of the first ten amendments, The Bill of Rights. The Massachusetts vote for ratification was declared invalid because it was conditional. Within a few months four more states ratified the Constitution but with their own version of the Bill of Rights provisionally attached. It was clear that the ratification would fail if the Bill of Rights was not officially added. A Bill of Rights that was acceptable to all the state legislatures was written and the Constitution was ratified in 1788 and went into full force in March, 1789. 

After the ratification of the Constitution, the states still considered themselves sovereign states but protected by the umbrella of the union, The United States of America. They had ceded certain rights, normally held by a State, such as controlling their own currency, forming alliances and treaties with other nations of the world, submitting to a legislative body other than their own (The Congress of the United States), subjecting their own courts to a Supreme Court of the United States and agreeing to have the entire union managed by a President. The Constitution was carefully crafted to dramatically restrict the reach of the federal government into the sovereignty of the states and the personal freedoms of the citizens. 

The Constitution was considered something of a joke by other nations of the world because the central government received its power and authority from the consent of the people. Never before in the entire history of the world was a government the servant of the people. It was a silly sounding idea to establish a government that could be completely turned upside down every two years by an election of the House of Representatives. If the citizens didn't approve of what was coming out of Washington they could change it just a few months hence. Governments around the world could not wrap their brains around the idea of ratification. A government does not get its authority from the people! Governments were the authority in the minds of all the governments of the day. What actually happened was shocking. The power of liberty of a free people was unleashed on the world. It wasn't long before emerging nations everywhere were using our Constitution as the blueprint for their own new governments.

With this historical perspective in place we will next examine clauses in the Constitution and discuss abuses of those clauses. We will also consider judicial activism by the federal courts. The Founding Fathers did the best they could to establish a small, non-intrusive national government. They failed, but that failure was inevitable.

And finally, we will examine what can be done to reign in our out of control government and reestablish the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.

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Oil Company Boycotts

I wrote this in 2004. I have not updated the numbers but the argument still applies.

I received an email advocating a boycott of the oil companies. It is a bad idea!! I have done some internet sleuthing and here is my argument that a boycott against the oil companies is a misguided and bad idea! It accomplishes NOTHING to boycott oil producers when they are not the cause of the pain! A boycott is like treating the headache with aspirin while ignoring the brain tumor!! You might get a little relief and feel better for a while but you are still gonna die!

First...Let's consider the price of gasoline. Gas prices in the U.S. are high but really not bad compared to the price of perfume, chicken, soup, laundry detergent or estrogen therapy. In the state of Kansas the "price" of a gallon of gas (at $3.00) includes about 37 cents state tax (12.5 %), in Missouri it is 30 cents (10%). Those are just state taxes. The federal government adds on taxes such as the "Highway Use Tax", currently 18.4 cents per gallon. Some counties and even some cities tack on a few cents more to every gallon. The government, at all levels officially collect over 40 percent of every gallon of gasoline. That is $1.20 cents on every $3 gallon of gasoline. It benefits government, to the tune of billions of dollars in taxes, to keep the price of oil high! 

Consider also that all the oil company employees who draw their salary from oil company sales, (i.e. gasoline, fuel oil, jet fuel, and other products such as paint, plastic wrap, medical plastics, cosmetics, etc.) pay their income taxes, sales taxes, airline ticket destination tax, etc., and the governments actually collect even more money on every gallon. That gallon of gas has to include enough money so the employees can pay their share of our exorbitant tax burden! (Aside: There are some people that think the GOVERNMENT should provide universal health care. If you think medical care is expensive now just wait for your tax bill to pay for socialism in medical care!!)

If a gallon of gas is 3 bucks, and the government confiscates $1.20 in taxes on that gallon, it means the oil companies get about a buck eighty ($1.80) for a gallon of gas. Out of that buck eighty, the oil companies pay their employees, independent truck drivers, station owners, medical insurance companies, extortion by the Teamsters/labor unions, refiners, employee retirement funds, research and development, purchase trucks, tanker ships, construct office buildings. To make matters worse they have to purchase crude from America's enemies, OPEC, (Oil Producing and Exporting Countries, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, etc.) The oil companies also have to employee battalions of lawyers just to fend off the zealots at the U.S. Department of Justice. And they also have to make a little profit. Clearly a gallon of gas is a bargain. Here is an interesting graphic from the internet. It displays the tax burden for each state.




















If Americans boycott gasoline suppliers, then truck drivers, service station owners, employees of medical insurance companies, gangsters at the Teamsters/labor unions, refiners, administrators and employees of retirement fund companies, R&D scientists, truck manufactures and mechanics, ship builders, and office building construction workers and battalions of corporate lawyers will all be hurt. These are real people, with families...hard working Americans just trying to make a living for their kids. Instead of hurting hard working Americans there must be a better way.

Also the record high price for gasoline was in 1981, as a percentage of income. When gas today reaches a national average of $3 per gallon it will be about the same percentage of your income as in 1981. You must consider purchasing power when making a comparison. (In 1868 manufacturing workers made about $2 per day. That equates to purchasing power of almost $30 PER HOUR NOW!!)

What to do...What to do...

Let's ask a question...Why is the most powerful nation in the world beholden to the thugs of the world for perhaps our most important commodity, next to food? Is there any rational reason that the United States of America should not provide for our own energy needs? We have enough oil stocks in Alaska alone to provide our needs, at current levels, for the next 50 years. We have oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, in California and off shore California, and in New Jersey sufficient for our needs for centuries. So what is the problems? The answer is America has gone insane!! In the mid '60s there were 347 refineries in the U.S. Today there are about 150. There has not been a new refinery built since 1980. That is stupid! The reason for it is absolutely stooooopid!! There are people (me, for example) in this country who are truly concerned about our environment. There are others who say they are environmentalist who really hate anything capitalistic. They use the Environmental Protection Agency and the activist courts to prevent any effort by corporations to expand oil U.S. production. Their goal is not to protect the environment. Their goal is to destroy capitalism. Here is a quote from the web page of the "Earth Liberation Front", "The ELF realizes the profit motive caused and reinforced by the capitalist society is destroying all life on this planet. The only way, at this point in time, to stop that continued destruction of life is to by any means necessary take the profit motive out of killing." (Previous versions of this treatise included a link to this quote on the ELF web page. It appears the ELF has taken the quote down. The FBI classified ELF as "eco-terrorists" in 2001. I'm not going to bother to search their web site. You can do your own homework. The quote is referenced all over the internet.)

We had better start paying attention to terrorists!!

The first part of the solution to oil prices WORLDWIDE is to tell the anti-capitalists to shut up and sit down!! But, you scream, "I AM WORRIED ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT!!" We all are...so ask yourself this question ... Does it make more sense to have our oil taken out of the ground by third world nations, like the Sudan and Venezuela, (that have no technology or concern for the environment) or by the United States, the technology leader of the world? Those who protest U.S. oil production on the basis of the environment are either misguided or are outright fiscal terrorists!!

The second part of the solution is to build more facilities and to upgrade the ones we have! The environmental terrorists have blocked every effort to build new refineries or upgrade existing facilities. They have infiltrated the EPA and intimidated the Congress to require really nutty and impossible rules for upgrading existing facilities. For example, the EPA has implemented clean air regulations that are so stringent that it is prohibitively costly to build new facilities. The retrofit rules require entire existing facilities to meet the standards for new facilities if ANY upgrade work is done on the old facility!! In other words ..... If a gasoline production facility is using dirty 1950s technology to make gasoline and the owners want to upgrade part of the refinery they must bring the ENTIRE facility up to current standards. Sure it can be done, if you, the consumer, wants to pay $35 for a gallon of gasoline. Instead you get all whiny ass and weepy over $3.00. Can't have it both ways people!! While everyone wants a clean environment we also need reasonable oversight.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is almost 20 million acres!! It is larger than 10 states! Most of ANWR is a beautiful, pristine, arctic environment, rich in wildlife and plant life. The Coastal Plains are 1.5 million acres of ANWR, on the North Slope. Essentially, nothing lives there! If you watch TV you would think that the oil companies want to plunder 20 million acres of Alaska! The oil production portion of the coastal plains amount to a just few thousand acres of that!! We are talking about approximately 2,000 acres. The proposed development part of ANWR is less than ONE PERCENT of the refuge. Consider this..If ANWR were the size of a 10’ X 12’ rug, the oil producing part would be the size of a postage stamp!! Here is your link to the ANWR ...

Government over regulation of the industry is the problem. Another example of government gone wild is gasoline blends. Each April the price of gasoline spikes. It happens because refineries are required shut down normal production and begin production based on more crazy government rules about blends. There is a blend for St. Louis, another for Kansas City, Des Moines, Houston, Dallas, LA, DC, Chicago, Atlanta, etc. The oil companies have to guess how much gasoline of each blend to make. They are actually getting pretty good at it. There is a spike in prices twice each year when the oil refineries change blends. The problem is that it takes time to gear up for the blends and if they guess wrong and make too much gasoline for one area and not enough for another, they can't ship the overage to the area that is short!! In other words, they can't sell Houston blend in Kansas City. They can't ship Seattle gas to LA or Atlanta gas to Washington, DC. The unused gas just goes to waste. That costs every consumer at the pump! More silly rules...more bad regulation. The "HATE AMERICA" crowd loves it....

I also wanted to weigh in on the “Obscene Profits” lie being spread in the media. A little internet sleuthing produces some interesting FACTS! First, EXXON/MOBILE made a lot of sales last year, at a 10% profit margin. The oil industry averages 10 – 13 percent. In other words, EXXON made 10 cents for every dollar!! That is damn low. The banking (money) business operates at about 20 percent, Microsoft made 25.7 percent and the drug manufacturers made about 45 percent! Maybe we should all quit using our computers and boycott Viagra! Very few industries operate on lower margins than the oil industry. Put another way, if the oil companies dropped their profit to ZERO on a $3.00 gallon of gas the price would only be about 30 cents lower. If the GOVERNMENT dropped their profit to ZERO on a gallon of gas the price would drop 90+ cents per gallon. People are screaming at the wrong enemy! The oil companies are market driven but the government is not held accountable (for anything!!)

If you, the angry American, really want to do something about high gas prices you should elect men and women who will put in place reasonable regulations. Write your congressman and make them listen!! They like their cushy jobs!! They react to votes and the threat of being ousted. Find out how your congressman votes. If it is not in YOUR best interest, tell 'em so and then turn them out to pasture. Your deliberate vote will do more to stem the tide of high gasoline prices than all the boycotts you can participate in because it ain't the oil companies that are the problem. It is government. The oil companies are market controlled!! Activist judges need to be impeached. Environmental terrorists should sent to prison for a very long time for their criminal activities. VOTE!! That is the third part of the solution! Remember, in America we still get the government we want.



NOTE: The price of gasoline has fluctuated down so some of my readers will poo poo this post as irrelevant. The price of gas will go back up, which will make this rant relevant again.

The Veracity and Importance of Circumstantial Evidence

Circumstantial evidence is a powerful tool. My law dictionary defines "Circumstantial Evidence" as 

1. indirect evidence
2. secondary facts by which a principal fact may be rationally inferred

Much of our judicial system relies on rational thinking and circumstantial evidence. Criminals have been properly convicted of crimes against people and property and sent to prison or even to their execution based on overwhelming circumstances.

It is very rare to have "proof" that someone committed murder. You don't usually have a video, or a real eye witness. What you have are circumstances that indicate a crime was committed and that a certain person was the only one that could have committed the crime. The presence of garrote marks on a woman's dead body and corresponding garrote marks on the hands of the suspect do not prove that the suspect committed the crime. It only proves that the victim was strangled and that the suspect handled a rope or strap that left similar marks on his hands. Tire prints of the suspects car found in the vicinity of the body do not prove that the victim was ever in the car. It only proves that the car was there recently enough that the tire marks are still discernible. If the suspects DNA is inside the victims body, it does not prove he raped her. It only proves he had intercourse with her. The fact that his skin is trapped under her finger nails does not prove she tried to fight off her attacker. It may only show she engaged in some sort of intense relationship, perhaps consensual sadomasochistic sex.

However, taken together, the fact that she is dead, his car was proven to have been in the area where her body was discovered, he has ligature marks on his hands that match the marks on her neck, that she has his DNA in her body and that she has scrapings of his skin under her finger nails would be enough proof to send him to the gas chamber or at least to life in prison! But, there is no real proof. No witness. No video. What there is, are circumstances that "prove beyond a reasonable doubt" in the mind of reasonable people that the suspect murdered the victim. 

Major weaknesses exist with circumstantial prosecutions. For example,  even in the face of overwhelming evidence the perpetrator may be judged not guilty by the jury. The murderer, OJ Simpson comes to mind. Another example is that every year modern scientific investigative methods prove individuals were innocent of the crime. The Innocence Project has successfully overturned numerous convictions based on DNA evidence. Another example is the clear miscarriage based on circumstantial evidence is the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The democrats and the compliant press succeeded in making the trial about sex, [which it never was], instead of perjury, subornation of perjury, and abuse of power by the most powerful person in the free world. Both of those circumstantial cases, OJ and Bill Clinton, have been made and the overwhelming evidence was ignored.)

Scott Peterson sits on death row in California for the 2002 murder of his wife, Laci. She was reported missing around Christmas, 2002. On April 13, 2003 the body of her unborn baby was discovered washed up on the shore San Francisco Bay. The next day a female torso, missing hands, feet and head, was discovered in the lake. The autopsy determined that the body was Laci and the baby was hers. Her husband, Scott Peterson, was arrested and charged with her murder. Since there was no video of the murder and no eye witness, the trial was completely based on circumstances. The prosecutor had to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that Scott Peterson murdered Laci and their baby. The defense did not have to prove that Scott did not kill them. His burden was merely to introduce doubt in the mind of the jurors that it could have been someone else. In other words, the defense only needed to show that the circumstances were such that someone else might have committed the murder or even that there was no murder. Perhaps Laci merely jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.

The evidence against Peterson consisted of a hair, believed to be Laci's, stuck to pair of pliers from Scott's boat. He added two porn channels to his cable television service just days after Laci was reported missing. The prosecution posited that Scott knew Laci was not coming home. Scott also sold her car and had plans to sell their house. The prosecutor called an expert on the tides in San Francisco Bay to testify about the currents in the bay. On cross examination he admitted that his findings were only probable and not precise as to the travel of the bodies in the lake because of tides and currents. Scott was having an affair with Amber Frey. He told Frey, before Laci was reported missing that he had "lost" his wife. The affair was not presented as a motive for the murder but as an indication Scott's character. Scott Peterson was convicted and waits on death row.

There are serious problems inherent in circumstantial evidence. For example, science may advance to a degree that the convicted person is proven innocent. We frequently see stories in the news of men freed from prison after serving many years in prison for a rape or murder he did not commit. DNA screening, which did not even exist, has proven that some waiting on death row are innocent. It is incumbent on society to get it right, especially when circumstantial evidence is the primary evidence available.

Since the focus of my blog is politics, I am establishing with this treatise the use of circumstantial evidence on these pages to reach rational conclusions about our government and politicians. The use of circumstantial evidence is critical in the analysis of politics and politicians.

Stay tuned..............

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Our Broken Immigration System

The question was asked "Could somebody tell me what's 'broken'

within the immigration system?  I simply don't understand why the current system, if enforced, is not workable." In order to address the question and the follow-up statement, it is necessary to understand what Democrats means when they say that a particular law or some aspect of a government program is "broken."

First, understand that politicians do not speak English. Most Americans speak and understand English as defined by "The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language" or "The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of American English." Political language utilizes the same words but groups within the body politic understand those words very differently. For example, when a democrat/liberal politician uses the word “bipartisan” he/she means that the Republicans/Conservatives must march in lockstep with their decision. Conservatives understand the word to mean that there is general agreement and consensus on a subject or issue.

Democrats, specifically "liberals," fall into discernible subgroups. The largest group within the liberal universe might be described as “Liberal Utopians.” They believe that society has an obligation to make sure everyone is equal socially and economically. They refuse to recognize that people are different and will be unequal just because they are different. 

Liberal utopians blindly embrace socialism and its accompanying high taxes and government control of society. They see government as the great equalizer and willingly, even happily, submit to the requisite intrusion into their lives. They disdain capitalism and personal responsibility. They look at our immigration system as unfair to the downtrodden masses of the world. 

Since liberals also view America as a world evil, they adhere to the notion that the downtrodden are in their situation because of policies forced upon the world by the evil United States. Liberal utopians embrace a borderless society as part of the solution to an unfair society. They also support higher taxes so the “less fortunate” can have what they consider "a better life." Naturally, the administrator of that confiscated wealth is to be the same government that has repeatedly demonstrated its only skill is creating more poor downtrodden masses. 

They blindly vote for the next group.

The second major group within liberal society is the “Liberal Elites.” All liberal elites are also utopians but not all utopians qualify as “Elites.” Elites believe that it is their birthright to rule over the great unwashed masses. They gravitate to politics for no other reason than their burning belief that they are smarter than everyone else. They assume that the “fact” of their superior intelligence and by virtue of the birthright they are qualified to dictate to the rest of us how we should live. Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson have implied that they [liberals, socialists, elites] are smarter than the rest of us! Ted Kennedy openly declared it on several occasions, even from the floor of the Senate. 

Joe Biden, in his miserable 1988 presidential bid, said in response to a voter that had the sheer gall to disagree with him that, “I have a much higher IQ than you do.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1j0FS0Z6ho

Woodrow Wilson - “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.” (In other words, the ruling class should better be educated than the rest of us…) We have established that the Elites do not speak English and they look upon the rest of us as lowborn plebs, not able to make intelligent decisions about our own life. 

Now let’s look at the key word, “broken.” The dictionaries define “broken” as “not functioning properly; out of working order.” It is easy for rational thinking people to conclude, using English, that our immigration system would not be broken if the existing laws were enforced. Therefore, if enforcing existing law would fix the broken immigration system and the government refuses to enforce those existing laws then it must be concluded that politicians have a goal other than enforcing the law thereby fixing the broken system. They are using a politician’s definition for “broken.”

All Democrats and most Republicans in Congress view getting reelected as their primary job. They use rhetoric, government money and power to insure that reelection. Democrats know that the country is starting to swing back to rationality so they are desperate for votes. They need to secure their America hating voter base (the utopians) as well as increasing the head count of those indebted to them for their existence. In the mind of liberal elites, fixing immigration means weakening those laws, weakening the southern border, and weakening voter laws. In their mind enforcing immigration law would break the system even more because it would make it considerably more difficult for them to get reelected. So, to return to our original premise, we shall define "broken" as understood by liberals. "Broken" means there are still immigration laws on the books that, if enforced, will reduce the Democrat voter count.

Fixing the "broken" system means doing away with laws that impede the free flow of Democrat voters into the country.

If current immigration laws are enforced, the number of Democrat voters will steadily decline. That can't be allowed to happen! This is the engine powering government policy including sanctuary cities and states!

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Term Limits and the 17th Amendment

Term limits is not the solution because term limits is not the problem. Imposing term limits is like taking aspirin for the brain tumor. You might feel a little better but you are still gonna die!

Originally the Constitution provided for the citizens of a State to be represented by the members of the House of Representatives, elected for a two year term by the "People" of the state. The Senate was to represent the state governments and was selected according to state law, (by vote in the legislature or appointed by the governor with advice and consent of the state legislature) for a term of six years. The Senator might be selected from the state legislature’s membership, from a list maintained by the governor or from completely outside government, as sometimes happened.

Article 1, Section. 2.The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States,

Article 1, Section. 3.The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof [Modified by Amendment XVII], for six Years;

Essentially, the Senate was designed to represent the state governments in Washington while the House represented the citizens of the states. The Seventeenth  Amendment provided for the direct election of Senators and effectively left the governors and legislatures without a voice in DC. Senators became "Representatives at Large." State laws, prior to 1913 allowed governors or legislatures to change their Senator at the end of the senators six year term. If the governor’s office or the legislative majority changed party then the change in the states senators was essentially guaranteed. That was a true bicameral government.  If the bicameral system still existed, then the governors could put a stop to any type of insanity Washington might come up with.

Obamacare would not happen. The governors could say "not just no but hell no!"  The tax rates and IRS would not be out of control. The governors could say "not just no but hell no!" The "unfunded mandates" would not happen! The governors could say "not just no but hell no!" All the abusive acts by the federal government would not have happened! 

Governors and state legislatures can be easily changed by the voters.  Alexander Hamilton noted in Federalist [paper] No. 59 that, "The interest of each State, ... to maintain its representation in the national councils, would be a complete security against an abuse of the trust." That representation ended with the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment and "abuse of the trust" became standard operating procedure in Washington, DC.

Equally importantly, since Senators would not be elected by the general population then term limits of either federal legislative body would be moot.

It should be noted that the progressives in the early part of the twentieth century stated in an editorial (unfortunately I can't recall the publication) that the Constitutional election of Senators stood in the way of implementing their agenda. The direct election of senators became their primary goal. They succeeded in 1913 with the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment! It has been downhill for the American Dream since then. Woodrow Wilson and William Jennings Bryan led the charge to water down our bicameral system. The progressives knew their agenda would never happen if the states had the ability to stop it. I won't go into the reasons for the 17th other than to mention that corruption and/or legislative inaction in making appointments was the impetus for passage. The progressives used high explosives to "solve" the problem when a surgical solution was needed!

Also, importantly, the rise of lobbyists can be traced to the direct election of Senators. Power abhors a vacuum and something had to fill the power vacuum left when the states were cut out of the federal government. There have always been lobbyists in Washington. Even George Washington worked as a lobbyist after his presidency. The loss of state representation in Congress gave lobbyists effective control of the government. It is an interesting study for anyone that wants to do the homework!

Imposing term limits will create more problems, unpredictable problems, and do nothing to give governors and legislatures their proper representation in Washington. Term limits does not reestablish our Constitution as the proper restraint on the federal government.

The solution is to reinstate the bicameral government our Founding Fathers gave us. Repeal the 17th Amendment. It might be a good idea to lower the term for Senators from the current six years to three or four years, so the governor or legislature could quickly change the Senator, if appropriate. The term of Senator could also be tied to the term length for the governor. Some governors serve for two years and others for four years.

Anything else is just fluffy stuff!

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