A New U.S. Constitution

Posted on October 13, 2022 by Professor Taboo

“The Framers intended our U.S. Constitution to be a fundamental framework of law. They did not want the Constitution to be changed in response to transient whims. However, they also recognized that American society and conditions would change over time in ways they could not predict in 1787.

George Mason said “Amendments, therefore will be necessary and it would be better to provide for them in an easy, regular, and Constitutional way than to trust in chance and violence.” Article 5 of the Constitution lays out the Amendment process, and since 1787 more than 10,000 proposed Amendments have been introduced to Congress. Only 33 Amendments have gained enough votes to be submitted to the States for ratification and just 27 have been ratified.”
—Roy Young – President/CEO, James Madison’s Montpelier

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What exactly no longer works in our 18^th century Constitution? For many Americans today that would be a shocking, disturbing question. Some would be appalled that it was even suggested. While on the other hand, for many other Americans the question would illicit just the opposite reaction, frustration perhaps, but not shock. Yet, today the chasm of heated emotions within our split and splitting, polarized politics is quite real. It is undeniable by any foreign observer. Like it or not, in today’s U.S. of A., the battle-lines are rapidly drawn and battle-cries shouted “you’re either with us or against us” as President George W. Bush once proclaimed to the world in the wake of 9/11. Only today, that line drawn in the sand describes acutely our current prognosis of U.S. society: it’s American against American. It’s do or die to the bitter end for our two political parties, nothing less. How on Earth did we arrive here?

*Oldest known photo of the restored U.S. Capitol Bldg, **1846** – Library of Congress; photo by John Plumbe*

Our 18^th century federal and state governments can no longer keep pace with our ever fast-moving, evolving 21^st century nation, with its people, its industry, or the ever-changing world. This has become ever clearer over the last two decades. Consequently, does this ailing condition mean after 240-years it is too difficult to amend our Constitution, and if so, can we change that? Can necessary reforms be achieved to fix our lethargic, indecisive, incumbered, often grid-locked bicameral Congress so that another January 6^th Assault on our Capitol and democracy—by seditious “American insurrectionists”—never happens again? We came very close to losing everything this nation was built upon those 3-4 weeks leading up to January 6^th, 2021. We were a lot closer than most realize. More importantly, in a post-Jan 6^th America do the qualified lovers and protectors of a lawful Constitutional democracy still have a choice? This is what I want to explore and examine in this multi-part series.

The Best of Times, Now the Worst of Times

Throughout all of human history the records of civilizations, from the Bronze Age through the Classical Age and up to the current Modern Age, have all shown one consistent, repeating pattern: Ignore your subjects, the peasants, the working masses and their fair and reasonable well-being, then by doing so those leaders, nobility, or the Sharif/Ashraf do so at their own peril. Whether leadership is morally just or not, time and time again throughout human history, civil revolutions by fed-up commoners do rise up and often overthrow their snobbishly isolated, unfit tyrannical rulers. This is the final chapter of many an ancient empire or modern nation the Ages of history always bear out.

What are a few of the malignant cancers manifested by our nation’s declining health? What are the signs and diagnosis of a sickly United States? What is our actual and honest State of the Union over the last 3-4 decades? Here’s a brief summary:

Economic Inequality is the worst it has been since the post-WW2 years.
Growing Political Inequality – that is, much less republic representation for all individual voters as opposed to corporate business-owners and their personal special interest groups.
Continued Collapse of America’s Middle Class.
Failing Public Education, particularly beyond a high school diploma.
Chronic Racial and Income Segregation.
Ever Emerging Technologies Causing Declines in Social Cohesion – i.e. social-media addiction.
A Failing Retirement System – Social Security benefits for retirees under persistent threat.
America’s Middle Class Facing Heavier Taxes, particularly for social programs and domestic infrastructure.
The Burden of Increased Taxes Are Not Shared Fairly by the Wealthy.

And these are just nine (9) of the nation’s biggest chronic problems over the last 3-4 decades. I will be exploring and examining these nine U.S. festering ailments throughout this series. What is apparent these past several decades is that the final demise of our precious republic democracy cannot be solved through “politics as usual.” Why not?

The general yet correct answer is that our antiquated 18^th century Constitution and the 21^st century Supreme Court’s interpretations of it are the primary ~~infections~~ sources of our dire illness. Period. But it isn’t enough to simply generalize the obvious, is it?

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In my next installment of the series I will address how 1) our outdated Constitution has been continually misinterpreted and thus extrapolated by politicians and the Supreme Court to unfairly protect America’s wealthy oligarchs and their corporations, as well as their special interest groups and favored political campaigns. And 2) how our once basic foundation of Separation of Powers no longer functions. Also, I will be referencing an outstanding expert in U.S. Constitutional history and law, PhD graduate of the University of Virginia and JD from Harvard Law School, Dr. George William Van Cleve and his recent book: Making A New American Constitution. I will also be referencing and citing other related sources.

A heads up. I must also beg your patience for the timely, or untimely delivery of these installments. If you are unaware, my life took a major turn or setback (in August 2021) from my previous ability to publish blog-posts on a regular basis due to my Mom’s progressing severe dementia. Therefore, I most likely won’t be able to publish each installment in a normal time-frame. That said, please watch this space and your WordPress notifications for the latest continuation. It would be greatly appreciated! I very much look forward to your participation in discussions below in comments. Thank you. ❤️

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

For American Pro-Gun Pro-Violence Originalists

Posted on July 7, 2022 by Professor Taboo

“The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government.” […]

“This principle that the earth belongs to the living, & not to the dead, is of very extensive application & consequences, in every country…”
thomas jefferson — in a letter to james madison, sept. 6, 1789

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Thomas Jefferson, as most of you know, was one of the six (6) Core Founding Fathers of our nation in the late 18^thcentury. James Madison was as well and these two great scholars—Jefferson and Madison—contributed enormously to the idea, the drafting, writing, and ratifying of our U.S. Constitution in 1787–1788.

*Early Colonial American Flintlock Saddle-ring Carbine* – price: **$15,000.00**

In his letter of September 6, 1789 to Madison who was back in the American colonies, Jefferson was witnessing firsthand the start of the French Revolution. What he saw and interpreted from the French people was not unlike he and his American colleagues, the other five core Founding Fathers, and American colonists had also recently lived: revolution and independence from tyranny.

Now let’s jump to a modern enigma. What or whom is an Originalist? According to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, PA, “Originalism is a theory of the interpretation of legal texts, including the text of the [18^thcentury] Constitution. Originalists believe that the constitutional text ought to be given the original public meaning that it would have had at the time that it became law [in the late 1700’s].”

*Prussian “Hessian” type Jaeger rifle* – price: **$15,575.00**

As you might infer from his 1789 Madison letter, as well as his 1816 letter to Virginia lawyer Samuel Kercheval, Thomas Jefferson would have undoubtedly and adamantly opposed this view of our nation’s rule of law if he were alive today for comment. Yet, his many letters to friends and colleagues amply demonstrate his position on Originalism vs. Living Constitution. And Jefferson was not the only Founding Father who would most certainly oppose this controversial political theory of Originalism. Edmund Randolph, also an attorney and Constitutional delegate from Virginia, wrote in his draft of a constitution:

To insert essential principles only; lest the operations of government should be clogged by rendering those provisions permanent and unalterable, which ought to be accommodated to times and events.
edmund randolph — july 1787

*Brass barrel English Boxlock Flintlock Blunderbuss Officer’s Pistols* – price: **$10,775.00**

There are also historical precedents from our Supreme Court Justices referencing the Eighth Amendment in their 1958 decision on Trop v Dulles and “evolving standards of decency.” With this historical background in mind, I would like to propose an idea, a compromise for our modern American Pro-gun, Pro-violence advocates and fanatical Constitutional originalists.

*French & Indian War Period “Watkin” Brown Bess musket* – price: **$17,575.00**

Let’s suppose for a minute that Originalism is an infallibly correct political, legal interpretation and application of the U.S. Constitution today and its first eleven Amendments up to the Twelfth Amendment of 1804. Let’s also suppose that the Second Amendment, written in 1791, should stand exactly how our legislators of the late 18^th century explicitly meant its content between 1787 to 1791 regarding state militias and their arms/weapons of the time. Because those 18^th century law-makers couldn’t have known the unspeakable level of carnage and lethality brought on targets in a matter of a few minutes by an armed 20^th or 21^st century shooter with specialized weapons or armaments, let’s see where this leads. Let us follow to its conclusion, for the sake of fairness or argument, the modern Originalist’s logic.

In keeping staunchly with the spirit of originalism and the “original” 2nd Amendment, and since it seems they all must have various high-capacity military weapons in their possession for their personal pleasures. So let’s say all modern-day Pro-gunners and Pro-violence advocates in America can choose from these 18^th century (only) flintlock rifles and pistols to your heart’s content and their large private arsenals. Here are some of your choices; get your original 18^th century firearms now and show-off your (asinine) stubborn commitment to “original” 1770 — 1799 laws, amendments, and flintlocks and their so-so not so rapid reloading! 😊 Footnote, notice the sale prices on each firearm by antique dealers.

Early 18th century Georgian Colonial English Officer’s “Welford” pistol – price: $8,575.00
Colonial Amer. Revolutionary War American 1760 “Duchon” musket – price: $8,975.00
French & Indian Amer. Revolutionary War French Officer’s “Henshaw” pistol – price: $5,275.00
Amer. Revolutionary War Period English 1770 “Long” Sea-service Flintlock pistol – price: $4,875.00
Amer. War of 1812 US Model 1808 “Stillman” musket – price: $3,975.00
English 17th century Brass-barrel & Lock Naval Holster pistol – price: $8,575.00
Amer. Revolutionary War 1779-S Emergency Production (2nd Model) Brown Bess musket – price: $12,775.00
Amer. Revolutionary War Period English Officer’s “Griffin” pistol – price: $7,575.00
Amer. Revolutionary War Emergency Production 1779-S (2nd Model) Brown Bess “Shortland” musket & bayonet – price: $16,575.00
Pair of Amer. War of 1812 Martial Flintlock 1790 Officer’s pistols & original holsters – price: $5,275.00
Pennsylvania/Kentucky Flintlock “Goulcher” Long-rifle – price: $10,575.00
French Flintlock Holster “Dumarest” pistol for Turkish Market – price: $5,575.00
Amer. Revolutionary War Period French 1766 “Charleville” Fusil Dragoon musket – price: $18,775.00
Amer. Revolutionary War Period Scottish All-steel “Murdoch” Belt pistol – price: $9,775.00
Colonial Amer. Revolutionary Period 1770 “Earl” Militia musket – price: $13,875.00
Silver Mounted Amer. Revolutionary Period English Officer’s “Barbar” pistols – price: $14,775.00
Cossack-Russian Burlwood Miquelet Holster pistol – price: $3,775.00
Amer. Revolutionary War French Model 1768 “Maubeuge” Charleville musket – price: $9,775.00
Amer. Revolutionary Period English Officer’s “Adams” pistol – price: $3,875.00
Danish Model 1772 “Heavy Dragoon” Horse-Holster pistol – price: $3,975.00
Amer. Soldier Inscribed Revolutionary War Period French Model 1768 “Charleville” musket – price: $9,775.00
American Revolutionary War Period French-model 1774 “Charleville” Flintlock pistol – price: $6,775.00
American Revolutionary Period French 1777 “Lafayette” Flintlock pistol – price: $3,575.00
American Revolutionary Period Regimental English “Light Dragoon” pistol – price: $9,775.00

If I were to follow to its end the logic of modern-day Originalists in the U.S., then I can argue my own ‘right to bear arms’ gives me the equal right to own a nuclear weapon or bomb. After all, nuclear weapons are an armament or arms as defined by the 18^th century Second Amendment, and just as important, nor are nukes explicitly banned in writing by the Constitutional framers of 1791. Voilà! Me and my good ole boys all get nuclear arms; it’s our God-given Second Amendment rights! Let’s unload our 30- and 60-round AR-15 magazines in the air in wild celebration!

Pffft! I’ll grossly understate: ludicrous logic, right? By the way, as of the 185^th day in 2022, the U.S. has had at least 314 mass shootings or massacres and more than 22,750 Americans have died due to gun-violence this year.

Now, back to reality.

How many Pro-gun, Pro-violence, 2nd Amendment defenders, and Constitutional Originalists—and probably Anti-abortion lovers too—like Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh and all other legislative, law-enforcement, and pro-gun American citizens do you think would gladly give up all their 20^th and 21^st century firearms for “original” late-18^th century firearms that our Founding Fathers and Constitutional framers knew of back then when drafting our Laws of the Land? It really begs the question, Is Originalism even a tenable position today, legally or theoretically? Hah! 🙄

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Intrusive Intruders

Posted on June 28, 2022 by Professor Taboo

Given the events in America over the last two to three weeks with our January 6 Select Committee Hearings—another one today unexpectedly announced late yesterday—the Supreme Court’s extreme radical decisions into every American’s intimate privacy as well as disregard for public safety on so many levels, and finally their decision about public praying on a football field’s 50-yard line on public property at a public school’s campus, i.e. ‘favoring one religion over others,’ thus violating the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause… I thought Gary Numan’s song and lyrics below, from either side of the arguments, was terribly appropriate for this unprecedented time in U.S. government history. After reading and listening to his song, you might agree:

I could listen to you scream
Pretty music to my ears
I could listen to it all day
If you want me to

I could talk about my world
How you brought about ruin
I could talk about your greed
If you want me to

I could look into evil
See a heart just like mine
I could throw away reason
If you want me to

I could walk into darkness
Find the hole you crawled into
I will be the intruder
If you want me to

You can whisper your Lord’s prayer
And pretend that it matters
But don’t you wish you’d just listened more?
You can hide in the shadows
And pretend I won’t find you
But don’t you wish you’d just listened more?

I could listen to more lies
About promises you kept
Will you walk on water
Like you said you would?

I could make you my prisoner
But you were dead man talking
When you burned the oceans
Like you said you would

You can beg for God’s mercy
And pretend that He hears you
But don’t you wish you’d just listened more?
You can drown in your sorrow
And pretend you were helpless
But don’t you wish you’d just listened more?

This was always your one life
I won’t pretend that it matters
But don’t you wish you’d just listened more?
This was always your one home
I won’t pretend that I’ll miss you
But don’t you wish you’d just listened more?

Share your thoughts and opinions below if you’d like, about Numan’s song or whatever else. I certainly have many of my own, but will reserve them, for now, unless otherwise required. Such dark days in this country now and ahead for the foreseeable future. Why are Originalists forcing us back to the 17th and 18th-centuries!? 🤦‍♂️

A New Pledge of Allegiance

Posted on June 21, 2022 by Professor Taboo

“I pledge allegiance to Lord Trump
of the United Republicans of America,
and to the MAGA for which He leads,
one horde, under Trump, indivisible or death,
in captivity or banishment,
and mob-justice for all.”

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Now the previous Pledge of Allegiance, changed in 1954 by Republican President Eisenhower to include “under God,” is the pledge most of us Americans are familiar with today and memorized all through our elementary and middle school grades. Many may not know, however, that the Pledge of Allegiance went through another change in 1923 from the original pledge written by socialist minister Francis Bellamy (1855-1931).

After watching sworn testimony today by loyal, Conservative, life-long(?) Republicans who finally remembered late, late in tRump’s four-year term—too late really—their sworn oaths they vowed to uphold which includes the Constitution and its Laws, its legal, checked-and-rechecked and hence accurate elections representing our democracy in action, the eerie thought crossed my mind that the 68-year old Pledge of Allegiance might already be changed by and within the deluded tRump allies and supporters!

Admittedly, I have no proof of this claim as many loyal tRump-lawyers are testifying to the same in the seven (or more) January 6 Select Committee Hearings. Furthermore, with this blog-post I hope you found the humor in my political satire. 😁

Or in the bigger picture is it political satire? 🥺

Trias Politica! Not One Office or Leader!

Posted on June 20, 2022 by Professor Taboo

Over the last two days or so my 82-year old Mom has been watching a steady dose of C-SPAN television. In the days leading up to these last two I have had to shut myself up in my bedroom when she ventures over to the FOXNews Channel. To me it is appalling the propaganda crap they peddle. She knows clearly how I feel about their blatant disinformation schemes. Therefore, maybe out of compassion, she feels bad about forcing her son into his room for hours as if being disciplined in time-out. 😄 Thus, I’m guessing the recent C-SPAN viewing.

This morning she was catching C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Open Phones, Part 2. The topic was Should Mike Pence be considered not only a hero, but also a 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate. Nearly every single caller Greta Brawner took from Republicans, Democrats, and Independents—and it was some 15-16 total callers—never really called-in with their answers to those questions about Pence. They all simply wanted to vent their personal frustrations about the January 6 Committee Hearings and how atrocious life has currently become for average Americans since mid-February 2022. No surprise, the show descended into furious callers trashing either Dems or Repubs or Biden, Pence, and Trump. It is also worthy to note that all the callers sounded like they were 50–79 years of age, mostly on the elderly end of that age group.

The subject of what Mike Pence is today, what he was Jan. 4–6, 2021, and what he might be in the 2024 Elections was none of my concern or inkling of interest. What Kathleen Parker, columnist at The Washington Post opines about Pence is precisely what I personally think about his 3-days of doing his vowed Constitutional duty to protect our democratic elections compared to his dereliction of some 1,457-days of NOT doing that duty.

No, what utterly appalled and astonished me about every single caller, of all three various parties, and what they were bemoaning and ranting on and on about was how ALL of them kept singling out one man, one party, or one office one branch as the sole cause of this nation’s current Constitutional threats and socioeconomic problems, mostly inflation, skyrocketed gas prices, and a stolen 2020 election.

People, elderly callers—granted most of them from the Southern states with Kentucky, California, and Maryland being outside of the Deep South—and anyone else who passed high school History & Social Studies (with state and federal government included), I have one simple question for your very simple minds:

**When did our nation’s governmental system change from a Trias Politica model with Equal Separation of Powers… and into a Dictatorship ruled by One Man or Office!? When!?**

For all Americans and non-Americans abroad, please, please, PLEASE read this definition of what it means to have a Trias Politica model consisting of Equal Separation of Powers with Checks and Balances on all three branches as advocated by French Renaissance philosopher Baron de Montesquieu and later ironed out by James Madison’s Federalist Papers then our six (6) Core Founding Fathers. Taken from the Bill of Rights Institute in Arlington, VA, it states:

In our system of separated powers, each branch of government is not only given a finite amount of power and authority but arrives at it through entirely different modes of election. Madison theorized that as it is the Constitution that grants each branch its power, honorable ambition that ultimately serves the highest interests of the people could work to maintain the separation. In other words, since Congress is not dependent on the presidency or the courts for either its authority or its election to office, members will jealously guard its power from encroachments by the other two branches and vice versa. For Madison, this organization of powers answered the great challenge of framing a limited government of separated powers: “first enabl[ing] the government to control the governed…and in the next place, obling[ing] it to control itself”.
James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788

Now, what does the above, precisely articulated definition by Madison and Montesquieu implicitly spell out as well? Simple really. It means that if there are three branches of government with equal limited authority and responsibilities as well as commissioned to safeguard against abuse of authority or dereliction of their responsibilities, then no one branch is completely responsible for said abuses or dereliction. Nor do those three branches have the total authority or Carte Blanche to change its direction (popular or not) or its outcomes. In other words, since 1788 the successes or failures of the U.S. government has been and is ultimately shared by all three branches. There’s more.

Given the functions of the active legislative and executive branches with regard to publicly needed policies and laws or their refinements, and their intentions and outcomes, the legislative and executive bear more instant responsibility for the failures or successes, while the judicial branch merely checks, monitors, oversees, etc, on the sideline, if you will, the Constitutionality of enacted laws, orders, and policies. But never, in our 230+ years of governing history has our federal or 51-state governments been lead by a dictator, or one man! Never. To imply such an accusation or explicitly state such a rant is an erroneous, categorically wrong statement and is not based upon anything in our standing Constitution, Bill of Rights, or the 27 Amendments. Period.

The POTUS can never be fully blamed for America’s ills, nor can he or she be hoisted as the sole hero of our country’s glories and victories. He/She must have bipartisan help and support from both chambers of Congress, approval (or silence) from the Supreme Court, and more importantly… the general help and support of a good majority of the American people. Without those four components, no one man or President can accomplish great things. Furthermore, no one man or President can be entirely blamed for dismal disastrous outcomes either. As the great Benjamin Franklin once exclaimed during the birthing of our nation and its eventual Constitution:

“We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
benjamin franklin, philadelphia continental congress – 1776

Sadly, however, it has become glaringly obvious that America’s general population over the last 4-5 decades has been seriously deficient and undermined in learning and applying their civic educations. Rarely do I ever hear an average ordinary American—particularly in my home state of Texas—speaking, writing rants on social-media, or calling in on C-SPAN to show off their cunning expert knowledge about our Constitution and Trias Politica model as engineered by our Core Founding Fathers. Nine times out of ten they’re blabbering about what they know little or nothing about. It quickly becomes obvious when they all single out one office or one man.

This detrimental, lethal deficiency of civic education over the last 4-5 decades culminated on January 6th, 2021 with the seditious attack and coup on the Capitol, members of Congress, and democracy itself took place. It is appalling to listen to and read. It is incredibly dangerous to the survival of our Constitutional democratic Republic. Not only is this ignorance by too many ordinary (moderate?) Americans a ticking time-bomb, but when a Cult of Personality (dictator) uses that unfettered, emblazoned ignorance and channels it into continuous disinformation, lies, mob-rule or mafia-rule by its cult leader, followed by insurrection(?)… then Judge Michael Luttig’s stern warning about Trump, his allies, and his fanatical ignorant supporters as ‘a very real, clear and present danger‘ only scratches the surface of what precisely has been and is at risk. It is…

The dismantling, destruction, and total loss of our country’s democracy, maybe forever if ordinary Americans don’t get better educated and wise up fast to cultish subversions by the “one man” and his fanatical allies and supporters. Texas is likely too far gone by now due to multiple decades of apathy and shitty K-12 educations here.