Part 3: A New U.S. Constitution

Posted on January 31, 2023 by Professor Taboo

I feel incompetent to fulfill duties so important and responsible as those which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.
Andrew johnson, april 17, 1865

If only many more Vice-Presidents, or Presidents of the United States under such extraordinary circumstances as an assassination and death of their preceding President, in this case Abraham Lincoln, could be so brutally honest and so unequivocally correct. Most likely this country would have been a much, much better led nation.

President Andrew Johnson is widely regarded by U.S. historians as one of six of America’s worst, most abusive Presidents of their office in all of the 247-years of this country’s federal government. The Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. on Presidential legacies, states:

Andrew Johnson’s racism and antipathy towards African-American civil rights were a harbinger for similar attitudes to come during Reconstruction.

[He is] the first president to be impeached—but not convicted or removed from office—Johnson often contends with James Buchanan for the title of worst president.
Smithsonian institute’s national portrait gallery — at https://www.si.edu/spotlight/knowing-the-presidents-andrew-johnson — accessed jan. 11, 2023

Prior to former President Donald Trump, Richard M. Nixon was hands down regarded as the No. 1 All-time Worst U.S. President in our nation’s history. After January 6^th, 2021 and the attack and insurrection on the U.S. Capitol Building, later proven to be premeditated, formed, led, and incited by former President Trump, the top-spot of “Worst President Ever” was far surpassed by the complicit, derelict behavior of the incompetent D.J. Trump. This begs the prior closing questions from Part 2: A New U.S. Constitution… How did the office of POTUS gain so much power and influence over both a triumvirate federal government and a minority radical mob of its citizens? We now continue from Part 2 and the dire need for a new 21^st-century U.S. Constitution.

On a side note, I apologize for the delay of this Part 3. Mom’s severe dementia (early pre-stage Alzheimer’s) went through a past 2-3 week tough phase. It took a lot out of me as well managing it. Her PCP prescribed a new Alzheimer’s slash dementia drug that didn’t go as expected; too many side-effects for her. So we’ve been given another one: Memantine. So far, so good.

As noted in the previous Part 2, the 1787 Constitutional Convention gave immense power and control to the President. Recapping some of those powers, he or she possessed/possesses:

Ultimate command and decision of all U.S. military branches.
Power to veto any Congressional legislation, unless two-thirds of both Chambers overturned the veto.
Nominate virtually every single major federal officials and judges with Senate confirmation.
Office staying power unless a supermajority impeaches the President.
Conduct diplomacy with foreign nations, both friendly and otherwise, and sign treaties with the Senate’s approval, whether popular or not by the American people.
Issuing Executive Orders, which clarify laws as the President interprets them or direct Executive staff to further enforce existing laws.
Power to extend pardons and/or clemencies for federal crimes, even if based on personal preferences or biases.

Of these seven above bullet-points, at least six (6) former Presidents abused no less than five of these seven Executive powers. Many of these abuses happened because of domestic and foreign events. As a result, the Presidency (and his closest staff) seized the opportunity or opportunities to garner popular, public and political support even though the reactions or counter-measures might not have been legally Constitutional in hindsight, or at the time. Unfortunately, the principle of full Executive transparency has become a dying or dead art at the expense of the American people, their trust, and reproach of the Presidential Office. Two points and cases: 1) the end of Nixon’s 5-years, and 2) followed by Trump’s only term in office. Most everyone is familiar with Nixon’s criminal behavior, but at the end of the January 6th Committee’s Investigations & Hearings, they referred to the Department of Justice four criminal cases to pursue:

Obstruction of an Official Proceeding – in violation of Section 1512(c)(2) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code.
Conspiracy to Defraud the United States – in violation of Section 371 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code.
Conspiracy to Make a False Statement – in violation of Section 1001 of Title 18.
‘Incite,’ ‘Assist’ or ‘Aid and Comfort’ an Insurrection – in violation of Section 2383 of Title 18 of the U.S.C.

Whether a former United States President is actually indicted and sentenced for clear and obvious crimes based upon overwhelming evidence, remains to be seen. Fingers crossed.

Many 1787 Philadelphia delegates and most all Founders were very troubled by just how much power lay at the disposal of the Oval Office and its potential for abuses of executive actions. And this was in 1787! Today’s POTUS is above and beyond more robust than the Founders could have possibly imagined. To say they’d be deeply disturbed by today’s Presidential, forgiving latitude would be a gross understatement. At that time, delegates wanted an abusive President to be removed by a majority of legislators or to serve the desires of Congress, at the very least collaborate in amenable, reasonable ways. This is no longer the case and hasn’t been for over four decades or more. FDR was by far and away a vastly more powerful President than James Madison or Dwight Eisenhower. And Franklin Roosevelt was given his powers of great latitude by Congress because of widespread public fears brought about by the Great Depression and World War II. FDR even sought to expand his incredible latitude in office, particularly in his second-term due to America’s fears, and indirectly their naïvety of the office’s powers under the U.S. Constitution.

In 1936 and 1937 Roosevelt gained a supermajority of both the House and Senate for his Democratic Party due in large part from his large margin of victory in the popular-vote during his reelection. It is this evolution of political changes in the relationships between Branches, plus their influences upon Congress that set it all in motion. In those desperate times, the original intent and spirit of what the Founders wished was not a going concern by any means.

During the country’s 19^th-century expansion west (Manifest Destiny & following), into the southern hemisphere and Central & South America, and around the western Pacific Ocean beyond Hawaii, past Presidents sought increased latitude and powers. They most often achieved them by wealthy, elite support from individuals and political organizations—what we might call SuperPAC’s today.

Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln—three of America’s strongest presidents—defied perceived constitutional restraints on their offices to meet what they saw as America’s political needs. Their decisions often were popularly ratified (in retrospect, sometimes unfortunately so).
george william van cleve, “making a new American constitution,” Maroon Bells Press. Kindle Edition.

Well after Roosevelt’s New Deal, the general public supported a vigorous American President, especially during hard, tumultuous times. Much of these decades after the New Deal have been positive. For instance, social welfare, which includes benefits we now take for granted, came into existence like funding for public education, healthcare, air-travel safety and regulations, and retirement (Social Security Benefits) as well as magnificent national parks and wilderness lands. But many Constitutional scholars and proponents of a robust Presidential office are increasingly worried that the White House has become or surpassed being imperial in nature.

Renown intellectual, American historian and social critic Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., is often quoted in the wake of Lyndon B. Johnson’s and Richard M. Nixon’s presidencies, that the office now behaves far too imperialistic. This was no more evident than during the Vietnam conflict and related military offenses such as the clandestine invasion of Cambodia which took the Vietnam conflict into further expansion, loss of life, and exponential drainage of American resources. And then there was Watergate. Nixon was caught in rampant criminal behavior and abuse of presidential power. Despite Congress passing several laws soon after, intended to limit presidential abuse, most experts of The Hill believe they are feeble symbolic laws with no bite. Perfect example? The 1973 War Powers Act.

This Senate Resolution #440 was intended to restrain the Commander in Chief’s rash, and/or reckless abuse of America’s military might and the lives therein. However, in the end the resolution left broad sometimes vague discretion to the president allowing the use of military force as the immediate choice. As co-chairs of the Miller Center War Powers Commission in July 2008, both former Secretaries of State James Baker (to H.W. Bush) and Warren Christopher (to Bill Clinton), as they had testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in March 2008, they and the committee unanimously recommended changes to the War Powers Act. It sought to encourage much more significant consultation between the Executive Branch and Congress in times of foreign hostility. And on a footnote, Baker and Christopher represented both political parties; a bipartisan recommendation.

But due to the Constitution’s ambiguity coupled with an inefficient weaker Congress, if anything has transpired since FDR’s huge latitudes, the President’s imperial power has been allowed to continue if not grow. As a result, this expansion raises serious questions about 1) national security lying in the hands of one office, and 2) the critical concept and application of “Separation of Powers.” It is here that Americans and their modern politicians have lost their way and strayed.

[The Congress shall have power] …To declare War, grant letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning captures on Land and Water; …
article I, section 8, clause 11 — u.s. constitution, federal convention of 1787

On this section and clause regarding the Commander in Chief’s war powers, I am unsure how much more it could be crystal clear. Seriously. The Constitution establishes explicitly the separation of Congress’ means of declaring war and the sitting President’s intentions or actions with the nation’s armed forces and (18^th-century) militia. Why is this? It would seem to be a no-brainer, but for the sake of factual information, the explicit purpose of the Separation of Powers principle is this: making war undeniably puts great risks upon our nation’s resources and our military families for several generations to follow. The Founders understood this profoundly. They even had their own immediate and/or extended family, flesh and bone give their own limbs and livelihoods in past or present wars. Congress is supposed to be a safety measure, a hedge against rash reactions by a President. Never did the core Founding Fathers imagine a president—no matter how adept—should have the unilateral decision to enter or manipulate the U.S. into a foreign conflict. That would border on or define unchecked imperial authority, something the Founders witnessed first-hand all too often in their lives.

Be that as it may, the question remains: In modern America, particularly during the 20^th-century, has this Constitutional principle been clear and unequivocal, especially in light of the Second Iraqi War and post-9/11 regarding the Taliban in Afghanistan? And keep in mind that Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan the majority of his 13-year escape and concealment from U.S. forces and agencies, not in Afghanistan.

President James K. Polk in 1846 went looking for a war with Mexico, which he had always favored, for increased American commerce and economic expansion of American businesses and their business moguls. In the 77-years since the end of World War II many analysts and critics of Washington, D.C. feel Congress has relinquished its Constitutional duty to oversee and prevent unilateral military actions by a single man, an imperialistic president.

Another recent example. In 2019 both chambers of Congress voted to block U.S. sales of military weapons to Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. for their initiated war in Yemen. Essentially this conflict is America’s and two Presidential administrations: Obama’s and Trump’s. In July of 2019, however, Trump vetoed three congressional resolutions to stop weapons sales and would have stopped the slaughter of over 250,000 Yemen civilians at the time. But Trump went even much further. He audaciously declared the conflict an “emergency” to bypass Congress all together, speeding up the sales and export of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.

But Trump was simply following a long precedent of Congressional abdication and irresponsibility within the Constitutional principle of checks-and-balances. Today, Congress mostly “passes the buck” to the President’s discretion—i.e. to be the possible fall-guy rather than lose their own opulent, long-term salaries and pensions. And yet still, the removal by impeachment of a dictatorial, imperial president requires a supermajority vote. Congressional funding cutoffs for irrational, high-risk military actions abroad can simply be vetoed or ignored by presidents, all essentially legal under our 18^th-century Constitution.

In his 1961 farewell speech, President Dwight Eisenhower had this to say about the Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union, a confounding, necessary(?) evil:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be might, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. . . . American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. . . . This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Dwight d. eisenhower, january 17, 1961 — transfer of power address to elected president john f. kennedy

Today, the weapons of the 21^st-century can destroy the planet or cripple one or two continents in a few hours or a day. Presuming it is indeed a “necessary evil,” should the unilateral power and decision rest with one office, one man, in one moment? As our modern Constitution stands right now with an ineffective or spineless Congress, yes, one president can indeed cause the extermination of the planet, in part or in whole. Think about that.

The United States has consistently accounted for between one-third and forty percent of all world military spending. The United States’ defense budget has increased roughly 50-percent during that period, to 600 billion dollars per year or more in 2011 dollars.
council on foreigh relations, trends on military spending, july 25, 2014, https://www.cfr.org/report/trends-us-military-spending – accessed jan. 29, 2023

Over the last thirty-five years specifically, the U.S. has become a country of excessive exercises of military production and bullying around the globe despite its incessant rhetoric of freedom and democracy for all. To much of the world we resemble the brutal Roman Empire than we do what the original Founding Fathers intended to create.

This current American condition begs two enormously important questions:

As with very successful, long established private corporations and their demands/requirements of new job-applicants, does the U.S. have a Constitutional protocol for choosing the best president and congress-people that places the candidates into office with the utmost qualifications and experience to comfortably manage the most potent military force in known history and the ever complex foreign policy it coherently demands? — And…
Do those federal elected officials have the reasonable political incentives to execute those controls over the highly influential political donations of the American “military-industrial complex” of which Eisenhower referred?

The answers to these two questions are pretty obvious. No.

In the last 30-years of U.S. presidents only one president has had any level of military experience in his background: George W. Bush. And if it matters in a modern, ineffective, spineless Congress, the number of veterans elected by American voters into the House of Representatives or the Senate has been in a sharp decline since 1973 (see Table above). To be fair, many observers and critics of presidential administrations would conclude that George W. Bush’s military “experience” wasn’t really legitimate experience—simply the part-time Texas Air National Guard; not a combat unit in the least. This sharp decline is or should be of critical concern to all American voters. But remarkably it is not, as is evidenced by the popular vote over the said 30-years. And over the past thirty years what does our nation have to show, factually, to boast about regarding the enormous expenditures of tax-payer dollars and more importantly irreplaceable American or human lives in undebated wars, quasi-wars or conflicts the last several decades?

Congress: The Rotted Branch

How many times in your memory do you remember our U.S. Congress being stuck in a stalemate, a standoff or shutdown, and completely unable to proceed with legislating, debating, and passing beneficial laws for the American people? Care to guess? Do you think it might be three or four? Perhaps six or seven times in your lifetime? Less? A lot more?

Well, that was a bit of a trick question. Why? Because it depends on precisely how one defines stalemate or shutdown and paralyzed. The most recent total paralysis was of course the selection of a new House Speaker in January 2023. Without an elected majority House Speaker, both branches of Congress would come to a halt causing a ripple-effect of havoc upon federal legislation and representatives therein unable to offer daily services to constituents. Staff there would lose their pay and benefits. That’s just the first ripple-effect after a few days. Listing all the potential collapses throughout our federal government would require another 3-thousand to 4-thousand words to explain and perhaps another week of drafting for me. Let’s skip that dreadful scenario, shall we.

According to Wikipedia and its “Government Shutdowns” page, since 1980 there have been no less than ten (10) collapses of one or more days. But Wikipedia wisely conditions the list saying “This list includes only major funding gaps which led to actual employee furloughs within federal departments of the US government. It does not include funding gaps that did not involve shutdowns of government departments…” The complex contemporary issues surrounding and influencing the rising paralysis of Congress involves every major federal debt and budgets, including but not limited to public debt, military budgets, taxation, the economy, unemployment, and healthcare reform to name just six facets of multitudes.

Like it or not, our 18^th-century U.S. Constitution contributes substantially to this chronic paralysis, it is not the usual rhetoric of party officials, ideologies, and uncompromising congress-members bent on their personal futures as we are often told. It isn’t just controversies over redistribution of wealth or equality. One example is on more extensive gun-control regulations. Opinion polls the last five to ten years have repeatedly shown that around 80% — 90% of Americans support universal background checks for all weapons sales. Very reasonable background checks and further red-flag laws on sale-requirements are without a doubt constitutional simply for general public safety. Yet sadly, over the last 30-40 years Congress has generally been apathetic, indifferent to act on such gun-control public safety issues despite the widespread support of them, particularly by school districts and places of worship!

What has been the true price for Americans to have a chronically ineffective, often paralyzed, 18^th-century stifled Congress? How many school students and teachers like Uvalde, TX? How many church-goers like the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, TX? How greedy is the congressional beast versus its modern, perceived benefits? Can you count them all?

As of 2018, three-hundred (300) congressional members received $75,528 per annum salaries, plus Secondary Security Income (SSI), outstanding health benefits, and very generous pensions. Another additional 300 retired members—also with pensions and great health coverage—received an average $41,208 per year without SSI, but they are entitled to receive and most often draw it as well. All in all, as of 2019 the congressional pensions are between 2.5 to 4-times as much as the average American receives from their lifetime of hard work in Social Security! There’s more appalling news-facts about our present and past congressional members…

American legal scholar, political critic, and acclaimed academic Lawrence Lessig, discovered that more than four-hundred (400) present and former members of Congress have created campaign fundraising schemes, known as Leadership PAC’s, that provide them lucrative travel anywhere, 4-5 star meals, and entertainment extravagances which all fall into an IRS category of “discretionary non-taxable compensation.” And as of today, it is Constitutional and legal for them to live such lifestyles. By the way, for some perspective, the 2022 national poverty-line or wages/income considered impoverishing in the U.S. was $13,590/year for a single person, and for a household of three people it was $23,030 per year. Compare that to the congress-member who draws an average minimum of $116,736 per year (75,528 + 41,208) and often much, much more.

Just in 2014 Leadership PAC’s raked in over $50-million dollars. Today the totals are significantly higher. Sit down, it gets even more appalling. Each of 435 House Representative members receive over $1-million in office expenses alone. These packages usually compensate about 12-15 full-time staff associates; bigger state-members receive more than $1-million. The (sole?) purpose of each member’s “office expenses” is to undoubtedly guarantee that their boss, the House Representative member, keeps their job after the next election.

For the fiscal year 2020, a very conservative estimate of the total budget for the Congress, including all ancillary agencies such as the Capitol Police Force, was roughly $5-billion dollars, or approximately $10-million per House member (citation).

By almost any middle-class American standard, congress-members live a very comfortable, opulent life, both at work and home.

Where else can someone draw a salary of $174,000; have a staff of several dozen catering to their (and their family’s) every whim; enjoy special access to information and resources at the highest levels of government; forge lucrative relationships with people of immense power and influence; take taxpayer-funded jaunts to all corners of the country and the world; and command constant attention from the local and national media—all in exchange for producing little in the way of tangible outcomes?
tim alberta – chief political correspondent, politico magazine, sept. 27, 2019

Why would any congress-member want to leave such an easy, undemanding office job unless retiring into a lap-of-luxury? What’s better for them to stay is that 1) voters cannot place term-limits on their service thanks to 2) the 1995 Supreme Court decision of U.S. Term Limits, Inc. versus Thornton, which determined (rightly so) that such limits would be unconstitutional, according to our 18^th-century Constitution. Consequently, in the following 28-29 years and the three decades ending in 2009, more than 85% of all members of Congress who ran for reelection were comfortably re-elected. Why? Because there is little incentive for new younger blood to run for those congressional seats. For the last 10-years little has changed in this congressional picture and setup.

Does it come as any shock that the average tenure in office of congressional members is now nearing quadruple what it was in the 1800’s and tripled in the 1900’s? Far too many non-competitive House seats have created very well-paid, time-serving, lifetime serving careerists, not citizen-legislatures serving their district of Americans. Today, only about 15% to 12% of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives (HoR) are actually contested. According to Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo, “Buying the Bums Out: What’s the Dollar Value of a Seat in Congress?” (Stanford, CA: Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, 1999), most members of Congress do not intentionally give up their seat unless offered somewhere in the neighborhood of $1- and $5-million in 2019 dollars, and this depends on whether or not their seat will stay within their own partisan-party-loyal guidelines. As a congressperson once put it, “Capitol Hill is a farm league for K Street” lobbying interests.

As a result of these de-incentivized, ineffective congressional work conditions, widespread gerrymandering, by both major parties, protects their incumbent officials against competition, playing a huge role in keeping lifetime(?) careerists in the HoR. Imagine how intimidating this challenge is for a young newcomer. Think of how this kills any hope of a third-party, like Independents or Green-party supporters receiving representation on Capitol Hill—this, despite that approximately 40% — 43% of voters in the U.S. are Independents.

Therefore, with these types of incentives for current, career congress-members why risk losing a life of luxury and very generous pension and retirement in your 70’s or 80’s? Congress-careerists are nurtured to avoid taking responsibility for key (controversial) issues that might jeopardize their re-election. Some simply don’t show up to vote, others play all sides of a big issue or dole out generic lip-service to the media and their constituents. Then this dodging of accountability leads to frequent inactivity or snails-pace bureaucracy, or total gridlock in Congress. And most congress-members have mastered the art of of shifting perceived responsibility or blame onto other Branches of government, like the President, especially if the White House resident is traditionally opposite/opposed to their own party.

Probably one of the most historic blunders and deadly disasters of an American partisan, broken, ineffective Congress to effectively improve our intelligence communities, both domestic and globally, and despite many strong proposals to reform procedures and protocols between intelligence agencies… happened on Sept. 11^th, 2001. These findings have been confirmed and reconfirmed in many later investigative studies, examinations, official reports, and forensic analysis of events and intelligence leading up to the attacks on the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon, and the reaction of passengers on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Somerset County, PA.

The “Tower of Voices” at the **Flight 93 National Park Memorial** in Somerset County, PA. It stands 93-ft tall and within its walls are 40 windchimes representing the 40 passengers and crew-members of the downed flight.

∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼

Due to the length and time it required me to draft and write this Part 3 of A New U.S. Constitution, I have decided to pickup the serious problem of Congressional Bicameralism in Part 4. It will also include just how utterly powerful our Supreme Court has, by default of Congress, become today—SCOTUS has begun indirectly legislating laws for America when it was originally the explicit, expressed duty of the Congress’ job-description laid forth by our Founding Fathers! That will be Part 4. I hope you will join me then. And my apologies again for the delay in Part 3. Thank you all kindly for your patience and understanding. 🥰

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

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At the Body Shop

Posted on December 15, 2022 by Professor Taboo

PROLOGUE

Before I jump into the actual blog-story, I wanted to quickly say that I will soon return to my ongoing series on A New U.S. Constitution. Do not worry. Those of you awaiting Part 3 won’t be overly discouraged or disappointed that I might have forgotten. Because I knew you were. 😉 I’ve been wanting to post this quick musing for many months now and thought NOW would be just as good a time as any. Therefore, let’s jump right in… or as they say in football/soccer, “Get stuck in!”

∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼

The other day I was having a half-serious, half-joking discussion with a friend. She had asked how life was going for me. I replied to her with a question, as I often do, so as not to waste anyone’s time. I asked, “Do you want the prim-n-proper, standard, social answer, or do you want the brute truth?” She asked for the unadulterated truth. I appreciated that greatly, as I always do with people like her, that she wanted nothing diluted, nothing sugar-coated. And as she desired, here was my answer.

I told her that I was sick-n-tired of having to shave, trim, cleanup, and remove body-hair and whiskers at least every 6-8 days from anatomical places I’m convinced were NEVER meant to have primate-hairs growing out of them! At least, not on my metro-sexual body! No, no, and NO! It is all so damn annoying! I think hall of fame comedian Billy Crystal talked frequently about body hair in places it was not meant to be, ever! I told my laughing friend, I want to overhaul my ears, just replace them with new ones or relocate all the damn jungle-hair growing profusely out of my ears and side of my skull, and move it all to the top of my head and shrinking hairline on my forehead! I mean, I’m dead SERIOUS now!

Then I took a slightly different tack. I explained to her that I want to just go down to the local ~~auto~~ “body parts” store and purchase everything I desperately need replacing on me! “Um, yes. Do you have any hairless ears in stock?” She pointed in that direction to show me. “Oh really!? What about full hairline replacements? You’re probably all sold out on those, right?” As we walked, she informed me that they might have exactly what I’m looking for. I began to get really excited about this NEW Body Parts store! But then the most riddling thing happened.

We walked through the Men’s Intelligence & Brain aisle.

Now, I want to preface this next bit. Please remember that I live in a highly charged, super Red (Republican), Conservative, ultra-religiously bigoted part of the nation: Texas. That right there should give you adequate context to the remainder of my story. ☺️

As we moved further into the store, the shelves we came upon were crammed full of all sorts of gifted brains, from floor to near the ceiling! It was incredible. Every where you gazed you saw discounted, clearance sale prices on overstocked men’s brains. Hundreds and hundreds of highly intelligent brains everywhere! There were even Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela, Mark Twain, and many other famous replica brains marked down super cheap! The store-clerk told me that they’ve been TRYING to move these men’s brains for 5-10 years, but we just can’t sell them, not even one. Astounded, I couldn’t imagine why these men’s brains were not flying off the shelves!

Then we entered the next section of the store.

On either side of the aisle were empty shelves. Dust, then more dust on these shelves. It was as if there had been a crazed rush of Black Friday shoppers had cleared out all stock of whatever was in this section. I asked the kind, helpful store clerk… “Why are these shelves utterly empty?” She replied matter-of-factly…

“Oh, this is the men’s giant penis, or jumbo-dick section. We can NEVER keep this section stocked for barely even half a day.”

I said to myself, Pffft. Yep, that’s about right in Texas and the Deep South.

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

Part 2: A New U.S. Constitution

Posted on October 25, 2022 by Professor Taboo

In an 1849 speech to the Massachusetts Bible Society and at that time a twice elected member to Congress’ House of Representatives and later appointed House Speaker, his following words echoed several of the newly formed United States government charters and their Founding Fathers:

“All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they may have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them…”
robert charles winthrop

We continue now from Part 1, A New U.S. Constitution…

Our 18^th Century Constitution Nurtures Political & Economic Inequality Today

Mr. R.C. Winthrop, a respected lawyer and descendant of Governor John Winthrop from the original 1630 Massachusetts Bay Colony, in his speech essentially repeated what several U.S. Founding Fathers and Constitutional framers believed, designed, and ratified six decades earlier in Philadelphia at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. It was the widely held belief that people, especially men and their innate predisposition toward unbecoming vices and selfish misconduct (sin?), had to be governed one way or another. Or they at least required protections, supervision against unfair and partial laws which might oppress particular segments of society, and vice versa.

One of those Founding Fathers was Alexander Hamilton. At the Philadelphia Convention he told its members:

Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many. Both therefore ought to have power that each may defend itself agst. [sic] the other.

And Hamilton was not the only one advocating for fair laws, supervisions, and protections for all classes of society. But it’s worth noting here too that human slavery and trafficking in America had been thriving for many, many decades and oddly enough, Hamilton’s words, his colleagues’ words, and even Winthrop’s words had little or no meaning whatsoever for non-whites or women. Nevertheless, what these great men sought was the promotion of maximum economic opportunity inside a dynamic and growing nation with some protections for legitimate wealth.

*Signing of the Constitution*, 1787 Philadelphia Convention — oil painting by Howard Chandler Christy, 1940

What was meant by legitimate wealth in the minds of our 18^th and 19^th century Founders? Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Paine, and a host of secondary Founders all agreed that hereditary wealth accumulation like what existed in Great Britain’s society and Parliament, was in fact a heavily corrupting factor on a Republic’s governing body which would inevitably cheat and oppress “the many.” As recent history had shown them with the collapse and/or overthrows of several imperial European kingdoms and monarchies in the 16^th–18^th centuries, to deter such tyrants or wild blood-thirsty mobs from seizing power, our Founding Fathers wrote Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of our U.S. Constitution, which states:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

But here is the astonishing irony between what our Founding Fathers feared then, and what many Americans fear today and see has already happened.

In 1787’s Pennsylvania Convention and forward up to Winthrop’s 1849 speech, it wasn’t so much a foreign power’s aristocracy they saw as a serious threat. It was the potential for a powerful domestic oligarchy being created that they really feared. Several Founding Fathers were uneasy about the capability of private wealth, legitimate or not, to merge with government authority and legislation, thus destroying true republicanism. On this risk, the Constitutional framers vigorously looked to insulate government policy away from private wealth and its self-interests that, like Great Britain, had corrupted her and several other European imperial monarchies and aristocracies for several centuries or more.

One of these troubled framers was oddly enough Elbridge Gerry (left), born into a very wealthy American merchant family, of which the political practice of gerrymandering was named after, Gerry opposed the union of a central bank and a national army/navy. Why did he?

Because as had been shown in Europe, e.g. Ivan IV (the Terrible) and Oliver Cromwell to name the well-known tyrants of the time, the enormous amount of both could be used to seize total power. But the irony gets even better!

The Constitution that Congressman Gerry and the many Founding Fathers wrote in 1787, today protects a domestic oligarchy against the greater good, “We the People,” or the majority will, and does so in basic ways. A closer look at the Constitution’s original wealth protections will contrast what was meant in 1787 versus what has happened now in the 20^th and 21^st centuries in America. From Dr. Van Cleve and our Constitution:

The 1787 Constitution (and the Bill of Rights) protected the existing distribution of wealth in America using both legal and political means. The Constitution contained various legal protections for private property. For example, its “Contracts Clause” protected creditors against widespread efforts during hard times in the 1780s by debtors to reduce or escape their debts.
Van Cleve, George William – “Making a New American Constitution.” Maroon Bells Press, 2020. Kindle Edition.

However, many other Founding Constitutional framers, mostly in the agricultural South, felt those protections did not go far enough, particularly with their mass wealth in private slaveholdings and its free labor. Southern plantation owners feared that northern interests might use their federal powers to divest or cripple their unpopular “property values,” or to be perfectly transparent, their slaves and free slave-labor. This one controversial debate over “property values” bled over into other heated arguments about fair taxation and state representation and therefore how much authority a federal government should or shouldn’t have over member states.

*Main house, **Destrehan Sugar Plantation,** Louisiana, built in 1787-1790* — Credit: Flickr: Destrehan Plantation | prayitno

Some Political-Wealth Protections Afforded by the 18^th Century Constitution

Rigorous Limitations on Federal Taxation Powers — these prohibit taxes of “Capitation or other direct” taxes unless made by the states according to the decennial Census.
Indirect Wealth Protections — this is done so by rigidly fashioning large aspects of earlier generational hierarchal power, long established and in existence, thus significantly limiting its redistribution. By freezing these it greatly undermines the federal government’s sensible ability to tailor the distribution of resources and wealth fairly.

Under the 1777 Articles of Confederation—America’s first constitution—each colony or state had one equal vote in a one-house Congress. By 1786 all the Constitutional framers knew some states were substantially larger in population and wealthier than other states. As one might imagine then, this caused heated debate over fair, equal representation and how that would be defined! Even today this is a controversial topic.

Controversy aside, consider this… and study closely the following four data-tables. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey of 2021, these are the ten wealthiest states (💵) in America:

State	Median Hsehld Income	State	Median Hsehld Income
10. Virginia	$80,963	5. California	$84,907
9. Colorado	$82,254	4. New Hampshire	$88,465
8. Connecticut	$83,771	3. New Jersey	$89,296
7. Washington	$84,247	2. Massachusetts	$89,645
6. Hawaii	$84,857	1. Maryland	$90,203

Source: U.S. Census Bureau’s ACS at https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs (accessed Oct. 19, 2022)

According to World Population Review, here are the ten most populated states (🏘️) in the U.S. in 2022:

state	Population	state	population
10. Michigan	10,116,069	5. Pennsylvania	13,062,764
9. North Carolina	10,620,168	4. New York	20,365,879
8. Georgia	10,916,760	3. Florida	22,085,563
7. Ohio	11,852,036	2. Texas	29,945,493
6. Illinois	12,808,884	1. California	39,995,077

Source: World Population Review at https://worldpopulationreview.com/states (accessed Oct. 19, 2022)

Notice that of the two data-tables above, only one (1) state with the largest population is a Top 10 Wealthiest state: California. And here are the U.S.’s least populated states or smallest states:

state	Population	state	population
31. Nevada	3,143,991	41. Maine	1,354,522
32. Arkansas	3,025,891	42. Montana	1,085,004
33. Mississippi	2,961,279	43. Rhode Island	1,061,509
34. Kansas	2,934,582	44. Delaware	990,334
35. New Mexico	2,115,877	45. South Dakota	896,581
36. Nebraska	1,963,692	46. North Dakota	770,026
37. Idaho	1,900,923	47. Alaska	724,357
38. W. Virginia	1,782,959	48. D.C.	714,153
39. Hawaii	1,441,553	49. Vermont	623,251
40. New Hampshire	1,388,992	50. Wyoming	581,075

Source: World Population Review at https://worldpopulationreview.com/states (accessed Oct. 19, 2022)

Now, in light of the three tables above, consider this data-table of the U.S. states with the most households of millionaires, billionaires, or trillionaires in 2021:

state	% of Millionaire households	state	% of bill-trill households
10. Alaska ⚛️	➡️8.18%	11. Georgia 🏘️	1.28%
9. Virginia 💵	8.31%	10. Connecticut 💵	3.88%
8. New Hampshire ⚛️ 💵	➡️8.47%	9. Pennsylvania 🏘️	1.30%
7. California 🏘️	8.51%	8. Nevada ⚛️	➡️5.41%
6. D.C. ⚛️	➡️9.12%	7. Washington 💵	2.71%
5. Hawaii ⚛️ 💵	➡️9.20%	6. Illinois 🏘️	1.72%
4. Massachusetts 💵	9.38%	5. Massachusetts 💵	3.44%
3. Connecticut 💵	9.44%	4. Texas 🏘️	2.14%
2. Maryland 💵	9.72%	3. Florida 🏘️	3.17%
1. New Jersey 💵	9.76%	2. New York 🏘️	6.19%
		1. California 💵	4.73%

Millionaires Source: https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/wealth/states-with-the-most-millionaires/ — Billionaires Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/krisztiansandor/2021/04/06/the-states-with-the-most-billionaires/?sh=79796e5a39ee

Did you notice how many least populated states or tiny states (⚛️) are listed in the Top 10 Wealthiest states and those with the most millionaires, billionaires/trillionaires (💵)? Look again. Do you see a 20^th and 21^st century pattern or imbalance between wealth vs. population, and therefore between fair, proportional federal representation from “We the People”?

In light of those questions, let’s consider what a core Founding Father, John Adams, had to say along with several other Founders in July 1776 at the Continental Congress. These are the archived, later handwritten notes of Thomas Jefferson recorded for posterity (emphasis mine):

John Adams advocated the voting in proportion to numbers. He said that we stand here as the representatives of the people. That in some states the people are many, in others they are few; that therefore their vote here should be proportioned to the numbers from whom it comes. Reason, justice, & equity never had weight enough on the face of the earth to govern the councils of men. It is interest alone which does it, and it is interest alone which can be trusted. That therefore the interests within doors should be the mathematical representatives of the interests without doors. That the individuality of the colonies is a mere sound. Does the individuality of a colony increase it’s wealth or numbers. If it does, pay equally. If it does not add weight in the scale of the confederacy, it cannot add to their rights, nor weigh in argument. A. has £50. B. £500. C. £1000. in partnership. Is it just they should equally dispose of the monies of the partnership? It has been said we are independent individuals making a bargain together. The question is not what we are now, but what we ought to be when our bargain shall be made. The confederacy is to make us one individual only; it is to form us, like separate parcels of metal, into one common mass. We shall no longer retain our separate individuality, but become a single individual as to all questions submitted to the confederacy. Therefore all those reasons which prove the justice & expediency of equal representation in other assemblies, hold good here. It has been objected that a proportional vote will endanger the smaller states. We answer that an equal vote will endanger the larger. Virginia, Pennsylvania, & Massachusetts are the three greater colonies. Consider their distance, their difference of produce, of interests & of manners, & it is apparent they can never have an interest or inclination to combine for the oppression of the smaller. That the smaller will naturally divide on all questions with the larger. Rhode isld, from it’s relation, similarity & intercourse will generally pursue the same objects with Massachusetts; Jersey, Delaware & Maryland, with Pennsylvania.
—Jefferson, Thomas. The Works, vol. 2 (1771-1779). New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905, at https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/jefferson-the-works-vol-2-1771-1779

John Adams and several other Founders were clearly arguing in 1776 that it was exceedingly unwise and hazardous politically to have smaller tinier states be treated like the larger states, as economic equals and representative equals! More often than not the largest states will have different or opposing interests, let alone their voices unheard, drowned-out or disregarded, by the minority states, and thus by default, policies would be enacted against their state’s better, and possible long-term interests.

By the time of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention in 1787 numerous delegates, both publicly and privately, had agreed with Adams’ mathematical logic, especially regarding state-equality. In fact, many of them viewed individual, smaller states as far too powerful to represent accurately or fairly the federal whole, or the supermajority or even the simple majority! James Madison was one such prominent delegate. He basically felt that if the infant United States were ever going to seriously join and influence the rest of the world’s major powers, they had to work as one nation rather than two, three, or four opposing, and hence weaker sub-nations. Other world powers just would NOT take America serious if we repeatedly behaved as several bickering, defiant children (states). Or to put it another way, mostly rural agricultural states pitted equally against urban, heavily populated states.

As a consequence and a massive compromise reached, the 1787 Constitutional Convention established one of the untenable core principles for our nation to this day: a major redistribution of governmental power between all states but far fewer people.

[The Convention] based states’ relative voting strengths in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College heavily on their populations. (In the era’s predominantly agricultural economy, states’ populations correlated very strongly to their wealth). Many of the most important new federal powers granted by the Constitution including taxation could be exercised by majority vote, not by a supermajority as the Articles [of Confederation] had required. Unfortunately, at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, obtaining essential federal powers became politically possible only after very substantial concessions were made to protect powerful vested economic and political interests.
VAN CLEVE, GEORGE WILLIAM – “MAKING A NEW AMERICAN CONSTITUTION.” MAROON BELLS PRESS, 2020. KINDLE EDITION.

Anyone who still argues today that our U.S. federal government has the same equal power and representation as a group of tiny states, e.g. Alaska, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Nevada, Wyoming, and both Dakotas, as well as representing the simple majority of the American people is deranged. The data-tables above and the 246-year history of this nation simply does not bear out this notion.

Plain and simple, the 1787 Constitution did not establish a perfectly level playing field for a representative republic. On the contrary, delegates from the more rural colonies/states in the agricultural South with their generally smaller populations of white free-men forced two (2) enormous compromises, as described by Dr. Van Cleve:

[First], The Convention gave two Senate votes to each state, thus giving greatly disproportionate power to small states. The Senate’s structure disregarded entirely the great disparities in states’ population and wealth. (At the time, for example, Virginia’s free population was roughly nine times the size of Delaware’s). That meant that the six smallest of the original thirteen states, which at the time together had about 20 percent of the total free population, received 46 percent of the total Senate votes.

In a second major compromise, the Philadelphia Convention agreed to give the five major slave states exaggerated political power through the “Three-Fifths Clause.” That provision artificially increased the slave states’ populations in allocating House of Representatives seats and Electoral College voting strength. As of 1820, slave states received a premium of about eighteen seats in the House, or 8 percent of its total seats, due to the Three-Fifths Clause. That premium substantially influenced national policies in their favor by protecting both their agricultural export economies and their persistent efforts to expand slavery westward.
VAN CLEVE, GEORGE WILLIAM – “MAKING A NEW AMERICAN CONSTITUTION.” MAROON BELLS PRESS, 2020. KINDLE EDITION.

This political advantage of ‘the few’ lasted for 81-years until the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in July of 1868 after victory two-years earlier by the Union Army at Appomattox, Virginia, ending the American Civil War. However, the tiny states’ enormous voting premium in the Senate chamber still exists to this day.

Small State Influence Today Aids Republicans, Protecting Wealth Inequality

Over the last 154-years due to socioeconomic progress and change, these tiny states’ impact on our federal republic have actually grown even bigger since 1787 and 1868. As of 2021, the twenty-eight smallest states of the Union together have only approximately 20% of America’s total population. But they have at least 56% of the total Senate votes! And it is common knowledge that for Congress to make beneficial policies and pass laws for the betterment of the country, these actions require support from BOTH Congressional Chambers. Our ten largest states by population, meanwhile, where over half of the U.S.’s total population resides, possess only about 20% of the Senate votes.

The Last 6 Elections – cartoon from the National Popular Vote website

The Senate has become the tiny states’ fortress for protecting and maintaining wealth inequality and political power. For the last 2-3 decades or more the Republican Party has not only recognized this huge amount of leverage, but has fiercely strengthened its impact on federal policies which favor their political and economic advantage of ‘the few’. Their voting advantage also seriously influences the Electoral College during elections as seen by eighteen total unpopular Presidents winning the White House, i.e. they did not win a majority of the popular/general vote by the American people, but won the Electoral College votes. I will examine this Senate affect on the E.C. later in the series.

You may have heard at some point during your adult life or in your high school or college classroom that the United States was formed as a Constitutional democracy. True, but not entirely. The United States was also designed to function (in theory?) as a democratic republic. The two concepts are similar, but not identical nor are they any longer interchangeable in the 20^th and 21^st centuries as they were in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries. As shown earlier, the Core Founding Fathers of our nation, six of them, eventually aligned with John Adams’ definition of our new nation:

“ No determinations are carried, it is true, in a simple or representative democracy, but by consent of the majority or their representatives.”
Adams, john – 1784

This mixed concept of a democratic republic can also be inferred from Benjamin Franklin and James Madison on the Bill of Rights Institute’s website. However, what we have in the United States today is not what Adams, Madison, Franklin, and several other Fathers envisioned nor drafted; not at all.

Due to the Constitution’s small state biases it hands one party a systematic advantage in federal elections and legislation, and to most corporate and mega-corporate interests who, since the 2010 Landmark Supreme Court decision of Citizens United vs. FEC, now wield massive, unfettered funding to political campaigns of specific candidates or political party of their own legislative corporate interests instead of individual Americans within a representative republic.

Furthermore, both this one party and the mega-wealthy corporations are generally opposed to increased economic fairness and to limiting too much wealth (and thus, huge political power) concentrated in one ideology of ‘a few’ private American executives—which ironically is exactly what happened to 16^th thru 17^th century Great Britain. In those two centuries all the wealth and power rested only in Britain’s elite aristocracy (oligarchy), not the voiceless commoners.

One final observation. In 235-years not much has changed with the Constitution’s provisions. However, the essence of American society certainly has changed and drastically. In 2021–2022 greater than 80% of Americans live in urban areas. Let me repeat that: more than 80%! In 1787 though, 95% of Americans lived in rural areas. This colossal change is still not reflected today in our Bicameral Congress. Clearly, the modern United States is not a representative democracy by John Adams’ and the Founding Fathers’ definitions.

The Constitution’s “Separation of Powers” Has Become Defunct

At the heart of our Constitution and its framers was the deep fear of too much centralized authority with one body or one tyrant, king, or queen, as was manifested in King George III and Britain’s Parliament between 1760 and 1820. Therefore, they created three different types or branches of equal power: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches. These three equal powers balanced the national government as well as making each monitor or check and balance the other two branches for appropriate and legal conduct. As noted, the framers did this for two primary reasons:

Protection against tyranny (e.g. Richard M. Nixon and Donald J. Trump). Separation of powers was intended to divide the federal government’s lawmaking and law-enforcement powers and prevent them from becoming overcentralized and tyrannical.
To Prevent Aggrandizement of Power by any one branch. In other words, these Separation of powers were intended to prevent any one branch from abusing its designated powers by equally empowering the other two branches to check-up on their competitor’s exercises of authority.

But this original Constitutional design depended heavily on one single factor: whatever the authority given on paper, they can only remain equal when federal leaders of all three branches seek equally to uphold the distinctive powers of their own institution or branch. This is part of their sworn vows when taking office. Over the last three decades or more this has not been happening. In fact, it has gotten worse, lopsided in power toward two branches, if not one branch. In 1788 James Madison explicitly warned about this very risk:

“ The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Madison, james – Federalist paper no. 47, feb. 1788

The fact that over approximately the last sixty-to-seventy sessions of Congress—dating back to Ronald Reagan—Congress has “passed the buck” of legislative political responsibility over to the Executive Branch or the Judicial Branch far far too often! Case and point. If Congress was originally given the authority of investigation, a form of checks-and-balances like the current January 6^th Committee Hearings, but never exercises this power or only does so when it benefits their own party’s ideals, then those leaders are not protecting, much less validating their own institution/branch. What then, will incentivize these leaders to do their under oath, sworn jobs? What will light a fire under their asses? Dr. Van Cleve wisely asks several questions about the intent and purpose of the Constitution’s “Separation of Powers” to show why it is integral to protect against too much centralized authority—or more bluntly, against dictatorship and tyranny—while simultaneously providing unified power and authority when needed. These are his questions:

◾ Why is it desirable for a president to have authority to send troops into a distant country such as North Korea, and ask Congress for approval only after they invade?
◾ Why should members of Congress be able to serve for an unlimited number of terms, particularly if they are elected from districts or states in which there is no political competition?
◾ Why is it desirable for Senators to be eligible to run for president after one six-year term in the Senate (or an even shorter time), if that damages the Senate as an institution?
◾ Why should Supreme Court justices be able to serve for more than twenty-five years?
◾ Why should the Supreme Court have the power to decide presidential elections, or to decide whether the United States can have a national healthcare insurance system?
VAN CLEVE, GEORGE WILLIAM – “MAKING A NEW AMERICAN CONSTITUTION.” MAROON BELLS PRESS, 2020. KINDLE EDITION.

Should any one branch or one man/woman have all of those above powers? Should one branch or one man/woman not have at least one of those above powers? Of course, in Constitutional theory these are rhetorical questions. Imagine the indecisive chaos and internal bickering that would exist during hard, challenging times demanding swift action if these above conditions were not spread out evenly, equally among our three different (opposing) branches. But today this power balance no longer exists in its pure original form. Why or why not?

An Imperial U.S. Presidency

In his personal notations called Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, James Madison wrote that remarkably the delegate’s discussions or debates about the office and function of the President were quick, timid, and made with broad strokes.

That timidness was odd and quite contrary to several Founders and delegates who had often voiced their deep fears of giving too much centralized power to one office or branch. Part of the reason for their timidness was the undeniable large presence of presiding officer of the Convention, 6-ft 2-in George Washington (above, next to his Arabian horse Magnolia). Even when quiet, Washington’s demeanor demanded utter respect and caution before speaking up. Very few Convention delegates dared to go up against the tall authoritative presence of General Washington. He was quite literally the walking, living standard of military and political leadership seemingly equal to Moses in the Old Testament.

As a result of this generally unspoken fear of George Washington, the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787 gave the Executive Branch more power than even individual state governors of the time AND total command of the entire U.S. military forces. They gave the office the power to veto Congressional legislation unless two-thirds of both the Senate and the House of Representatives overrode the President’s veto. They gave to the Executive Office the authority to virtually nominate ALL major federal officials and judges, though subject to Senate confirmation. And lastly, the President could only be impeached from office by a supermajority vote of Congress, something near impossible to achieve today.

This level of power and authority for the President deeply troubled Madison, Franklin, Mason, Adams, Wilson, and other delegates. Its power thrilled Alexander Hamilton though. After all, Hamilton promoted the idea that the U.S. President should serve in office for his entire life, name Cabinet members without any Senate approval, have absolute veto on Congressional legislation, and choose when and how to wage war on foreign nations.

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I will stop here for now because Part 2 has become somewhat lengthy; lengthier than I had intended. In Part 3 I will finish this section about how imperial the U.S. Presidency has increasingly become starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and more so, with the presidents of the 21^st century. How did this happen, then culminate on January 6^th, 2021? Secondly, I will examine how Congress has essentially become a dysfunctional institution, enabling members of Congress to be inactive or near non-existent, yet paid to be millionaires by our taxpayer dollars. This is unfortunately caused by our bicameral system and congress members being grossly overpaid for doing too little. And finally, due to our broken Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court has by default filled the power vacuum created by our dysfunctional Congress. Furthermore, later in the series I will also explore how a sizable American conservative population actually believe that our Charters of Freedom—particularly the Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights (or the first 10 Amendments) of the Constitution—are somehow, by some paranormal superstition, “divinely inspired” on the level of the Greco-Roman Judeo-Christian gospels or Greek New Testament! Yes, though there is no evidence whatsoever to support this claim, they really do believe this. 😖

I hope you will stay tuned for the next installment of how badly we, the U.S., need a 21^st century Constitution, not an antiquated 18^th century one. Until then, please feel free to join in the discussions below.

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

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

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? 🥺