The Point

• Congress is the only government branch that may legally implement or revoke legislation or change our laws.

• We are all equal. This is not embodied in Section 1. Equality is not a privilege granted by some authority or to be doled out by others. It is a right. Taking equality away or assuming inequality is a crime against humanity. We do not all have equal skills and capabilities. Nevertheless, we are all equals in terms of our human rights. It is embodied in the Declaration of Independence - the pre-cursor to and cultural foundation of the Constitution.

• Government employees and elected officials (who then become government employees) work for us. We do not work for the government or for the elected few. Once again, this is not in Article 1 - it’s in the Declaration of Independence.

• The current usage of Executive Orders would be considered government tyranny by Madison and Hamilton and was stated as such in The Federalist Papers.

• Our Constitution is a simple document. Over time, as humans tend to do, we have made it complex. We need to return to simplicity, accountability, responsibility, and stewardship. That’s how you deal with the increasing interconnectedness and complexity of our world.

The Intent Behind The Constitution

It seems to me that the Declaration of Independence is the descriptive document on this topic.

Culture

When the Founders said “all men are created equal”, that is likely exactly what they meant. More than a few of them probably meant not just all men but all white men of a certain stature. The culture was primarily rural and agrarian. A large city in the 1770’s, New York, had about 18,000 residents (the East Village has about 70,000 residents these days, with the City’s population being something like 8,000,000). No electronics. It was 1882 when the first portion of Manhattan was electrified. No motorized vehicles. No subway.

About the only thing that remains culturally similar now is human behavior. Virtually everything else has changed. Does it then make sense to view and interpret the Constitution as unchanging, originalist? I say no. First, we are not there with the people who wrote it and we cannot know what they meant, although I did, above, speculate a little. Second, they did not all agree. Just like humans today. With all this change, the inundating communications, the incredible technological advances, weapons of mass destruction, warming of the earth, you name it, the human operating system remains in essentially the same state. And we still don’t understand how the brain works, not really. We are are only fooling ourselves or projecting what we want to believe when we think that I or anyone else knows what they really thought and meant.

Article 1, Section 1 Today

We have a set of laws built up over a long time. For example, a 1798 law, An Act Respecting Alien Enemies (now referred to as the Alien Enemies Act) was passed to supplement the Alien Friends Act, granting the government additional powers to regulate non-citizens that would take effect in times of war. Under this law, the president can authorize the arrest, relocation, or deportation of any male over the age of 14 who hailed from a foreign enemy country.

What’s happening today is that an Executive Order is citing this law as the legal basis to deport non-citizens, stating that we are at war with illegal aliens overrunning our country. Yes, I think we should enforce our existing immigration laws. Yes, I think we should deport people who are here illegally. However, the President cannot legally declare that we are at war (that’s defined in Article 1, Section 8, and it grants the power to… Congress) and subsequently order people to be snatched off the street, with no due process, and placed in a non-US prison.

In this instance, the language is quite clear. Congress is the legislator. The Executive Order is being used illegally to legislate who can be be deported.

Congress needs to take back its power in this instance and every other instance where this happens, during any Administration. Our legal system, including the Supreme Court, needs to enforce this. We have separation of powers for a reason - so that one person cannot decide what the law is, how it is enforced, and to whom it is applied.

Not Article 1, Section 1 - And More Important

Human Rights

I think the only proper definition is “all people are created equal.” I think this is true across the world. Someone’s rights do not depend on what gender they choose, what pronouns they use, who they choose as a partner and/or spouse, their country of origin, their employment, skin color, wealth, education, or any other thing. This is not blanket support for any gender definition or program or race. I don’t have to agree that those choices are “right” or in keeping with my faith or personal belief system. Neither a single one of us, nor any group of us, is qualified to determine that any other of us do not have the innate and fundamental right of freedom to live as we so choose. Now, can you impinge your rights due to your own actions and behaviors? Of course. If you make choices that cause physical or economic harm to another, then you run the risk of losing some or all of your rights. Yes, I and in favor of laws and regulations to define what those harms are and to preserve the rights of all of us.

What am I quite against is defining what is acceptable.

The Founders pledged these principles: “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” They pledged to themselves and the people, of which they considered themselves to be a part. They did not consider themselves above anyone. The pledge was not to the government or to a given leader or entity. It was to themselves and the people. As equals.

Who Is Ultimately in Charge?

We, the voters and citizens, are. The Founders believed in, fought a war for, and founded a country based on the principle that the government serves the people, at the will of the people, “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” We do not exist to serve our government or Congress or the President or some “advisor” to the President. It is our tax dollars that pay for government infrastructure, elected officials’ benefits and compensation, our legal system, and the voting and legislative processes. They. Work. For. Us.

I think it’s up to the individual to decide if they want to smoke, or eat processed foods, or have an abortion - or to be against all of some of these. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t appreciate the Surgeon General saying smoking causes cancer or have legislation that forces tobacco companies to advertise the negative health aspects of their products. Anyone who wants to provide their facts or opinions regarding abortion, in my world, is welcome to do so. Peacefully, orderly, and in a way that respects my beliefs. I’m for the complementarity of both. I’m for the complementarity of people who think abortion is murder. We have murder statues. Bring your case there. If you win, you win. That’s our system. I’m equally for those who want to decide what happens with their bodies and who don’t think it’s murder. I’m against someone saying I shouldn’t have access to COVID vaccines - that’s my decision, and if one kills or disables me or turns me autistic, well, that was my decision and I am accountable for that - presuming that I was not intentionally deceived by the vaccine manufacturer and/or my doctor. Again, we have laws for these things and a court system to enforce them. At at the same time, I’m for someone who believes the opposite. I won’t force them to take any vaccine.

This means we need to take back our own accountability. We own our decisions and consequences, not some law or elected official or your boss or the company for which you work.

Do I think our government is inefficient? I do. That’s an opinion, however, with no facts to support it. Should it be up to a private citizen and non-government organization to define what efficiency looks like and determine where not to spend our tax dollars (That power also belongs to Congress - Article 1, Section 8)? Absolutely not. Do we need a group that evaluates how we spend our dollars? Yes, with accountability to us, the voters. It should start with a clear depiction of where our money is spent. And the Board of Directors should be a diversified group of citizens, not some mega-wealthy person (or some group of “special” people) with conflicts of interest all over the place.

The Close

Man, dude, stop ranting and finish! OK, well what you are seeing and I am feeling is the living, breathing organism of our Constitution. Oh, it was written a long time ago, it’s just a piece of paper? Oh, hell no. It is the embodiment of the evolution of thinking, of the idea of true freedom, of basic human rights. And like any organism it’s been growing, changing, maturing, and aging. You say it’s inorganic, it doesn’t grow? I say we are all made up of (inorganic) atoms. We grow, we die, then something grows out of that. Between humans the Constitution, everything evolves and grows.

So now we ought to define what we want this mature, perhaps superannuated organism to be next. Can we regenerate or morph into something better, stronger, more human, more decent? Or will disorder destroy it, the same way the cell disorder of too much energy in an overheated human body causes death? I have hope, not expectations, hope, for option 1.

TBD folks. TBD. We have this in our own hands as a country and society.