Nine English Teachers
The Cato Institute is sometimes referred to as a "Think Tank."
There are some brilliant people associated with it which, to my way of thinking, pretty much have it right on every score, especially politically.
I want to emphasize that I didn't just buy into the ideas that Cato espouses. Only when I discovered that their ideas corresponded with mine did I allow myself to be "influenced" by them.
Recently one of their brainiacs was asked to offer three examples of amendments to the Constitution that he felt would actually help things instead of just further messing things up.
You see, the thinkers at Cato believe - as I do - in Hayek's principle of "The Fatal Conceit" (see his brilliant book by that name), which states that there is no way we can know everything we need to know in order to design a perfect economic or political system. The best system is the one in which natural forces (in Economics, "market forces," or Adam Smith's "invisible hand") shape a system with everyone just looking out for his or her best interests.
Correspondingly, our Constitution allows for laws to be repealed if it turns out that they had the dreaded "Unintended Consequences."
We learned from the Prohibition Amendment that telling people they can't get drunk is a bad idea.
Or did we? We apparently have a hidden Prohibition Amendment somewhere that people can't get stoned.
Anyway, the proposed amendments that James Buchanan of Cato came up with go something like this:
1. Let's restrict estimated federal spending to the limits imposed by estimated tax revenues.
2. Let's tell Congress that they are not allowed to take any discriminatory measures of coercion.
3. Let's limit the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to the prevention of interference in voluntary exchanges.
Okay, so don't spend more than you make, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and mind your own damn business.
Sounds fair enough.
Here's my amendment:
"Congress shall make no law that violates the Constitution."
"But isn't that pretty much a given?"
Virtually every law Congress passes these days violates the Constitution in some way. Most of the time you need look no further than the Tenth Amendment to see it.
The Tenth Amendment says that if the federal government hasn't been given explicit permission to do a thing in the rest of the Constitution, then it can't do it. Anything not mentioned in the Constitution is left to the states and the people.
But here's our system:
Congress can pass any law it wants, regardless of constitutionality.
Then, when someone violates that law by doing something he or she should be free to do, the government nails that person.
Then, if the person has enough money and/or enough political clout, the Supreme Court finally decides whether the law is constitutional in the first place.
HUH?!
Whose cock-eyed idea was that?!
Congress shall make no law that violates the Constitution.
Congress represents (to use the word very loosely) the people.
Well, the people can't be expected to be experts on Constitutional Law, now can they? Their reps simply do what they are requested to do, right?
Fine. Then let's give veto power to someone who has sworn on a bible to protect and defend the Constitution.
The President.
Oops.
What happens when you have a president that can't even spell "constitutional"?
Back to the drawing board!
So what are we supposed to do, have the Supreme Court approve every bill before it gets signed into law? Cumbersome, but it might work.
Oops again.
What happens when you have a Supreme Court that misunderstands property rights so badly that it thinks your local politicians can take away the land that has been in your family for a century or more and build a shopping mall on it?
Back to the drawing board again!
Nine highly respected judges can't read the plain English of the Constitution.
They can't "interpret" the very document they exist to uphold.
Clearly what is needed here is a panel of nine English teachers to "interpret" the plain English in our Constitution.
Those nine English teachers could sit near the doors of Congress and check to make sure that no laws get out that the Constitution says are against the rules.
They could teach our representatives what the big words in the Constitution really mean.
Teach them that stealing is bad.
To keep their hands to themselves and off of other people's stuff.
And while they're at it, they could make sure that the congressmen who break the rules don't get recess.
Class dismissed.
There are some brilliant people associated with it which, to my way of thinking, pretty much have it right on every score, especially politically.
I want to emphasize that I didn't just buy into the ideas that Cato espouses. Only when I discovered that their ideas corresponded with mine did I allow myself to be "influenced" by them.
Recently one of their brainiacs was asked to offer three examples of amendments to the Constitution that he felt would actually help things instead of just further messing things up.
You see, the thinkers at Cato believe - as I do - in Hayek's principle of "The Fatal Conceit" (see his brilliant book by that name), which states that there is no way we can know everything we need to know in order to design a perfect economic or political system. The best system is the one in which natural forces (in Economics, "market forces," or Adam Smith's "invisible hand") shape a system with everyone just looking out for his or her best interests.
Correspondingly, our Constitution allows for laws to be repealed if it turns out that they had the dreaded "Unintended Consequences."
We learned from the Prohibition Amendment that telling people they can't get drunk is a bad idea.
Or did we? We apparently have a hidden Prohibition Amendment somewhere that people can't get stoned.
Anyway, the proposed amendments that James Buchanan of Cato came up with go something like this:
1. Let's restrict estimated federal spending to the limits imposed by estimated tax revenues.
2. Let's tell Congress that they are not allowed to take any discriminatory measures of coercion.
3. Let's limit the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to the prevention of interference in voluntary exchanges.
Okay, so don't spend more than you make, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and mind your own damn business.
Sounds fair enough.
Here's my amendment:
"Congress shall make no law that violates the Constitution."
"But isn't that pretty much a given?"
Virtually every law Congress passes these days violates the Constitution in some way. Most of the time you need look no further than the Tenth Amendment to see it.
The Tenth Amendment says that if the federal government hasn't been given explicit permission to do a thing in the rest of the Constitution, then it can't do it. Anything not mentioned in the Constitution is left to the states and the people.
But here's our system:
Congress can pass any law it wants, regardless of constitutionality.
Then, when someone violates that law by doing something he or she should be free to do, the government nails that person.
Then, if the person has enough money and/or enough political clout, the Supreme Court finally decides whether the law is constitutional in the first place.
HUH?!
Whose cock-eyed idea was that?!
Congress shall make no law that violates the Constitution.
Congress represents (to use the word very loosely) the people.
Well, the people can't be expected to be experts on Constitutional Law, now can they? Their reps simply do what they are requested to do, right?
Fine. Then let's give veto power to someone who has sworn on a bible to protect and defend the Constitution.
The President.
Oops.
What happens when you have a president that can't even spell "constitutional"?
Back to the drawing board!
So what are we supposed to do, have the Supreme Court approve every bill before it gets signed into law? Cumbersome, but it might work.
Oops again.
What happens when you have a Supreme Court that misunderstands property rights so badly that it thinks your local politicians can take away the land that has been in your family for a century or more and build a shopping mall on it?
Back to the drawing board again!
Nine highly respected judges can't read the plain English of the Constitution.
They can't "interpret" the very document they exist to uphold.
Clearly what is needed here is a panel of nine English teachers to "interpret" the plain English in our Constitution.
Those nine English teachers could sit near the doors of Congress and check to make sure that no laws get out that the Constitution says are against the rules.
They could teach our representatives what the big words in the Constitution really mean.
Teach them that stealing is bad.
To keep their hands to themselves and off of other people's stuff.
And while they're at it, they could make sure that the congressmen who break the rules don't get recess.
Class dismissed.
posted by Arbitrary Polarities at 8:29 PM
1 Comments:
7/7/06
In a recent online discussion with an online friend of mine, we were discussing politics. I had this to say:
"I think all laws should have to get by the Supreme Court before they become enacted. The veto power that the president has is a joke. They either refrain from vetoing anything, or base their veto on party policy instead of constitutionality. If the Supreme Court had veto power instead (which they sort of do, retroactively, only AFTER someone's rights are violated by the government), there would be very little for Congress to do. Perfect."
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