This is 8 minutes well spent if you have any question about what constitutes a right and why rights are more than simply good things that deserve legal protection or assistance. (Hat tip: The Anti-PC Infidel)
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Month: August 2008
Today I would like to introduce DownsizeDC.org’s “One Subject at a Time Act”
Most Americans probably believe a bill has to have majority support in Congress before it can become the law of the land. Sadly, this common sense expectation is totally wrong. Congressional leaders routinely pass laws that a majority opposes. DownsizeDC.org believes every bill should have to stand or fall on its own merits. Toward this end we have crafted the “One Subject at a Time Act” (OSTA).
One thing that i like about the Downsize DC approach is that most of the legislation they promote is written as a regulation for Congress and not for the people of the United States at large. OSTA is no exception. This bill recognizes the smoke and mirrors effect perpetrated by congressional representatives when they are allowed to bundle or misrepresent pieces of legislation in order to pass them.
The premise of OSTA is that if a piece of legislation is not able to pass on its own merits then the bill does not deserve passage. There may be good bills that generate opposition, but more often there are bad bills that are slipping under the public radar by being passed under the shadow of a deceptive title or hiding behind bills that do deserve the support of congress.
In Sunday school today we were talking, among other things, about the freedom of conscience that was protected under Nephite law. The teacher (I can’t remember his name since it was our first week in a new ward) made the statement that all men were equal before the law. The thought that followed in my mind was that this was the highest equality we should strive for in society – that all men would be equal before the law. We need not seek for all men to be equal in material posessions, or in educational attainment, but only that all be treated equally in the eyes of the law and that there be no legal basis for any kind of discrimination with regards to the various kinds of opportunity that a person might seek.
As I was riding the bus home yesterday there were very few riders. I overheard some people discussing it and suggesting that it might be related to the new four 10’s schedule of most government offices. That explanation makes sense to me. It also got me thinking about how wide an impact that could possibly have. I wonder if some of the commuter bus lines (the ones that only run into downtown in the morning and out of downtown in the evening) might add an extra bus at the beginning and/or end of the day on Monday thru Thursday to accomodate the extended hours of government workers. If they did, this might encourage others who have any flexibility in their schedules to shift their days earlier or later to avoid the rush of the 9 to 5 crowd. It occurred to me that this might result in a substantial change in traffic patterns every day of the week and not just on Fridays as I had previously expected.
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Stuck in Limbo
The last few weeks I have consistently not written on Saturdays. Of course I have been generally less consistent, but Saturdays would seem like the time when I would have the most opportunity to make time to write. This week I have ample time to write, but I find that there is apparently another barrier that I will need to overcome before I can consistently post on the weekends – I am busy enough that I don’t follow the news during evenings or weekends in the last 6 weeks. All that time has been spent working on various projects related to moving (finding a house, preparing the old house, etc. The result is that I don’t have anything that I have been mulling in the back of my mind that I can remember clearly enough to write about it. I am hopeful that this is not a permanent change, but until I have more time to think I expect that my weekend posting will be infrequent at best since I don’t have news articles to react to.
The funny thing here is that just as I am finishing this post I had a thought of something worth posting about from yesterday.
In answer to Lyall’s question – “Are we doing enough?” In fact, Lyall answered his own question by saying:
I remember three US history classes in school . . . Not one of them came close to teaching me about US history or gave me an appreciation for our Republic and constitution . . .
For me the best part of the post was the quote from and reference to Commentaries on the Constitution. Based solely on that quote I intend to read that volume and hope to raise my appreciation for our Constitution and government.
I really wish I could find the article I glanced at yesterday postulating that the presidential race is not looking like a blowout for Obama because the contest has been framed as a referendum on Obama rather than a referendum on Bush and the Republican party.
The thought that struck me is that when an election gets framed as a referendum on a candidate that candidate or party usually loses. I think that the reason that Gore did not receive enough support in 2000 to overcome the Nader voters is that the voters were fatigued by the emotionally charged Clinton presidency. In 2004 the vote got framed as a question of whather Kerry was really presidential or if he was just another politician. I think that 1996 was 2004 with Dole in the place of Kerry.
The exception seems to be 1988 which was a referendum on Reagan in which Bush I won.
What do you think? Is this how the outcome of our elections is decided – by voting against whoever the debate is centered on? (If so I would predict that 2010 will be a bad year to be a Democrat seeking election – regardless of the outcome this year.)
Laura and I are very excited about the house we are buying in Bountiful – even before our visit there today. We were visiting the house as part of an inspection and while we were there we were given an invitation to a neighborhood party that the neighbors are throwing for us and the couple that is moving out of the house. The party is set for one week before we close and the whole purpose of it is for us and the neighbors to get to know each other even before we move in.
Can we say “inviting?”
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Federalist Nos. 21 – 22
Federalist No. 21 and Federalist No. 22 close the enumeration of the deficiencies of the United States under the Articles of Confederation. The argument that the federal government was impotent under the articles is well known but I did pick up two important points here. From Federalist 21:
It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. . . If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. (emphasis added)
This is still true today of taxes on consumption, but especially the part I emphasized can be applied to our income tax (which is not a consumption tax for those who are not familiar with that term). When we look at the lengths that people will go to in their efforts to avoid paying their income taxes it indicates that the rate of taxation, especially at higher levels of income where more efforts are made to elude the taxes, is outside the appropriate bounds. Those who would argue that those rates are necessary (or even insufficient) tofund our government might want to consider the possibility that this truth might be an indication that our government spending itsself is also outside the bounds of moderation or necessity.
In Federalist 22 I see the arguments that lead to the Electoral College and a bicameral legislature taking shape and I also find the less common argument against the Articles of Confederation – namely that the Articles of Confederation did not provide any kind of judiciary system to interpret the laws. Today that would be inconceivable.
After reading about the necessity of forming a new government rather than simply trying to modify the existing confederation I was left to wonder if it might not be time again for us to convene a convention of people representing their fellow citizens for the purpose of examining our Constitution and determining if our government and Constitution as presently constituted are still consistent with the principles of good government and if either or both of them should be reformed. Personally, I would expect an answer from such a convention to be that the Constitution is fine, but might need to be updated for the purpose of bringing the government organization back into alignment with the law that it is designed to support.
Back in May I asked a question about attitudes regarding compensation for elected officials at the city level. I promised to write my conclusions in a followup and now I find that I never did that. My conclusion was that the issue deserved study in Lehi as the city grows so fast, that it should be done with lots of public input, and that the original request seemed very generous, especially for the mayor. Today I read in the Daily Herald:
Lehi officials are looking for public input on a proposal to increase their own salaries as much as several hundred dollars a month.
In May, Mayor Howard Johnson asked the council to triple his salary to a total of $51,000 a year, and to give themselves a raise too. At that time Council members instructed staff to form a committee of former council members to give a recommendation on salaries.
On Tuesday, Lehi city attorney Ken Rushton said the committee had met and had recommended raising Council salaries from $750 to $1,000 a month, and the mayor’s salary from $1,000 a month to $1,500.
In addition, the committee felt Council members should receive another $200 a month as a travel expense stipend, and the mayor an additional $500 per month.
So far I think the council has done a good job of addressing this issue. They have avoided any attempt to push for the large increases that the mayor suggested and in fact there is at least one council member who even believes that they should be reimbursed for travel rather than having stipends. (I would go one step further and have reimbursements with a cap – per trip and/or per month or year.) They have also done a good job so far of making the process open and inviting public input.