A look at conservatism and where it isn't

This is a personal outlook paper of The Jacksonian Party.

Read at your own risk.

Power Line blog has recently pointed to thsi article at The Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal "The Conservative Mind" by Peter Berkowitz (29 MAY 2007) which gives overview of major themes in conservative thought and how modern conservatism is typified by multiple strands of thought while modern liberalism has removed such from that portion of the political sphere.

This is reflected by The Corner on National Review Online with an original post by Jonah Goldberg (with previous posts by him here and here), then follow-ups by Jonathan Adler, Goldberg looking more at the "Big Three" with a review towards a correspondant via e-mail, Stanley Kurtz kibbitzing, Adler chiming in with more, Iaian Murray questioning why no analysis of Hayek is being given, John J. Miller looking at Russell Kirk (and pointing to this site on Kirk) and by Peter Lawler at No Left Turns which questions the premise of a "Big Three" in conservative thought. And that is it as of this writing without doing further link reviews outwards from there as this is stirring the realm of thought inside conservatism, even if it is not apparent to the everyday conservative working at their job. Truly this open-ness to examining underpinnings of conservatism is a blessing to that part of the political sphere and it is absent from the Left or even liberal side of the political spectrum.

Conservatism, in its modern sense, looks towards a plurality of outlooks to come to common conclusion and agreement on some basics and vital topics for humanity. By trying to look at what that *is* requires a deep review of multiple philosophers going all the way back to Plato and Aristotle. That is because conservatives like to know where their arguments are coming from and *why* they are supportable. What that means, however, is that there must be interplay between differing conservative views and a working towards some understanding and using of actual thought to work through ideas and to *not* trust emotions and gut reactions right off the bat. Conservatism does not rely on emotions as a first order premise for reasoning although it is the driving force behind reasoning and wishing to sustain what exists and understand how it works.

Leftists have moved away from that and the commonality of 19th century liberal thought which *also* had this interplay of ideas. The trends away from this were driven by a few things: the move from agricultural basis for economy to an industrial one, the rise of the corporate entity as separate from government, monetary theory which posited the amount of remuneration for given work, and, finally, Marxist class theories and their economic outlooks. Early Socialist movements tried to incorporate classical liberal outlooks on the natural rights of man, liberty and freedom, but the ethos of tying *those* to labor and then making labor paramount to understanding social order shifted the original base away from individual freedom to one of class based freedom and struggle. I have previously reviewed Socialist underpinnings for society with The Limits of Socialism and The Theory and Practice Conundrum. By putting forth mid-19th century basis for examining social order in regards to industrialization, those views became locked in even when the industrial basis was rapidly changing and morphing as it adapted itself to National cultures and further spurred on ways to adapt products to society. The 1930's, perhaps, represent the culmination of all that Marx saw on the technical side, but did not address the changing types and role of technology and society nor the adaptability of social structures to those roles. After that classical Marxist theory runs out of gas as the underpinnings for its class-based view eroded as society changed to move from a means of production basis to a means of ownership and self-sustaining via work concept.

On the other side of things, the conservatives also had to deal with industrialization and the impact of human created legal structures in the form of corporations and the fact that being a 'corporate citizen' meant being something different from the old fashioned 'human citizen'. These things culminated in late 19th century struggles to come to a common understanding that the monopoly corporation was an outgrowth of that structure and one that was inimical to changes within industrialization itself. Marx fully expected a standardization of needs and means of production while, contrarily, conservatism hewed towards freedom of interplay between forces in the industrial sphere as having a societal good. That did require actually enforcing that via anti-monopoly laws which were broadly supported: monopolies not only stifled the marketplace of ideas and creativity, but they also stifled those working for them and raised cost to society for their goods.

From those comes these emergent conservative views, and here I will use the broad summary of the Berkowitz article on them:

Kirk identified six elements that make the conservative mind: belief in a transcendent order that "rules society as well as conscience"; attachment to "the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence" as against the routinizing and leveling forces of modern society; the assumption that "civilized society requires orders and classes"; the conviction that "freedom and property are closely linked"; faith in custom and convention and consequently a "distrust of the 'sophisters, calculators, and economists' who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs"; and a wariness of innovation coupled with a recognition that "prudent innovation is the means of social preservation." The leading role in this mix that Kirk attaches to religion marks him as a social conservative; his insistence that religion provides the indispensable ground for individual liberty marks him as a modern conservative.

Famously, at least in libertarian circles, Hayek, an Austrian-born economist who became a British citizen and then immigrated to the U.S. in 1950, wrote a postscript to "The Constitution of Liberty" (1960), explaining why he was not a conservative. For him, "true conservatism"--which he confused with European reaction--was characterized by "opposition to drastic change" and a complacent embrace of established authority. Because his overriding goal was to preserve liberty, Hayek considered himself a liberal, but he recognized that in the face of the challenges presented mid-century by socialism, he would often find himself in alliance with conservatives. As a staunch member of the party of liberty, Hayek was keen to identify the political arrangements that would allow for "free growth" and "spontaneous change," which, he argued, brought economic prosperity and created the conditions for individual development. This meant preserving the tradition of classical liberalism, and defending limited, constitutional government against encroachments by the welfare state and paternalistic legislation.

For Strauss, what was most urgently in need in preservation was an idea, the idea of natural right. Like Kirk, Strauss believed that modern doctrines of natural right derived support from biblical faith. Like Hayek, Strauss taught that limited, constitutional government was indispensable to our freedom. But Strauss also saw that modern doctrines of natural right contained debilitating tendencies, which, increasingly, provided support for stupefying and intolerant dogmas. To arrest the decay, he turned to the classical natural right teachings of Plato and Aristotle, who were neither liberals nor democrats, but whose reflections on knowledge, politics and virtue, Strauss concluded, provided liberal democracy sturdier foundations.

Each of these has differing views and outlook on what, exactly, the shift should be within conservative thought to adjust to a highly adaptable technical sphere and social sphere that is supported by that technology. Each of these saw the 19th century concept of Progress in different lights and looked to see what they meant to society as a whole. Property rights from classical liberal viewpoints were upheld by each of them: for Kirk it was an indispensable entanglement of property rights and freedom, Hayek for the utilization of property to bring about betterment via change and protecting that from government, Strauss looked to older solution basis for property and freedom and then moved to tie those in with outlooks on politics and what is 'right' for individuals. Together they posit the individual as best suited to understand their own conditions and then to utilize the tools that society provides to work towards their own betterment as individuals.

Some of these do play important roles in Jacksonian outlook, but, by trying to ascribe social view above and beyond the personal, what is missed is the Jacksonian reliance on 'emergent behavior'. This is a more modern term for something that is pretty well understood in the fields of engineering and mechanics, along with many trades and skills: many parts doing simple things come to complex and yet understandable conclusions. This is not deconstructionism, of taking a complex system apart to try and find its irreducible components, but it is a view of the components as working parts and then seeing how the parts fit together. Each part, for a Jacksonian, has known ways to operate and may, in and of itself, be reducible to further components, but the operation of that part need not be reduced unless there is a poor reaction due to not understanding the nature of the part involved.

As an example Andrew Jackson did not trust having a centralized banking system for the United States. In that Bank Veto message of 10 JUL 1832 is the very basis for the Jacksonian message of protecting the Union, ensuring that liberty and freedom are not usurped and by proposing for multiple ways to find a solution are all present:

The present corporate body, denominated the president, directors, and company of the Bank of the United States, will have existed at the time this act is intended to take effect twenty years. It enjoys an exclusive privilege of banking under the authority of the General Government, a monopoly of its favor and support, and, as a necessary consequence, almost a monopoly of the foreign and domestic exchange. The powers, privileges, and favors bestowed upon it in the original charter, by increasing the value of the stock far above its par value, operated as a gratuity of many millions to the stockholders....

The act before me proposes another gratuity to the holders of the same stock, and in many cases to the same men, of at least seven millions more....It is not our own citizens only who are to receive the bounty of our Government. More than eight millions of the stock of this bank are held by foreigners. By this act the American Republic proposes virtually to make them a present of some millions of dollars.

Every monopoly and all exclusive privileges are granted at the expense of the public, which ought to receive a fair equivalent. The many millions which this act proposes to bestow on the stockholders of the existing bank must come directly or indirectly out of the earnings of the American people....

It appears that more than a fourth part of the stock is held by foreigners and the residue is held by a few hundred of our own citizens, chiefly of the richest class.

Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind it to our country? The president of the bank has told us that most of the State banks exist by its forbearance. Should its influence become concentered, as it may under the operation of such an act as this, in the hands of a self-elected directory whose interests are identified with those of the foreign stockholders, will there not be cause to tremble for the purity of our elections in peace and for the independence of our country in war? Their power would be great whenever they might choose to exert it; but if this monopoly were regularly renewed every fifteen or twenty years on terms proposed by themselves, they might seldom in peace put forth their strength to influence elections or control the affairs of the nation. But if any private citizen or public functionary should interpose to curtail its powers or prevent a renewal of its privileges, it can not be doubted that he would be made to feel its influence.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society the farmers, mechanics, and laborers who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.

Nor is our Government to be maintained or our Union preserved by invasions of the rights and powers of the several States. In thus attempting to make our General Government strong we make it weak. Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and States as much as possible to themselves in making itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence; not in its control, but in its protection; not in binding the States more closely to the center, but leaving each to move unobstructed in its proper orbit.

Experience should teach us wisdom. Most of the difficulties our Government now encounters and most of the dangers which impend over our Union have sprung from an abandonment of the legitimate objects of Government by our national legislation, and the adoption of such principles as are embodied in this act. Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress. By attempting to gratify their desires we have in the results of our legislation arrayed section against section, interest against interest, and man against man, in a fearful commotion which threatens to shake the foundations of our Union. It is time to pause in our career to review our principles, and if possible revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of compromise which distinguished the sages of the Revolution and the fathers of our Union. If we can not at once, in justice to interests vested under improvident legislation, make our Government what it ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many, and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws and system of political economy....

That is something based on an understanding that the freedoms provided by the Nation should not be put at risk nor danger by government monopolies. Good government is seen as a strong interaction between multiple levels of the Nation: Federal, States and the People. The strength of General Government is *not* in its centrality but in its diversity and abundance of having smaller and accountable units spread out to hold each other in balance. From those things Government must be safeguarded against favoring the rich and powerful over the poor and weak so that just and equal governance can be had for all of the People. Therefore government may not legislate in favor of this or that rich individual or group, but must adhere to making a good life for all of the Citizens.

To put it bluntly: the business of America is industrious Citizens making as good a life for themselves as can be had by the fruits of their labor.

And yet we get a very strange thing coming from modern conservatives: 'free trade frees people'. It is the ability to own goods and have them safeguarded *against* government that frees people. Selling to people who may have their rights revoked or goods confiscated by a dictatorial regime is not 'freeing' those individuals unless some structure goes with it. Government is the safeguard of property rights not the SOURCE of them. Too often trade with dictatorial or tyrannical regimes is seen as 'good' to modern conservatives as they can use free trade dogma to shield themselves from the fact that profit is being made from tyrannical regimes and that nothing is being done to *end them* by such trade.

When Government makes trade policy that puts forward trade with Nations that seek to endanger the United States, the primary safeguard of trade and foreign policy is being put under the dictates of corporations to get profit from suffering and tyranny. Even worse is that when the United States does so, those suffering under such regimes see that freedom is not being used in a constructive fashion to help others. By putting no conditions on such trade or reciprocity of outlook towards freedom and personal liberty to have individuals enriched by the fruits of their labors, modern conservatism is stuck in a really quite nasty rut of 'realism'. Somehow that economic 'realism' of stable trade does lots of good for corporations and their shareholders, but not much for the ideals of freedom and liberty for all of mankind. From that America gets hated because the Nation is seen as empowering tyrants that enforce repression and authoritarian rule. By not addressing this conservatives have fallen into the larger, polyglot category of the Right: putting commercial entities above physical ones and empowering those entities due to their long existence above those that are merely mortal.

As Jackson looked at the Central Bank so this modern era must look at Transnational Capitalism and elitism, along with the flux of Transnational Progressivism to dissolve Nations as meaningful units amongst mankind. President Jackson's veto lasted until 1913, and that awful decade that changed America for the worse. The trust put on the behavior of the States and the People to find a good way and *create* a common and good society without oversight and guidance from the Federal level has been eroded by those in the Right realm that puts large, transnational capitalist and corporate affairs ahead of those of the People and the Nation which the People hold in common between them. A Central Bank with a private profit motive puts the Nation at risk as the fruits of labor of the People are open for exploit by those that have pure financial gain as their motive. By putting corporations and freer trade ahead of the values of the Nation for freedom and liberty, the Right also erodes at those very freedoms at home and the liberty that sustains them.

Jacksonians have few problems with corporations so long as they are: non-monopolistic, competitive in the realm of markets, and do not try to influence, guide nor dictate the foreign policy or trade policy of the Nation.

Those Nations that wish to do trade with us and are tyrannical and repressive regimes are somehow equated as 'lost markets' to US Companies if we do not trade with them. They are *not* as they are not free people. Supporting the rights of individuals by refusing to trade or endorse tyrannical regimes gains benefit once those people are FREE as they will have seen us abiding by what it takes to ensure that tyranny gets no help from the United States. To do that today would cause a massive upheaval in the United States and the world because of the number of corrupt, repressive and tyrannical regimes that we allow *any* trade with from the United States. That would be a *good thing* to suddenly put a price on being tyrannical and repressive towards one's own people. The effects would be enormous because of the amount of time and depth of trade the United States has had NOT supporting freedom and liberty and, instead, expanding corporate profit.

Because modern conservatism does not put this forward as a necessary good of the People, they get shifted under the umbrella of the Right and National capitalism. That talking for viable ideas is very well and good, but the elite of the political and economic class adhere to a different ethos based on Transnational corporatism, thus losing the ability to have the National espoused and getting stuck with the anti-democratic Transnational. And as conservatives see no value in limiting those corporations that have become scofflaws, who have had multiple individuals commit crimes, by not enforcing the penalties that such crimes accrue, by not putting forth that a corporation must have a societal good beyond mere profit, and by allowing such to influence taxation, trade and foreign policies to their benefit, that diversity of voices is LOST as it finds no means to actually speak on these issues and propose changes to benefit the People. At least discussions are still *happening* , unlike the Left and liberalism which has succumbed to group think and the echo chamber effect of hearing the same thing so often that no other thoughts can work their way in edge-wise. Yet the reinforcing of the idea that the activity of trade trumps freedom and liberty is one that is slowly marginalizing conservatives on the National scale. They put forth NOTHING to restrain corporations and remove their influence from public policy.

One of the very strangest ideas I've had is to take this idea of a 'Corporate Citizen' and fully utilize it. Give them rights, responsibilities and the franchise in the way of one, single, solitary vote. Then a 'Three Strikes and You're Our' Law for any corporation that has officers found to commit felonies for the corporation. At the full upholding of the third felony the corporation is fully liquidated and brought to an end. That means that a corporation actually has a vested interest in operating within the law and ensuring that it does not violate the law: it is lethal in the long run not to do so. As corporations are not mandated by heaven and are purely the constructs of mere mortals, they are amenable to the tools of mere mortals and the laws of mere mortals. And if society wants to give them quasi-rights, then lets back that up with the full panoply of rights and restrictions put upon REAL individuals. Which means they pay PERSONAL INCOME TAX, not corporate. That means they have limits on campaign contributions exactly equal to that of one Citizen. Yes, fully and highly extreme! It gives long life to those entities that adhere to the law, act as good citizens and otherwise make sure that the Nation is supported. Those that do not do so find themselves at an end and that 'market segment' opened up for new and law abiding corporations.

You will not get that from the Right these days. Corporations are supposed to be sacrosanct in their privileges and immunities and able to influence government and society by those things. That doesn't sound right to me, nor is it all that 'conservative' this letting unaccountable corporations change society to meet their needs instead of them changing to support society.

And start eliminating this 'prostitution of Government to the advancement of the few'.

I see a LOT of that going on with 'earmarks' and illegal alien amnesty these days, and saying there are 'jobs that American's won't do'. They have obviously never watched Dirty Jobs. And I don't see a lot of illegals in many of those jobs, either... you know, real jobs that real Americans work at to make a better life for themselves. And perhaps it is time for conservatives to break with the Right and actually call those pushing corporatism as a *good* for America and ask if it is any good FOR Americans when such are able to denigrate the blue collar workers and undermine them via Federal subsidies and not getting Federal law enforced. That looks to be undermining the Nation.

But then, I am no conservative.

I am a Jacksonian and I stand for the United States and its proposal that all men are created equal because that is 'self evident' beyond any single religion.

The Warnings of the Founding Generation

The following is cross-posted from Dumb Looks Still Free.

From the time of the Founding of the Nation there were those who worried about Federal Government and what would become of it. Their views were many but some of the basic outlines of *why* Federal governing needs strong checks and could be seen as wrong-headed do have merit in this modern era. We can see some of the most pertinent of these criticisms in the Yates and Lansing letter to the New York Governor. I will excerpt some sections to highlight these, and some other criticisms of the Constitution:

LETTER FROM THE HON. ROBERT YATES AND THE
HON. JOHN LANSING, JUN., ESQUIRES,
TO THE GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK;
CONTAINING THEIR REASONS FOR NOT SUBSCRIBING
TO THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION
[..]

Exclusive of our objections originating from the want of power, we entertained an opinion that a general government, however guarded by declarations of rights, or cautionary provisions, must unavoidably, in a short time, be productive of the destruction of the civil liberty of such citizens who could be effectually coerced by it, by reason of the extensive territory of the United States, the dispersed situation of its inhabitants, and the insuperable difficulty of controlling or counteracting the views of a set of men (however unconstitutional and oppressive their acts might be) possessed of all the powers of government, and who, from their remoteness from their constituents, and necessary permanency of office, could not be supposed to be uniformly actuated by an attention to their welfare and happiness; that, however wise and energetic the principles of the general government might be, the extremities of the United States could not be kept in due submission and obedience to its laws, at the distance of many hundred miles from the seat of government; that, if the general legislature was composed of so numerous a body of men as to represent the interests of all the inhabitants of the United States, in the usual and true ideas of representation, the expense of supporting it would become intolerably burdensome; and that, if a few only were vested with a power of legislation, the interests of a great majority of the inhabitants of the United States must necessarily be unknown; or, if known, even in the first stages of the operations of the new government, unattended to.

All bolding is mine throughout, of course!

Yates and Lansing thus put forth that Federal Government would become remote from the People, insulate itself *from* the People, put itself into perpetuity of power as individuals, and then set forth laws contrary to the Will of the People. By using the powers vested in it such Federal Government, no matter how tight the safeguards and guarantees, would drift from the outlooks of the People and secure only the outlooks of itself.

We have seen this over the period from 1787 to present via some few methods, but the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th century were capstoned by a decade that 'reformed' the Federal Government so as to make it 'manageable' and easier to operate. In one decade the outlook of what the United States had as limitations upon the Federal Government changed in distinct ways. I look at that ten year period with this article and will summarize the main points of entry of it:

• The Harrison Act to regulate the use of narcotics was, itself, a capstone to an anti-drug movement by religions to combat opium use and the trade of it in the Orient, mostly China, but the trade and its piracies stretched far out from there to reach even Europe and America. In that period of 1909-14 the very first regulation of what individuals inside the United States could actually put into their bodies was formed, based on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. This went beyond the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which requires the labeling of what is actually IN those things Americans are using. Starting at mere tax stamps, which would then not be issued, that power has grown to include many, many medications that go far beyond narcotics. This outlook became the outlook to form up such organizations as the Drug Enforcement Agency and its powers are based solely upon that idealistic outlook of the Nation knowing better than its Citizens what Citizens may or may not do with their bodies.


• In 1909 Amendment XVI to the US Constitution changed the ability of Federal Government to directly tax individuals in the Union in disproportionate fashion. This had changed the funding basis for the United States from one resting upon State collection of funds and the use of tariffs to that of directly using the power of taxation of the People without intermediary. This moved the US off of its traditional ability to hold Federal Government accountable via funding from the States and removed that as a check and balance against Federal power.


• Amendment XVII which would also be ratified in 1913 which would place the direct election of Senators to that of the People of the States and *not* the Government of the States. Up to that point many States would *not* send Senators to the US Congress, either by oversight or intent, which was seen as crippling that body by making it difficult to actually hold it in session. This was the traditional way the States had to express their dissatisfaction with Federal Government and served as a direct reflection of how much power the Federal Government should have based on State outlook.


• In 1911 would come Public Law 62-5 which would go into effect in 1913 and limit the size of the House of Representatives. The House had previously served in proportion to population and would increase in size as population increased. At a number of times that proportion changed, via law, but the idea of an open-ended House was always kept so that the Will of the People could be reflected by the changing size of the population itself. With this limitation came the slow marginalization of the People as the ratio between Representative to the People changed ever upwards and the two parties formalized their control of districts so that seats would rarely pass between the parties in a way to effect their power structure.


• Amendment XVIII for the Prohibition of Alcohol in 1919 would be the largest attempt to directly control the People of the United States based on moralistic outlooks and would meet with long-term failure and repeal. That was not done before the rise of organized crime which had developed to meet the needs of the People for alcohol and as since put in place organized crime as a long-term, perennial threat to liberty, freedom and the rule of law within the United States and has developed that illiberal capability on a global basis. While the oil companies would compete to become a global business in this same period, they would often find that the entire set of organized crime from Europe to the Far East was there before them and represented the first true estimate of the financial power of the United States.
  
• President Woodrow Wilson would move the traditional War outlook of the United States and the entirety of Western Civilization via his outlooks for US entry into World War I. He promulgated two ideas and looked for one outcome and would get NONE of them right:
  
  
  
  1. His first idea was that trade was more freeing, over time, than any of the effects of warfare and that the United States should NOT confront the entire set of allies to Germany on a far-reaching basis. This view was particularly put to the Ottoman Empire, which was committing genocide of the Armenians which was being reported to the West by news organizations, church groups and other humanitarian groups. Ex-President Roosevelt had put forth from Congress that the United States by not taking part fully in the War against *all* of the enemies of France and Britain would then have little to no say in the peace that followed which would be set by those two States and their outlook for Colonial Empires.
  
  
  2. His second idea was that international organizations would serve as a means and method to allow Nations to work out differences via a Third Body. This concept which was embodied by the League of Nations and, after the failure of that, the United Nations would put forth that somehow joining all Nations together to discuss differences would yield positive results. The 'scourge of war' however, was not removed by this and, in point of fact, made even more pernicious and endemic amongst smaller Nations that saw no need nor want of 'help' from larger Nations unless something could be gotten from those larger Nations for doing so. From this rose the modern castigation of the West, in particular, as holding some forms of democracy and liberty and freedom of individuals forward, the enemies of that liberal tradition did NOT do so and used such organizations to put forward totalitarian excoriations of these larger powers.
  
  
  3. His third outlook would be doomed by the first: to align the Middle East and the Balkans to States that adhered more properly to populations that had ethnicity and background in common. Here the Predictions by ex-President Roosevelt proved to be correct and the Western Allies did not see the US as a full participant in the War and while critical, its limited role did not gain it much say and no veto over the ensuing Peace Treaties. Those Treaties would look towards 19th century Colonial expansion views of 'painting the map in the color of your Nation' and would NOT respect ethnic nor cultural boundaries of the People in those areas.

From these activities, Federal Government would change its basis of what is and is not commonality to the People of the Nation. The very worries of having a Federal Government that would distance itself from the People and their outlook on what it means to have a Nation in common, while always present as a possibility, gained a substantive foundation in this era of 1909-19. The outlooks of Yates and Lansing give pause, here, so that they can be properly looked at in light of these changes.

The loss of Civil Liberties, of the People, changed drastically with the Harrison Act, Amendment XVI and by the Wilsonian concepts that trade should be put above freedom and that Nations should abide by general agreements amongst all Nations and not by specific agreement between specific Nations. Given life today, these outlooks and the Federal power backing them have now diminished the Civil Liberties of the Citizens to have State based outlook upon their lives and to have Federal government that will adhere to the promulgation of liberty and freedom above all else.

Today the entirety of the anti-narcotics movement has gone to drugs that were never seen as a threat to the population and some, while having deleterious effects upon individuals, cannot be properly studied to warn people of those effects as they are *limited* in how they may be researched. Beyond that such drugs put off the ability of the public or even commercial concerns to study also put any beneficial effect of them, for study, under such strict control that it is almost impossible to do so. What started out as a 'temperance' movement has blossomed into a Congressional power to utilizes the 'commerce clause' to oversee and regulate purely intra-State commerce. The Supreme Court has upheld this on the grounds of some larger 'National Illegal Market' that Congress has oversight upon. With that as outlook there is now no activity done by any individual for any purpose within the entirety of the United States which cannot be ruled upon, by Congress, because of its theoretical effects to ANY 'market' be it legal or illegal in nature.

With the ability of Congress to tax individuals directly has also arisen a tax courts system which is NOT part of the Civil Law system but is part of a 'tax law' system. This tax law area is not amenable to simple Civil Law oversight and operates independently of it with severe restrictions on adjudication and even on the basis of having a jury of one's peers or the pre-supposition of innocence. By using the ability of the Federal Government to array a case against individuals and those individuals, no matter how wealthy, having the law, itself, stacked against them, find it hard to stop such courts and the power of them over individuals. The actual Revolution was FOUNDED upon the motto: 'No taxation without representation.' As subjects of the Crown they expected to have voice and say in the matter of taxation and work something out *with* their Sovereign so as to find a more equitable basis for repayment of loans for the French and Indian Wars. That is why the US Constitution does NOT invest Congress, originally, with the power to tax individuals in disproportionate or unequal manner. A power such as that is one that was seen to lead to abuse, corruption and, ultimately, despotic trends.

The entire tax code, itself, while in theory put to a means whereby a 'graduated tax system' is imposed, so that wealthy individuals pay a higher proportion of earnings than do the poor, the entire investing of the system TO Congress has made the system rife with lobbyist exceptions so that vast swaths of the wealthy population pay next to NO taxes and some businesses or entire industries pay NONE at all. While the affluent do pay more in proportion and overwhelmingly, the amount of income that has 'shelters', 'loopholes' and other means to escape taxations is far, far larger than that income which is taxed. That is neither 'fair', 'liberal' nor in the best outlook to make a harmonious whole of the Nation as the rich may sinecure funds and their power base so as to enrich themselves via 'unearned income' and other vehicles, while those with little or no means to invest cannot avail themselves of those same benefits in any way, shape or form.

The United States moved from a basis of taxing the imported goods to the Nation, so that those supporting the purchase of foreign goods would, likewise, help fund the Nation so as to have fair and even regulation of such importations, to a strange concept of seeking to have 'free trade' with everyone and put no burden on imports save on those things which industries can lobby Congress so as to shield them from this 'free trade'. This goes far above and beyond the very few businesses needed for National Defense goods, and incorporates a wide range of manufacturing, refining and basic goods systems. Agriculture, in particular, has seen massive Federal subsidies, grants and support while equal goods from other lands have had restrictions and high tariffs placed upon them to 'protect' these businesses based upon their lobbying power.

The Federal Farmer No. 3 of 10 OCT 1787 frames the view on allowing the Federal government power of taxation in this manner:

Should the general government think it politic, as some administrations (if not all) probably will, to look for a support in a system of influence, the government will take every occasion to multiply laws, and officers to execute them, considering these as so many necessary props for its own support. Should this system of policy be adopted, taxes more productive than the impost duties will, probably, be wanted to support the government, and to discharge foreign demands, without leaving any thing for the domestic creditors. The internal sources of taxation then must be called into operation, and internal tax laws and federal assessors and collectors spread over this immense country. All these circumstances considered, is it wise, prudent, or safe, to vest the powers of laying and collecting internal taxes in the general government, while imperfectly organized and inadequate; and to trust to amending it hereafter, and making it adequate to this purpose? It is not only unsafe but absurd to lodge power in a government before it is fitted to receive it? It is confessed that this power and representation ought to go together. Why give the power first? Why give the power to the few, who, when possessed of it, may have address enough to prevent the increase of representation? Why not keep the power, and, when necessary, amend the constitution, and add to its other parts this power, and a proper increase of representation at the same time? Then men who may want the power will be under strong inducements to let in the people, by their representatives, into the government, to hold their due proportion of this power. If a proper representation be impracticable, then we shall see this power resting in the states, where it at present ought to be, and not inconsiderately given up.

That ability to continually expand government and increase taxes to do so is seen as a direct problem for representative democracy in which those with the power of taxation continue onwards to expand the power and the taxes without recourse or direct input from the People. Even giving the Federal government ANY power of taxation was seen as an inducement to corruption and loss of liberties, so the expansion of it is, again, a clear warning of power concentrating into the hands of the Federal and out of the hands of the People. This is warned about repeatedly as a source of corruption and ability of the Federal government to keep and hold power to itself above the People. Amongst many Cato No. 6, Brutus No. 5 looks at this, as well as in No. 3, as does Centinel No. 4 from a more trade oriented perspective on the tariff power, also John DeWitt No.2 looks into the expansive taxation authority of Congress.

In purely governmental and democracy terms, the movement taking checks and balances out of the Federal system have had wide-ranging and deleterious impacts upon the Citizenry. On the side of the Senate, the removal of State based veto by absence so that even getting a quorum required actual 'good legislation' that would benefit all of the States has been bypassed in its entirety. For all that was decried about that, and the negligence of government to do things, that was seen as the natural basis OF democracy: self-limitation upon the scope of government so that it would do less harm by not being able to be active.

From the House side, the movement to a set House has caused 'gerrymandering' to become the illiberal method of creating strange districts to unite disparate and remote populations so as to sinecure pure party affiliation. This is not a representation of local outlook based on proximity of people actually having to do this thing known as 'live together in harmony', but the ability of political parties to harden their control based on ideology that is dispersed within States so as to remove this idea that individuals living near to each other should have oversight upon their own affairs. With that the two political parties now exchange power based a mere handful of seats and popular views that spread via means within communities gain no foothold as there is no coherent community based districts for such views to sway Representatives. Even worse is that the number of people necessary to form a district has so swelled that individuals can no longer expect to even know or even see or communicate directly with their Representative. The idea that one might actually meet such a Representative because he or she actually 'lives nearby' has been removed as a foundation for democracy by this set-size House. The Georgia Gazette also publishes a letter on this, and wonders on the ability to increase representation to 1 to 20,000 or 1 to 15,000 so as to better represent the People in their diversity across the States.

A clear warning of this was heard from 05 OCT 1787 from Centinal No. 1 :

Thus we see, the house of representatives, are on the part of the people to balance the senate, who I suppose will be composed of the better sort, the well born, etc. The number of the representatives (being only one for every 30,000 inhabitants) appears to be too few, either to communicate the requisite information, of the wants, local circumstances and sentiments of so extensive an empire, or to prevent corruption and undue influence, in the exercise of such great powers; the term for which they are to be chosen, too long to preserve a due dependence and accountability to their constituents; and the mode and places of their election not sufficiently ascertained, for as Congress have the control over both, they may govern the choice, by ordering the representatives of a whole state, to be elected in one place, and that too may be the most inconvenient.

It appears that this individual actually expects a VERY Representative form of government to be the normal course of affairs in life and that moving as high as 1 per 30,000 would yield far too few Representatives to properly give a voice to the Will of the People. And yet we now move to 1 per 550,000 and higher with each passing election and the actual ability of the People to have *any* voice when individuals are drowned out by cacophony is now the rule, not the exception.

Purely on Foreign Affairs, the United States still has, as a cornerstone, that the Executive is the sole organ of government for international relations. This idea is firmly upheld by the US Supreme Court in US vs. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. decided in 1936. That power and outlook has been substantially altered by the outlook to move towards some quasi-Congressional power extending beyond their mere Treaty regularization power or their power for US Commercial and Navigation conduct upon the High Seas and airspace. Explicitly, via the Supreme Court upholding the Constitution, Congress gets no such power nor outlook. Here the expansiveness of the 'commerce clause' on an intra-State basis is being utilized to somehow expand Congressional power beyond the United States in its agreements via Treaty. Congress was specifically cited in US vs. Curtiss-Wright to give more than due deference to the Executive in these areas as they are categorically NOT the same as those powers within the Nation. Congress has seen fit to ignore this as members now talk with enemies of the Nation who have clearly stated their enmity for the Nation and see no good coming from the United States as it is antithetical to their outlooks on the world. Any attempt to do anything in a policy realm where there is NO Treaty to back things up is beyond any power given to Congress by the People.

From the Wilsonian outlook on international bodies comes strange ideas that such bodies should have source of power or capability in regulating what the People of the United States can do, say or think. Organizations, like the World Trade Organization, have some sort of authority body meant to adjudicate trade disputes and impose sanctions and rulings upon those within such disputes. Their Constitutional basis for power on the United States is zero, as that power is granted to the Federal government solely and may not be made to adhere to any outside organization by any Treaty. That is the scope and limits of power handed to the Federal government and it may not go beyond that to subject the Nation to outside institutions and their rulings for ANYTHING as those institutions are not specifically created by the People of the United States. This does not stop business, industry, and trade groups, along with 'humanitarian organizations' from attempting to do otherwise, and any utilization of such rulings or decree for *anything* upon the United States must have full backing of those things the People have ordained and established as their Government held in common.

Those, above, are seen as the problems of such Federal Government when Yates and Lansing said:

"... if a few only were vested with a power of legislation, the interests of a great majority of the inhabitants of the United States must necessarily be unknown; or, if known, even in the first stages of the operations of the new government, unattended to."

These powers and the outlook of Congress no longer put it in accord with the People and the grant of those powers to Congress. Congress may actually *know* the Will of the People, but no longer acts in the interests OF the Will of the People, but, instead, acts to some other goal or modality of operation.

George Mason withheld his name from the Constitution for similar reasons as stated in his letter of objections to it. Some passages as follows are excerpted:

In the House of Representatives there is not the substance, but the shadow only, of representation, which can never produce proper information in the legislature, or inspire confidence in the people. The laws will, therefore, be generally made by men little concerned in, and unacquainted with, their effects and consequences.

The inability to the House to actually and fairly represent the diverse opinion of the People is seen as distancing representative democracy from the People and to no longer represent the People. This was a common worry amongst those deciding about the US Constitution: that 1 to 30,000 would *not* yield a representative body that reflects the Nation. Centinal No. 1 looks at that amount and finds it too lacking in true representative proportions. As does Brutus No. 3, which looks at the House:

"This branch of the legislature will not only be an imperfect representation, but there will be no security in so small a body, against bribery, and corruption."

Also in John DeWitt No. 3 is the proposition that a district based representative scheme is not compatible with the community and town based formulation of representative government then known in the States:

"But how are these men to be chosen? Is there any other way than by dividing the Senate into districts? May not you as well at once invest your annual Assemblies with the power of choosing them—where is the essential difference? The nature of the thing will admit of none. Nay, you give them the power to prescribe the mode. They may invest it in themselves.—If you choose them yourselves, you must take them upon credit, and elect those persons you know only by common fame. Even this privilege is denied you annually, through fear that you might withhold the shadow of control over them. In this view of the System, let me sincerely ask you, where is the people in this House of Representatives?"

It is a strange world we have come to with mass media society that sees actually 'hearing from the People' in multitudes so as to represent the Nation as something that should be limited to a few hundred individuals and sinecured to two political parties. With too few individuals there is no internal oversight and accountability *within* the branch itself and it can become undemocratic via that very small cadre that serve there.

Today we now have Congressional Representatives who are more interested in securing funds and power than they are in actually having good government or being a fair representative of the People of the Nation. We have ample evidence of that seen in the Abscam investigation and the transcripts of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) on his view of government:

MURTHA: Let me tell you what I see. Howard, his deal with you guys, or two other guys [Thompson and Murphy], I'm dealing. I'll tell you how I feel about my part of it. My part is that you don't need to spend a goddamn cent on this thing. That's my feeling. Howard feels differently about it. These other two guys have as much influence with the administration and in Congress as anybody. There's no question about it. There's no question about these other two guys being long-term members, being chairmen of the right committees. They're the right people. But -- you gotta look at it realistically, you gotta know all the facts before you can do anything at all. Now, as I told Howard, I want to deal with you guys awhile before I made any transactions at all, period. In other words I want to say, "Look put some money in these guys," and I, just let me know, so I can say, you know, these guys are gonna do business in our district. Then there's a couple businesses that I'm not personally involved in but would be very helpful for the district, that I could make a big play of, be very helpful to me. After we've done some business, then I might change my mind. But right now, that's all I'm interested in. [12:00:40] Period. And I'm gonna tell you this. If anybody can do it... and I'm not bullshitting you fellas, I can get it done my way. There's no question about it. I can get it done. And the thing you gotta remember is, what happened to [South Korean agent Tongsun?] Park and those guys, you can't start going to people that you don't know, that don't level with you, that bullshit you, that don't look into it. For instance, I may tell you in a week after I look into it can't be done. It cannot be done. And I'll tell you. I won't bullshit you. When I make a deal, it's a goddamn deal. That's all there is to it. And, uh, you know, after it's done, you may tell me, well you've already done it, there's no reason for me to deal with ya. Howard tells me that you're not that kinda people, that, you uh, you know, that you deal, you know...

[..]

MURTHA [12:14:13]: The thing is, what I'm trying to do is establish the very thing that you talked about. That tie to the district, that's all I need, from then on -- I'm gonna be there 20 years in that goddamn Congress. I don't want to screw it up by some little goddamn thing along the way that, if I wanted to make a lot of money I would have been outside making a lot of money. And you, I know what I can do and what I can't do...I won't bullshit you, that's for sure....you got two good people, and I just want to know -- well, I know the facts.

That is some distancing of the Nation, the People and politicians looking out for the welfare of the Nation. From that is heard clearly the warning of George Mason on Representatives having little acquaintance with implications beyond their own scope and outlook. The corruption of power is just as important if not *more* important than mere money, and we see here that the expectation of utilizing money to stay in power with the funds directed to the 'right businesses' is corrosive to good government. Where is the internal oversight of the House, these days, anyway? Unfortunately the too few members are too busy to do anything about it.

Not to leave the upper body alone let us see what George Mason had to say about the Senate:

The Senate have the power of altering all money bills, and of originating appropriations of money, and the salaries of the officers of their own appointment, in conjunction with the President of the United States, although they are not the representatives of the people, or amenable to them. These, with their other great powers, (viz., their powers in the appointment of ambassadors, and all public officers, in making treaties, and in trying all impeachments;) their influence upon, and connection with, the supreme executive from these causes; their duration of office; and their being a constant existing body, almost continually sitting, joined with their being one complete branch of the legislature,—will destroy any balance in the government, and enable them to accomplish what usurpations they please upon the rights and liberties of the people.

Any affiliation between the President and the Senate for getting Immigration Amnesty voted in is purely coincidental, I am sure. While the connections to the Executive have proved troublesome, from time to time, the Senate by being so much between elections gets little opportunity to actually understand what the Will of the People is. In some ways this was meant to be a moderating influence upon the every vexatious and changing Will of the People, but in others it also moves ideas for what makes good government that upholds the rights of the People to the side while trying to utilize the power of government to reach Senatorial ends. When a Senate acts 'off the record' and 'behind closed doors' to draft legislation and then immediately moves to stifle debate or even give time for legislation to be READ by the members, that is a movement to abuse of power by the Senate. And in the case of Immigration Amnesty, it puts at peril the very rights of the People to determine what the Laws of the Land are and to hold Congress accountable for NOT funding them to be enforced and the Executive for NOT enforcing them. Even with more time given to debate, the original move to limit such time and debate is an anti-democratic one that speaks ill of the Senate to conduct itself in a reasonable fashion for sweeping legislation.

From Cato No. 3 on 25 OCT 1787 is heard this about political liberty:

Political liberty, the great Montesquieu again observes, consists in security, or at least in the opinion we have of security; and this security, therefore, or the opinion, is best obtained in moderate governments, where the mildness of the laws, and the equality of the manners, beget a confidence in the people, which produces this security, or the opinion. This moderation in governments depends in a great measure on their limits, connected with their political distribution.

Where is our political liberty without any security in this Nation? It seems to me that trying to welcome in large numbers of individuals to unbalance the Nation and to do *nothing* to actually secure the borders of the Nation when known enemies have already utilized such lacks to get here is not only immoderate but fool hearty. In not taking any recourse to actually pay for enforcement of the laws nor uphold them, Congress does not act in moderate manner nor in a mild one, but is abdicating its duty to the Nation. We can have no security if government will not enforce the laws it makes. This is not the part of Franklin warning about security and liberty, this is lack of ANY security denying ALL liberty to have a Nation free from outside influence and control.

From Cato No. 6 we hear of this outlook upon the problems of the Senate:

"In every civilized community, even in those of the most democratic kind, there are principles which lead to an aristocracy—these are superior talents, fortunes, and public employments. But in free governments, the influence of the two former is resisted by the equality of the laws, and the latter by the frequency of elections, and the chance that every one has in sharing in public business; but when this natural and artificial eminence is assisted by principles interwoven in this government—when the senate, so important a branch of the legislature, is so far removed from the people, as to have little or no connexion with them; when their duration in office is such as to have the resemblance to perpetuity, when they are connected with the executive, by the appointment of all officers, and also, to become a judiciary for the trial of officers of their own appointments: added to all this, when none but men of opulence will hold a seat, what is there left to resist and repel this host of influence and power. Will the feeble efforts of the house of representatives, in whom your security ought to subsist, consisting of about seventy-three, be able to hold the balance against them, when, from the fewness of the number in this house, the senate will have in their power to poison even a majority of that body by douceurs of office for themselves or friends. From causes like this both Montesquieu and Hume have predicted the decline of the British government into that of an absolute one; but the liberties of this country, it is probable if this system is adopted, will be strangled in their birth; for whenever the executive and senate can destroy the independence of the majority in the house of representatives then where is your security?—They are so intimately connected, that their interests will be one and the same; and will the slow increase of numbers be able to afford a repelling principle? but you are told to adopt this government first, and you will always be able to alter it afterwards; this would be first submitting to be slaves and then taking care of your liberty; and when your chains are on, then to act like freemen."

It is such warning signs that the generation of the Revolution and the Constitution remembered the excesses of other government types and warned about the abuses that even a republican government can slide into over time. Where is the security in a Senate that proposes in changing the ability of the Nation to have Sovereign Laws and National Sovereignty that must be respected first, and above all, so that the People may feel secure in the Nation? Suddenly bringing an immigrant class in that has demonstrably respected neither the Law nor the Sovereignty of the Nation and doing so with cooperation of the President is a major worry as only the 'feeble house' remains to safeguard liberty in its few numbers. And those few are from positions of power where their districts do not change in alignment very often and the actual Will of the People is no longer clearly heard because of the watering down of clarity from smaller populations against the 'mass movement' concept that the current set House size encourages.

That is, apparently, the state of the Republic of the United States of America today.

Taxes by Congress to pay for all sorts of 'public goods' and yet do the public little good in the long run. And such taxes get made more complicated, year on year, until no one can understand them and the 'progressive' concept is so undermined that most corporate income and that of the wealthiest do *not* get taxed. That has some benefit to the Union, still, but it is one of being dependent *upon* the wealthy to fund the Nation and not upon the People to shoulder that burden.

A Senate that has lost all connection with common Americans that it no longer governs by a best outlook for Americans, but only for themselves and their parties.

A House that does not swell to meet the growth of the Nation so as to reflect its communities. Instead the two parties have so ingrained themselves that they now change districts to reflect the parties and NOT the parties to reflect the districts. By doing so they become as fossilized as the Senate as Rep. Murtha put forth in his outlook of being in the House for at least 20 more years way back when in 1980. It now has equal 'perpetuity of rule' as the Senate does.

Finally there is the term limited President, who need not even try to run for re-election and now spends more time trying to find a 'legacy' and looking overseas to dictatorships to try and appease them so as to get such a 'legacy'. Such legacies of that, however, tend to be ones in which World War results, at worse, or in which those dictators remain unopposed by anyone and are able to gull the next President by sweet words of: 'if you give me just a little bit more...' Such are the 'legacies' of North Korea, Syria, Libya, Iran.

These are the signs, not of a healthy democracy or functioning Republic. That first generation that put criticism against the US Constitution clearly stated what the problems with it were and are, to this day, and what the repercussions of giving too much to central government would be. They saw things like: Monarchy, Despotism and Tyranny as the result. The winds of what used to be just partisanship have turned cold and ugly this past decade, and the outlook by those in office today is that they are after pure power as they have shut out the voices of the People in the Nation in their representative government. While previous generations have, indeed, heard partisan attacks, the vitriol and vehemence of the stultified two party system is one that no longer aims at 'common assent', but at turning out a 'committed base' and so stifling debate as to disenfranchise the rest of the People by attacking common ideals of self-governance and accountability. One law for the ruling and favored, another for the 'common man'.

And if you don't like what government does, then that is just too bad. If you *criticize* government, then those same partisan supporters and 'committed base' attack such individuals on a personal basis, not on the substance of those criticisms which are not meant as attacks. That is what is now seen by those trying to support the concept of having a Nation State as the prime and, indeed, ONLY way of securing freedom and liberty. By polarizing all issues to politics, there is no commonality left for common agreement, common consent, common government and support for the Nation by All of the People.

Keeping a Republic healthy requires eternal vigilance against the depredations of those seeking to secure power for themselves and do more than just 'govern'. That is why those seeking to put forth that Congress has powers it does not have, that breaking the agreements on actually enforcing the law and securing the Nation, and those that wish to see the Nation fail at all it does are not seeking human freedom nor liberty. The end result of those things is Tyranny.

Or Empire.

Either is the end of the Republic of the United States of America.

And the weight of history is upon this generation as it is upon each generation since and including the Revolution. The Nation is being pushed towards a river and to change to meet the goals of incompetence and an elitist outlook on human freedom, one that is not set in anything solid and has no basis in fact. That river is not the Rio Grande.

But its looking a hell of a lot like the Rubicon.

The Modern Jacksonian - Chapter 6 - The Limits of Our Creation

Mankind and humanity are imperfect and those things we create for governance are likewise imperfect. By not being omniscient, all powerful and eternal, mankind creates things that are a bit longer lasting than individuals but as inherently flawed as those individuals who make them. Thus there are boundaries to these things in space and time that are definable as beginnings and limits of exercise while existing. One has liberty and freedom inside this Nation State known as the United States of America, but even here those have limits that we place upon such things. By common agreement we create laws that can satisfy most and let a daily life be led unhindered by government and oversight. As Free Individuals that is a right we have made within this thing known as the United States of America. Those rights have limits of accountability between and amongst us inside the Nation and the Nation, itself, has accountability to similar agreements known as Treaties between Nation States. We further put limits of accountability due to the lifespan of our being and our creations: in the first case the physical accountable end-points of our life as understood in common and that of companies or corporations or other non-physical entities made to sustain ideas and outlook that we, as individuals, create.

As we have failed from the Founding of this Nation to achieve perfection, so we are enjoined to seek the 'more perfect Union' amongst ourselves and understand that differences need to be worked out amongst individuals until common understanding is achieved. This requires that as those self same individuals we will have different outlook on morals and ethics from others, and that those outlooks may not be compatible with the wider society. This means that there is freedom to those differences and application and that individuals are held to the more common standard while being able to persuade others for these differences. This is a process we call 'Civilization'. This process of 'Civilization' breaks down when perfect limits are espoused to reach perfect goals and then impose those upon imperfect People. As the famous quip goes: 'We have the freedom to pursue happiness, but heaven help you if you *catch it*.'

Previous writings of mine have looked at these limits and I will attempt to summarize those viewpoints with some of the very basic limits that life and the unknown world impose upon us and some ways to go forward so as to strive to be 'more perfect' and persuade others in the Union that coming to terms and being 'more perfect' in that Union is better than where we are now. This requires that the dichotomy of Hegelian viewpoint be recognized as limited in scope and outlook and that there are far more than 'two sides' to any argument. By settling into Marxist based logic and reasoning the limits of it have been taken up by those who take sides in said arguments. This outlook adheres to no side, but towards some form of reasonable outlook that has basis in our common understanding of ourselves, our creations, and our limits. Such outlooks can fail, but then the process is to step up and find something 'more perfect' or to step back and say 'what the hell is wrong with this?'

Thus, to anger the most possible at one time that is what I will set out to do and describe the limits of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the cost in liberty, life and happiness if we seek the perfect *now*. I do not eschew perfect goals, but I do eschew reaching them in the near future without building up the society and agreement necessary to sustain them. That is the work we set ourselves as Citizens and those who fall under We the People. This is done in conjunction with the actual responsibilities that have been set out to us as Individuals.

The thing people have been looking for to try and find what the actual responsibilities of individuals *are* in this Nation State called the United States of America is the very first sentence of that untitled document called the Constitution. That is one set of picky folks that have to actually name what a document is in the opening sentence and *not* put a title on the damned thing! And for good reason, as it is ONLY the Constitution once We the People set out what we are going to do. That Preamble to the Constitution describes not what we hand to government to do, but what We the People do in forming government. We take responsibility to have government do these following things and then put limits on that government even before it is constituted so that We have absolute responsibility for its actions. That is what it means to be Free in this Nation State that is called the United States of America. In decrying poor governing and lack of good governance by the people chosen, it is also recognized that it is We the People who have chosen poorly in finding these representatives for us in government. Yes, the majority of people who go into a voting booth make bad decisions! Pretty hard to quibble with that as Congress, in particular, has been derided as: lackluster, lazy, obstinate, moronic, corrupt and defeatist. And that doesn't even get us to 1876! Really, more humorists and editorial cartoons of that first century need to be reprinted and understood: the inability of Individuals to choose good representatives is manifest. The ultimate responsibility for that entire lineage of poor choices, poor decision making, poor outlook, and poor law making rests wholly and completely upon those mentioned in the first sentence of the Constitution. The individual who stares back at you every morning in mirror reflection: you.

With that as a given and that our ability as a People to pick good government is piss poor, we must rely upon the actual structure of the Constitution to uphold our rights and liberties, even when imbeciles are put in charge of law making, law enactment, law enforcement and law adjudication. Then you get a jury of your peers who are *just* as imbecilic as each of *us* are for choosing such poor Individuals for government. What We the People do, however, is place our reliance on this system known as 'Due Process of Law'. That is the actual set of evidence gathered, sorting of facts and fiction and then presuming innocence and having to prove guilt before coming to some Just conclusion. Through all of that innocents still get put on death row or given otherwise lengthy sentences for circumstantial evidence. That is a direct and harsh reflection of *ourselves* mirrored in society: this is a system that needs to be 'more perfect' but is imperfectable at its origin because We the People made it.

Imagine a Nation Founded on red tape!

That is the United States of America.

This process actually does come to more or less Just ends as witness the low number of innocents who are proven out to *be* innocent after conviction. As our means to improve how we analyze evidence increases, the ability to re-examine cases and open up doubt increase, but so does our ability to utilize such tools and methods to remove doubt likewise open up. Just ends, then, become 'more perfect' over time but are, still, inherently imperfectable due to our limitations as Individuals being merely human and mortal. Flip that lens around to the other end of things and we get this lovely debate, or is it stalemate, of opinions on this thing known as 'abortion'. On the one side we get the 'pro-choice' freedom loving folks who point out that Individuals already born have their full Constitutional rights and the other 'pro-life' side pointing out that it looks pretty damned human and is human. Two glaciers meeting have never exerted so much pressure against each other and gotten to so little end than this 'debate' between positions in this lovely little fiasco. At this point it looks like the 'two sides' now expend money on just the debate continuing than in actually doing this thing known as examining the issue and reconciling things so that something a bit better comes from it. Can such a solution be found that lets both sides 'win' but still gets society some 'domestic Tranquility'? Well, not if you only listen and don't think a bit.

In the wilderness if you stop to 'think your way out of the wilderness' you end up staying in one place, doing nothing, while the daylight flees and things get chilly and you get cold and starve even faster. That is exactly where this bi-polar abortion disorder is in the body politic: wanting a 'perfect solution'. So sorry, this is the land of 'Due Process', imperfect law and We the People held accountable to things. You can't actually reach perfection and arguing about reaching either perfection ends up with much heat and little light happening and you sitting right there in the wilderness cold, chilly and darkness descending upon you. That said a less-than perfect, less-than pleasing and yet fully upholdable 'Due Process' direction can be found that pleases no one, exactly, but might get some of this 'domestic Tranquility' back while we seek 'a more perfect Union'. Seems the two sides forgot those things some time ago...

In looking at Freedoms, Rights and the People I started looking at the actual framework of the issues involved and then a whole lot more in When do your rights start? Now in this I do *not* try to figure out when someone is or is not a human but *when* there is a passing point *into* Citizenship. Now why did I do that? Because it is imperfect, of course! Far, far less than ideal but... it does head towards the common ideal of Citizenship and upholding all rights and all responsibilities. Citizenship is a damned important thing in this Nation and the Supreme Court has created a two-tier system of 'Due Process' that actually violates the outlook of the Constitution for one form of justice for All of the People. Here is what it boils down to:

1) The SCOTUS has put a 'viability test' on when an abortion may be performed,
2) What does 'viability' measure? It measures the ability to be sustained outside of the mother or host.
3) What happens when an Individual is outside the mother or host and sustainable? They are 'born'.
4) Being born of Citizens of the United States within a State of the United States or within limits set externally by Congress for such things under its Immigration and Naturalization powers makes one a Citizen.

Short, sweet and to the point: viability is a measure of Citizenship.

Yes, very reductio ad absurdum and all of that, but it does point out the thing about working with imperfect law: one can use its imperfection to achieve things that locking horns forevermore will not do. And in this extremely imperfect ruling the SCOTUS has now set up a 'two tier' system upon fetuses based on positional sustainability outside the mother or host. If a fetus is born prematurely, it gets full Citizenship Rights and coverage. At that exact same gestation point for another fetus going through normal gestation that is NOT the case. Say, that just can't be right, can it? Imperfect law, imperfect ruling leading to a non-Due Process procedure for Equal Protection. Pure idiocy, when you come right down to it. If a 'viability' test is put in place then the requirement, since it is viability to become a Citizen is being measured, then ALL such fetuses at that same point in gestation should get Equal Coverage and Due Process under the Law.

Painful, isn't it?

Enacting State-based legislation on that would *then* require *proof* that a fetus was not in the viability stage and appropriate developmental buffer zone to afford protections to unequal development due to circumstances beyond control of mother or fetus. Under this regime one can, indeed, get an abortion, but only with *proof* that the fetus was not in the gestational viability period. What that then requires is *record keeping* of sexual activity! Yes, more Red Tape! Sworn affidavits, medical exam and post-abortion exam to determine status would then be *required* so that anyone that LIES about their history in this regard can be prosecuted for murder. On the other side society, at that point in time, must afford full minor citizenship rights to such children who are gestating normally and ensure that these new Citizens are properly tracked and accounted for until their full 'birth date' or emergence from the mother or host. This infringes upon no existing set of Rights and applies responsibility to sexual activity because of its paramount importance to Citizenship. And various doctors can be appointed by the State to perform dual exams upon an individual that did NOT keep such records, and then they would attest to gestational period and abortion made available for the non-viable fetus.

This provides full rights to the unborn at the point of viability. Anything *else* then gets one looking at 'when does life begin' which really isn't a question society is set up to deal with. What society *is* set up to deal with is when an individual becomes a Citizen, so using that is not only perfectly reasonable, but then sets new standards of conduct and accountability for sexually mature individuals. That knife cuts across *both sides* of the debate as it is neutral to the debate and looks to uphold society and *not* find some sort of perfect solution. Totalitarian governments are very good at perfect solutions and their eponymous 'Final Solution'. Really, if life 'begins at conception' then it is not the abortion clinics that are mass murder facilities but In Vitro Fertilization clinics that have large numbers of fertilized eggs from generally infertile couples that need to destroy such after a period of time as they become non-viable for *anything* after a couple of years in the deep freeze. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of fertilized eggs are destroyed via that route and yet I see very little protesting around those places for doing so. Somehow that 'perfect' viewpoint needs to be adjusted to the actual, real world of a common society held by the overwhelming majority of Citizens.

What can be done, however, is to find better ways to sustain premature infants, identify better ways to identify developmental stages of gestating fetuses, and afford a bit better help to expectant mothers or hosts so as to get children that are better cared for, generally healthy and, perhaps, have some early intervention for treatment of genetic illnesses and deformities. If all the money that had been funneled into this glacially locked 'debate' had been put to something *useful* for the commonly held public society, then we might have fewer premature births, a better understanding of genetic disease and pre-born deformities and actually hold life to be a bit more sacred than we do now as an entire society.

So with that it is now time to anger other vast swaths of the Public!

To do *that* I will look at this idea of the Nation State as a container for internal systems, for its own people, and its external accountability to other Nation States via diplomacy and warfare. With this the Left and the Right serve as equally good targets in their strange views on Human Rights, Human Liberty, and the Sovereignty of the Nation State. Of course these are all imperfect constructs made and developed by the hand of man, but they work better than anything else that has ever been put forth. So it is time for the wild joyride of giving equal affront to all sorts of strange sensibilities so that we can come to understand what it means to *have* a Nation State. And here there are, indeed, limits on the Nation State both in time and in spacial coordinates that are referenced to the center of mass of Rock 3 from the Star Sol, named Earth by its more or less sentient inhabitants. As I looked at this before in Where exactly are your rights?, this entire Nation State limits concept does have actual hard and fast limits upon it in the physical way, not the grandiose forms that so many try to put this in.

Simply put the territorial limits, with more or less agreed-upon extensions for 'territorial waters' and Extra-Territorial Enclaves (aka. Embassies) use those outline limits and then extend those downwards towards the center of mass of the planet. Thus these planes extend upward in radiating fashion until they hit the surface and then extend out to the limits of the atmosphere where they end. Nation States have: top, bottom and sides and are a 'container'. While these are mental constructs, they are also the agreed-upon constructs that serve as limitation boundaries for Peoples and are agreed by their governments as actual things to be respected. This sort of thing has been going on for awhile, but got codified a bit better after the 30 years war ended in 1648 and the Peace of Westphalia established the Nation State as separate entity from the Roman Catholic Church. The religious implications of that I went over on Keeping faith so that faith may be kept, but the upshot of *that* is that Nations may have National religious outlook but *must* afford Individuals the Right to freedom of worship of their religion of choice. This is what I would term: A Conservative Value Engendered By The Judeo-Christian Ethos. It shortens down to: keep your nosy Government out of my religious outlook. I particularly like that as it does, indeed, create Freedom and Liberty, while all these other splendid ideas for what a Nation should do with respect to religion do not.

With that splendid concept fought over with millions dead to it, developed the bloody history of Nation States which were incrementally less bad than the religious wars before them. As Nations began to realize that they couldn't look to the Church for what to do in the affairs of their Nation, particularly if the leadership changed religious affiliation, the movement of politics to a lower level happened. Instead of the Pontiff and Cardinals and Archbishops and such, it was all put on Emperors, Kings, Princes, Dukes and the such like to figure it out for themselves. File this under in the drawer labeled: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. These various secular authorities were soon learning the ropes and instigating more hatred that would now be based on National outlook and the People in their Nation and *not* upon religion, by and large, although there are folks trying to drag the whole kit 'n caboodle back to the pre-17th century and get those lovely 20% death tolls of then on a global basis. By the efforts of 'Good Christian Leaders' who were often none of those things, this idea of 'Diplomacy' and 'Treaties' evolved to fit the Nation State framework in which Nations did this strange thing of *not* going to a religious or clerical authority to hand down edicts on Nations, but held each other accountable as Nations directly! Soon mere squabbles that an ex-communication or three could have handled and started up a long lasting religious war that would go on for decades now boiled down to an immediate conflict that might just last mere years and see an exchange in provinces or movement of border or some such.

This is known as: Progress.

With that the territorial limits of Nation States were slowly brought into being and they *evolved* as wars changed things, Peoples moved around and mere ethnic conflicts rose to that of National status. And some of those did, in actuality, come to some settlement, while others have festered on for more than a few centuries and some date back 6,000 years or so, particularly in Asia. Ask Koreans of their opinion of Chinese, Chinese their opinion of Vietnamese and then go in reverse order and you will get families citing oral and written history going back that far to show who was right and who was wrong and why the squabbles continue unabated along with hard feelings. Makes the folks in the Balkans 'Johnny-come-latelies' in this sort of thing, really. While parts of Africa, particularly in the Ethiopia region, also have similar long-lasting ethnic outlook and strife. By offering order and regularity to such squabbles, Nation States afforded separateness of governance and outlook which would entrench some of these things and dislodge others. This arrangement was extended via Treaty to include things that Nations held each other accountable for on the High Seas, which never stopped those that disagreed with them. Still doesn't as that is not possible in the container system of Nation States.

What is important, however, is that *inside* the Nation State government type was no longer dependent upon outside forces, by and large. Peoples inside Nations had separate outlook from their neighbors and could institute any sort of government they could put up with. Often that was Despotic, Tyrannical, Authoritarian, or Strongman Rule. Still they were *our* despots, not *yours* and *yours* were far worse than *ours*. Those Nations that did *not* provide freedom of religious worship to its People, however, were seen as truly Barbaric. But you can't do much about that to make them hold to being a Nation State, externally, while internal to the Nation State system the entire idea of 'Nation' started to change. Individuals within Nations came to the realization that no matter who the Leader was, it was the common folks who got the dirty end of the stick and that needed to change. In fits and starts the pry bar of lesser authorities with internal power began to wedge some openings into what was and was not acceptable in the way of internal rule and order. In most of southern Europe this would take awhile, but in the northern climes this would leapfrog all over the place because of their Peoples.

Although Greece is pointed to as the sole birthplace of democracy, the folks way up north had their own kind that was not derived from Greek outlook and principles. Theirs was more based on the community level having Leaders that do this thing known as 'lead' and are 'held accountable' for their leading. Many of the Kings of those northern Nations understood, often fatally, that their power did *not* extend beyond the consent of the governed. The basis for Leading was by common assent and when that got lost, so did one's power if not one's life. This was a direct 'clash of civilizations' that grew out of the end of the Roman Empire and Nordic folks, generically, going all over the place in search of trade and, when folks didn't want to trade, simply taking what they wanted from those pesky foreigners. Back home, however, the ruling of the Thing for the village and then on upwards to the larger Thing for what would be Nations, led towards accountable internal rule. One of the worst punishments was not immediate death, nor the grisly things they did to foreigners, but was simply to expel an individual and let them know there was a price on their head *inside* town and later Nation. The price was on the head, not the rest of the body.

This set of ideas would suffuse outwards into the Germanies, British Isles, Northern France and other places less hospitable to chilly climates. In England, generically, and the Scots and Irish this would cross with standard clan based laws and meld into a form of Common Law to which All are held accountable. While still ruled upon locally, the idea passed upwards into the Nobility that extending voice to the peasantry was necessary as revolts were often putting Nobles lives at danger. That basic trust that the Leader would look out for the safety of the People and be held accountable to them mixed with the southerly forms of democracy to amalgamate into something new: democracy with Common Law holding All accountable. This developed within the framework concept of Nation States to become modern democracy in its varied forms we now see today. Unlike religious totalitarian concepts of warfare, National warfare allowed for ideas to shift and be tested upon unwilling subjects who would then either change and accept them or revolt against them. Warfare and Peoples shifting slowly over time set up Nation States to test out new ideas of government of which one was democracy. And the only place that democracy can take place and still *have* accountability by accepted National governments is within the Nation State itself. Outside placement of rule has often been seen as Imperialistic, Tyrannical and Overbearing for all the fact it opens up new avenues of insight. Larger organizations than local Nation State governments have proven not to work and have been discarded as Authoritarian and Tyrannical in outlook and scope as there is no accountability process to keep it in check. If you can't lawfully place a price on someone's head for breaking the Commonality of Law, then you have rule of the Tyrant not of the Law.

Sacrosanct to National rule is National Sovereignty in which the Nation acts as Sovereign actor for the Peoples of the Nation. This, too, is a check against unaccountable rule and has often led to warfare or revolutions when the Sovereignty is broken either externally or internally. The basis of accountability of Nations to each other is the direct correspondent of the accountability of Leaders to the People and their Law. This is a prime area for concern as many Individuals no longer wish to recognize the Sovereignty of Nation States and, thusly, do not realize that this system offers both protection and accountability that higher forms of governance do not have. The latest going over was in International lawlessness begins at home with you, which slowly boils down from the equivalence of accountability of Treaties all the way to that of agreements between Individuals as friends. The way the People of the United States set out to ensure that this Sovereignty was not abused nor diluted, was to make accountable government inside the Union at the Federal level, through checks and balances, and then to put superior checks and balances out to the States and the People to recall those that did not act in accordance with the wishes of the People. Final and absolute authority on all things rests with the Will of the People, and government may not choose to give powers granted to them to any other body or institution. Federal government was made as the Highest Accountable Power in the Nation and there are None higher than that. And as friends keep and abide by agreements with other friends, so it is expected that very same thing to happen between Our Government and that of other Nations. And when friends let us down we like to know *why* and that is part and parcel of International Relations and Reciprocity between Nation States: explain why agreements are violated and be held accountable to their activities.

Up to the era of WWI this was the commonly acknowledged and understood view of where Rights were afforded (within Nations), what could be afforded for foreigners (by Treaty and internal outlook), and what was necessary to keep the system going (abide by Treaties and be held accountable for actions that violated them). And even in later times, all concepts of Universal Human Rights are stated and understood to adhere to just this conception with *no* higher authority power than the Nation State. And so the crux of those wishing to support an ideal of 'Universal Human Rights' come smack dab into the fact that no power will enforce such rights nor be held accountable to People. That is because the Rights are *not* handed down from Government but are a realization by Individuals that they are Free. That is what the United States is based upon and the statements for that Universality is a recognition that Peoples must find it within themselves to adhere to themselves as Free People and make Government accountable to them. This is horrifically at odds with those who want to destroy Nation States using the Universality of Human Rights as a reason to dis-establish the Nation State and the framework of Nation States.

In 1917 the President of the United States did *not* ask for Declaration of War against all those Powers arrayed against the Allies, but was particular and choosy in that. Even though it is common to treat Allied Nations that have gone to War as one entity for being held accountable, President Wilson did not do that much to the vexation of Congress and the Allies. Many in Congress, including ex-President Teddy Roosevelt, had pleaded with Wilson to ask for full Declaration of the Powers that were arrayed to Germany. Instead a different view on warfare was put forth by the President who ran on an Isolationist platform. The warnings by Congress, including ex-President Roosevelt were not heeded: that by not taking full part in the War the US would be unable to affect the Peace outcome. The idea of what the Union was, in that era, was being radically altered from 1909-19 and the decision by President Wilson to not ask for War against the Ottoman Empire was one that would change the character of outlook by the United States on Foreign Policy and on its outlook on what Freedom and Liberty *are*. That policy was two-fold and each of those have morphed over time into undemocratic outlooks that threaten the survival of the Nation State and democracy. The first idea is that Trade trumped Warfare and that Trade would change the Middle East for the better. The second was that International Institutions could provide a pathway to Peace between Nations. President Wilson's firmer outlook on ethnically aligning Nation States in the Middle East to their Peoples was not taken seriously as the US had not been a full partner in the War and the fully victorious powers did not set much of a place at the adult table for partners that did not act like responsible adults. From these three things there would be hell to pay in the ensuing decades.

Previously I have gone over these forms in distributed articles as they engender three major outlooks derived from these ideals of an Isolationist President. The easiest is Transnational Progressivism, which is the malignant outgrowth of international ideals gone awry with Tyrants and Despots getting equal say at international meetings to that of democracies. I went over it as part of the stumbling blocks in the Peace in the Middle East - The Checklist article, and further reading on by John Fonte on the subject can be found here and here. The basic outline of Transnational Progressivism have been fairly outlined and are as follows:

Groups are what matter, not people. You are "Black" or "Christian" or "Mexican" or "Afghan" or "Sunni", you are not yourself. You also don't get to choose your group; it's inherent in what you were when you were born. Someone else will categorize you into your group, and you will become a number, a body to count to decide how important that group is. And your group won't change during your lifetime.

The goal of fairness is equality of result, not equality of opportunity. It isn't important to let individuals fulfill their potential and express their dreams, what's important is to make groups have power and representation in all things proportional to their numbers in the population. Fairness is for groups, not for individuals. The ideally fair system is based on quotas, not on merit, because that permits proper precise allocation of results.

Being a victim is politically significant. It's not merely a plea for help or something to be pitied; it's actually a status that grants extra political power. "Victimhood" isn't a cult, it's a valid political evaluation. Groups which are victims should be granted disproportionately more influence and representation, at the expense of the historic "dominant" culture.

Assimilation is evil. Immigrants must remain what they were before they arrived here, and should be treated that way. Our system must adapt to them, rather than expecting them to adapt to us (even if they want to). The migration of people across national borders is a way to ultimately erase the significance of those borders by diluting national identity in the destination country.

An ideal democracy is a coalition where political power is allocated among groups in proportion to their numbers. It has nothing to do with voting or with individual citizens expressing opinions, and in fact it doesn't require elections at all. A "winner take all" system, or one ruled by a majority, is profoundly repugnant because it disenfranchise minority groups of all kinds and deprives them of their proper share of power.

National identity is evil. We should try to think of ourselves as citizens of the world, not as citizens of the nations in which we live, and we should try to minimize the effects of national interests, especially our own if we live in powerful nations.

These are the fundamental points of the world view of Transnational Progressivism and they formulate a top-down, elite ruled and anti-democratic viewpoint on the world. The goal is to remove the Nation State as a separate identifier and discriminator and remove Sovereignty from Nations and invest it in a Higher Authority above Nations. This is a direct descendant of President Wilson's ideas for a League of Nations and UN, but taken to the point where the actual internal governance type of a Nation no longer matters and power derives from governmental authority and not from the People. This is turning the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution on their heads if not scrapping them entirely as governing concepts amongst the affairs of mankind. Some of these derive from International Socialism and Communism, like the equality of result in all things, while many are wholly made up of a 'One World' ideal that has no basis in outlook of governments. Through the use of group-affiliation, the power of Individuals is *removed* as a concept in which power derives from the governed. By seeking to make international institutions as a legitimate way to handle Nation to Nation problems, the Wilsonian ideal has slowly morphed to those purporting that it is the ONLY way for legitimacy of handling problems and that Reciprocity and Accountability of Nation TO Nation no longer applies.

One of the most destructive manifestations of this has been the 'Sanctuary' movements of cities and municipalities actually no longer adhering to the Laws of the Land in the US and not enforcing the commonality of that law. In my article on this, Sanctuary Cities and Secession from the Union, I point out that each of the major powers function Articles of the Constitution are being broken by these municipalities and that in previous generations this was known as: secession. San Francisco has come the closest to actually stating this via its elected officials, and the point being driven home is that there is no respect for the commonality of law nor adherence to it nor to respecting the Sovereignty of the Nation and its agreed upon structure in the Constitution. Citing the 'Universal Rights' concept does no good whatsoever, as I examined in the framework of Treaties between Nations in Terrorist breaking with civilization. Terrorism is a case on this, but they have also broken the general 'Universal Human Rights' concept by not adhering to its Nation State basis and that is exactly what individuals entering the Nation illegally are doing. Those that give aid and succor and jobs to such are eroding the Union and working against the foundations of Due Process of Law. In the end the Rights problem is not in illegals getting rights but in the Rights of the Citizens to have a Sovereign Nation be lost and the Nation right along with it.

Transnational Terrorists are a second outgrowth of the Wilsonian misaligned views, and this comes from the negative of not having more ethnically aligned States in the Middle East post-WWI and the utilization of Transnational Progressivist ideology in words, but with a view towards a different ruling Elite. They are further supported by the Transnational Capitalists, described later, and the abundance of unaccountable weapons for trade and sale globally at cheap cost. The view of al Qaeda in its doctrinal outlook is to exploit the Transnational weakening of the Nation State to start breaking Nation States down with warfare and civil unrest. Their document is The Management of Savagery, which I give overview of here. Lee Harris previously gave insight to al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology which, in outlook if not in form, drives many terrorist groups globally not just the Islamic Radicalist types.

The generalized outlook is to assert Islam as an overarching view and utilize ethnic and other differences within Nations so as to fracture Nations and allow for those parts more aligned to al Qaeda to be subverted. Once done the exploited people and their territory serve as a basis for enlarged attacks outwards, spreading religion and ideology with an aim towards a Global Islamic State. While there are many fantastical views within that outlook, and it has sustainability problems, what it does do is cause further terror and death that spreads each time it is not confronted. While being a tiny minority within Islam, this ideology serves as a basis for subverting much of the rest of Islam and installing Dictatorship over those areas that succumb to it. That is the direct and stated goal of al Qaeda: use ethnic tensions to empower specific groups, subvert those groups when they win, expand attacks against Nation States and continue this process until all Nation States have given up or been so heavily fractured that they can no longer resist the forces of Islam becoming united under al Qaeda. Iran is also looking to do something very similar to this, and the disagreements are more along the line of final Leadership basis and Religious control. Communists and Capitalists that utilize terrorism are just as amenable to that basic formula, although offering different Totalitarian end States.

The third part of this is the Transnational Capitalist. Here John Fonte has offered this article: American Conservativism Meets Globalization: The Challenges from the Transnational Left and Transnational Right. In that he looks at the destructive views of Transnationalism utilized by Capitalists to seek out illegal aliens for labor. With this he gives view on three main areas: "(1) global migration or immigration, (2) global trade, and (3) regionalization, specifically North American integration". I find it interesting that he reiterates the concept that is most misaligned in his look at the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill from last year and the support it garnered from the Wall Street Journal, which he quotes from as follows:

"Our own view is that a philosophy of 'free markets and free people' includes flexible labor markets. At a fundamental level, this is a matter of freedom and human dignity. These migrants are freely contracting their labor, which is a basic human right."

This is very close to what so many on the Capitalist Right have been purporting for years if not decades at this point although they go a bit beyond that to purport that 'free markets make people free'. He then goes on to rightly point out that contracting between Nations *must* use the Nation to Nation channels of established Treaty for the migration of individuals. My article on The 20% victory is something called defeat, looks into this on both sides of the political spectrum which has only two sides, a very strange idea for a 'spectrum', and point out that Man is not an 'economical unit' but a Human Being. As such the Rights of Man rely upon the enforceable framework of laws to ensure those rights. The #1 most basic *Right* is to associate in discriminatory ways so as to find people compatible with you. When you get a large number of them you form together to make something called: A Nation. By violating the Sovereignty of that Nation those within it have their Individuality diminished and the ability of that Nation to ensure Rights broken. Jeffersonians should look to the Declaration on that as the ability to gather together and form Nation is paramount to being a People even *before* religion. The ability to say who you will and will not associate with and have that respected is a fundamental basis for ANY Nation State. With this 'Right to Contract' deal International Law is then made by foreigners with companies and no longer by the Sovereign Nations involved. That means immigration policy is left up to Tyson's Food, Wal Mart, and various farmers using Federal funds to grow crops and then hire illegals to pick them. Who chose THEM to be the ones setting immigration policy for the Nation?

Transnational Capitalists also seek regulation of trade between Nations via unaccountable international bodies, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO, however, is not limited to Nation States to hear complaints about Nations and is open to a wide gamut of Non-Governmental Organizations, many of them on the environmental and Progressivist side of things, working to further destabilize the legitimacy of Nation to Nation reciprocity without interference from non-Nation State actors. It is this gamut of 'social activism', 'environmental activism' and non-accountable ruling body attached to the WTO that makes it dangerous to National outlook on what is and is not acceptable or accountable trade between Nations. This is a Power only granted to the U. S. Congress by its People and only amenable to Treaties which are ruled upon by the Supreme Court. Those are the actual functions of those Federal powers and may not be delegated nor signed over to any other organization as they are a grant of Power from the People, not held by Government. Trade, in particular, is something that has been a place where Congress has its most power and the infringement of the regularization of Foreign Trade via Treaty is amenable only to ruling status in the U. S., not to a Foreign or Transnational hearing or court system.

With Transnationalism, as seen with the Progressivists, comes the de-linking of National Sovereignty from the People of a Nation. The Capitalist side also is seeking this via the system of Regionalization to break down border barriers and reduce the Sovereignty of Nations particularly in North America. Here the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America is cited by Mr. Fonte as troublesome in the extreme as its objectives are those to remove oversight of the movement of individuals across borders, change all security and customs regulations to one single set stretching from Mexico to Canada, 'formalize' the transnational labor force, and create institutions to "promote North American integration". Sounds very Leftist, and yet the current Administration has sent Cabinet level officers to this set of meetings: Condoleezza Rice, Carlos Gutierrez, Michael Chertoff. These meetings established the North American Competitiveness Council which is overseen *not* by a government body but the US Chamber of Commerce. Here, again, who elected the US Chamber of Commerce to set trade, immigration, naturalization and foreign policy for the Union in North America?

Finally this Transnational Capitalism, like its Progressivist counterparts, seeks to remove assimilation as the standard for Immigration and, indeed, remove any especial affinity for the Nation State by its People. The 'harmonizing' process is to change the cultures of all three Nations into one, single culture. Indeed, individuals who will *not* forswear their Mexican Citizenship are finding home inside America and even being elected to positions in government. This is something that is directly contrary to the Oath taken by an individual to become a Citizen and calls into question the allegiance and direction of such Individuals who have a goal of diluting culture and National Sovereignty as something that is openly stated. And that is, at bedrock, what makes a Nation State separate and different: the primary right of individuals to come together and form association that excludes others in the conception of Nation State. The US, Canada and Mexico are three different cultures at basis, with different histories and outlook, and yet the Transnational Capitalists wish to 'harmonize' culture so that there is no distinction IN culture in North America. That is a blatant attempt to remove that which makes the Nations separate and accountable entities and is a removal of special and separate histories of People to have and hold as their own.

Transnationalism is known by its older name, where the populace serves an Elite ruling class, and it does not matter if that class be Progressivist, Terrorist or Capitalist, the name remains just the same: Empire.

The Transnational ideology was born in the Middle East in 1917.

And the repercussions of it on Freedom and Liberty for all of Humanity now are felt with the cold breath of Empire wanting to rule over Mankind and not seek the consent of the Governed. No Empire ever formed has ruled with consent of the Governed and has always limited the rights of the population to what the ruling power thought it should be. This long and hard struggle to cooperative distinctiveness is to enrich all of mankind and respect differences so that we may have a plethora of outlooks to handle the future. It is not a perfect world that is made from that, but one that can be made 'more perfect' over time.

Do you remember earlier my outlook on other things, like abortion and such? How would you feel if you had no say in that as the 'harmonization process' would reflect that of how some committee viewed 'North American' ideal? How about school standards? Health care? Gun ownership? Drug use? Your ability to have someone local you can elect to a school board, instead of having a board appointed by an oversight body? How about your religion? Your freedom of speech? These are the things that need to be 'harmonized' across North America. And much, much more.

Transnationalism seeks utter perfection by removing what makes Peoples and Nations different and special.

And only Tyranny achieves that as a government type as it is perfectible.