Critical Race Theory II

 

I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

I wish I knew how
It would feel to be free
I wish I could break
All the chains holdin' me

You aren’t free until we all are free.

Chains bind not only the oppressed, but  the oppressor.  I am 70 years old.  I would like to consider myself well educated.  I have two degrees from Ivy League universities.  I have lived in Mansfield, Massachusetts since 1977.  My two sons graduated from Mansfield schools.  But I have just learned about Lord Mansfield and his decision on slavery in the Somerset decision and how that shaped the American Revolution.  And we don’t need to teach Critical Race Theory????

I was taught that the catch phrase of the American Revolution was “No Taxation Without Representation”.  That is only partly true.  The catch phrase in the southern colonies might just have well been “No End to Slavery Without Representation.”  In 1772, Lord Mansfield ruled  “no master ever was allowed here (England) to take a slave by force to be sold abroad " and thus James Somerset could not be forced to be returned to his “owner” who was a Boston customs official.  This did not end slavery in English colonies, but it frightened slave owners so much that they arguably joined the northern colonies not so much to oppose tax policies as to oppose this policy.   
 https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/slave_free.htm

If I am just learning this now, what else have I not been told?  IMHO, teaching Critical Race Theory is a not a bad thing.  It is a necessary thing.

Second Amendment II

 

Happiness is a Warm Gun

Happiness is a warm gun (bang, bang, shoot, shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun, momma (bang, bang, shoot, shoot)

Does a gun make you happy?

Judges are often derided by those on the right for concocting rights from the Constitution, which are not explicitly defined in the Constitution.  I am sure that the late Justice Scalia would have been their model for a proper Judge.  However in District of Columbia versus Heller, Justice Scalia wrote the opinion that stated that people had a undefined right, implied by the second amendment, of self defense.  The people’s right are defined in the First Amendment as. 

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

There is no right of self defense that is listed.

The second amendment reads.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The people’s rights are explicitly listed in the First and later amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights, but not in the Second Amendment.  You have to purposely ignore the phrase “a well regulated militia” to imply a people’s right.

Justice Scalia noted, and explicitly ignored, the phase a well regulated militia, ( e.g. a state’s National Guard) and said that there was a right to self defense implied by the right to keep and bear arms.

By the text of the Second Amendment, Congress shall not infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms for purposes of providing for a well-regulated militia.  Thus Congress or the states should be able to regulate arms not needed by that state’s militia.  Armed individuals that are NOT in a well-regulated militia are more properly vigilantes, and not necessarily well‑regulated vigilantes, whether acting singly or collectively.  There is no right in the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms except for a well-regulated militia.  If you are not a member of a state’s National Guard, and your own arms are not desired by that militia, National Guard, I see no right to keep or bear arms, for self defense or otherwise in that amendment. Justice Scalia wrote. 

“Private citizens have the right under the Second Amendment to possess an ordinary type of weapon and use it for lawful, historically established situations such as self-defense in a home, even when there is no relationship to a local militia.” 

Talk about an activist judge!

Abortion

 

People

People,
People who need people,
Are the luckiest people in the world

Are unborn fetuses people?

The sovereign in the United states is the People.  The People, and their representation, are enumerated in the decennial census.  People is NOT synonymous with voters.  The constitution infamously made it clear that enslaved persons are counted as 3/5 of a person, but were not allowed to vote. Eventually  slavery was prohibited. Women are counted as persons, but did receive the right to not vote until a constitutional amendment.  Children are counted, but are not allowed to vote.  The decennial census does not now, and never has, included unborn fetuses.  At least as far as the constitution is concerned, unborn fetuses appear not to be considered to be people.  This is an observation, not a moral judgment. It is understood that fetus are considered people by many, but according to the Census fetuses are not counted.  Children are counted after they are born but not before then.

If fetuses are not people, it is not clear that they have any standing for consideration of constitutional protection.  The Supreme Court has ruled that a fetus who is viable, that is could survive on their own or with medical intervention, is protected, but while fetuses can be protected, they appear not to be considered as people according to the US constitution and its census. (Again an observation, not a moral judgment).  It appears that a constitutional amendment, which would include enumerating unborn fetuses in the Census would be necessary to change this status.  As such it is not clear how women who do not know that they are pregnant, as in the recent Texas law, could answer that they have an unborn fetus to the US Census and thus it is not clear that those fetuses could ever be people as defined in the constitution.

Debt

 

Sixteen Tons

You load 16 tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt

St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

The battle over the national debt is also a  battle over the nation’s soul.

The US debt ceiling is being extended until December.  That the US budget has debt is neither good nor bad.  Charles Dickens in David Copperfield said

 “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds and six , result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”

but if those extra six pence were an investment in the future, say a college loan, a home mortgage or a car loan, that result would probably be happiness too, not misery.  While we may be in debt at a given point in time, that does not mean that we will always be in debt.  Under Republican Presidents the national debt has always increased.  Under Democratic Presidents the national debt has largely decreased.

Presidential Administration	Change in Deficit (Billions of USD)
Lydon Baines Johnson	-$8
Richard Nixon	+$9
Gerald Ford	+$48
Jimmy Carter	+$25
Ronald Reagan	+$74
George H. W. Bush	+$102
Bill Clinton	-$383
George W Bush	+$1,500
Barak Obama	-$735
Donald Trump	+3,000

Source: Boston Globe: Fast Forward Newsletter (Tuesday October 5, 2021)

Yes, the table above could be adjusted to account for inflation, but that will only change the magnitude of the numbers, not their sign.

Debt is the difference between revenue ( i.e Taxes) and spending.  If revenue is decreased (taxes are reduced), but spending stays the same or increases, then the debt increases.  All of those tax cuts do have a consequence.  Growth in the stock market only reflects  the growth of capital, not growth  of the economy.

Republican's problem over the debt is not on how big the debt is, because clearly Republicans appear to increase debt.  Their issue is over how much revenue there will be and what kind of spending there will be.  Republicans cleary want no revenue, i.e Taxes, and are at least honest about that or haven’t you been reading their lips or reading Tea Party screeds.  They also do not want the “wrong” kind of spending.  They have discovered that if there is no revenue, then there can be no spending, and if the debt is increased so much that all of the income will have to pay off the debt then there will be no “wrong” kind of spending.  If society can’t play their way, they are perfectly willing to smash all of the toys so we can't play with them either.  Wise up America and save our soul.  The argument is not over the size of the debt.  The argument is over taxes and the right kind of spending.

Political Parties

 

It’s My Party

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to
Cry if I want to
You would cry too, if it happened to you

Are political parties making us cry?

The founding fathers did not anticipate the formation of political parties.  If they had, the Electoral Crisis of 1800 would never have happened. This was an inadvertent tie between the Democrat candidate for president and  Democrat candidate  for vice president.  That led to the adoption of Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution which implicitly acknowledged the existence of political parties by separating the election of the president from the election of the vice president. 

Single member districts were also not a constitutional requirement.  The constitution required that votes in the House of Representatives should be apportioned by a decennial Census. More than one representative per state could was expected.  But the Constitution was silent on whether those representatives would be proportionally elected in a state (i.e. at large) or whether those representatives should be for specific districts within a state.  Single member districts were the result of Congressional apportionment act of 1842.

The result of single member districts and a plurality system is, according to Duverger’s Law, two political parties.  If the winner is determined by plurality, merging any political parties that did not receive  a plurality was proposed as inevitable.  Consequently there are two political parties in the United States, while there are more than two parties in proportional systems of representation,  e.g. parliamentary systems in Europe.

A consequence of a two-party system is that supermajority votes become a way for one of those two parties to block the actions of the other party if it is a minority, but not a super-minority.  Thus a supermajority action, such as advise and consent; ending debate and bringing a bill to a vote, popularly known as the filibuster; etc. can be blocked by the political party that is a minority.  If votes for a supermajority were secret, then retaliation against the “defectors” could not be enforced by that political party. Thus supermajority votes might then serve their intended purpose, to make sure that actions of a majority do not come at the expense of the minority.  Actions to block votes by a majority, by the party that is a minority, but not a superminority, are the current impasse.

Just as the framers of the Constitution did not anticipate the formation of political parties, Congress did not anticipate the consequences of single representative districts.  There is a good reason for a single representative for a district.  It ensures that the representative is closer to the people being represented.  However the consequence of this single representative  per district  system is to makes it possible for  the minority party to block all actions of the majority party,  unless that majority party is also a supermajority.  Rather than change the electoral system, require that all supermajority votes ( e.g. advise and consent, declarations of war, ending filibusters, etc.), be by a secret ballot. This would recognize that there are 50 States, 100 Senators, and currently 435 Representatives, and not just 2 political parties. A secret ballot in supermajority votes should serve to unite us, rather than divide us. Will that portion of the minority that is also a superminority object? Of course, but the alternative may be to allow simple majority action in all cases instead of requiring a supermajority.  Let’s not eliminate the protections against a tyranny of the majority because we don’t want  a tyranny of the minority.

Capitalism

 

Mary Poppins - Fidelity Fiduciary Bank

You can purchase first and second trust deeds
Think of the foreclosures!
Bonds, chattels, dividends, shares
Bankruptcies, debtor sales, opportunities
All manner of private enterprise

Are the interests of investors the interests of society?

In economics, a production equation that determines the quantity of goods from a seller/producer is often given as

quantity=function(capital, labor). 

For example, if a child sells lemonade from a stand, the production function might include the cost of pitcher, the cost of the lemons, and the cost of the labor.  The lemons are the raw materials in making lemonade and do vary with the amount sold, but the pitcher is only purchased once.  Thus capital is the investment in the pitcher, which is a one-time cost, and costs of the lemons, which is a variable cost . The investment in the pitcher should have a return on investment, ROI, but the lemons don’t require the same return on investment, (e.g.  if you sell less, buy fewer lemons). Additionally economists classify goods as private (exclusive and priced) and common/public (exclusive and non-priced) goods.  You can’t make lemonade without water, a common good. Therefore the expanded production function should be

quantity= function(investment, private goods, public goods, labor).

Producers/sellers want to maximize the amount that they produce,  since revenue is quantity sold times price, and thus they will receive  more revenue.  If they reduce the unit cost for labor, then then can produce more goods. But slavery is illegal and there are minimum wage, maximum hours and child labor laws.  If the labor is not supplied by the producer, then society has an interest in requiring that there is a reasonable cost for that labor, to protect itself, other producers, and those laborers.  Similarly the cost of using common goods are regulated/priced by society to ensure that these common goods are used responsibly.  Producers should not lower the price of private goods. There are anti-trust and anti-competitive laws to prevent producers from lowering the price of private goods for only themselves.  If there were no controls on private goods, public goods, and/or labor, or these controls are violated, then the Return On Investment, ROI, could be higher.

But this is only from the perspective of the investors.  Society can, and often does, ensure a reasonable ROI, e.g. for regulated utilities, but it also can not ignore protecting private goods, public/common goods, and labor.  Protecting only the interests of investors is not in society’s interest. Supply side stimulus is NOT ensuing a higher ROI on investment, e.g. by reducing taxes on investment.  That is only an investment stimulus and ignores the other components of supply. Capitalism is support for free markets.  Those free markets do NOT consist only of investors.

Voting Rights

 

19th Amendment

They thought we were a joke
They tried to dash our hopes
With every word they spoke
They tried to revoke
A woman’s right to vote
But we made it

Restricting anyone’s right to vote is no joke.

In Georgia, a driver’s license can be renewed by mail. In Texas, a driver’s license renewal form is mailed to every driver, even if that driver does not intend to renew his license.  In Florida, it is not illegal for someone else to mail that driver’s license renewal form.  In Alabama, a photo ID is required to buy alcohol but it does not require a special photo ID.

A driver’s license allows a person to use a deadly weapon (e.g. a vehicle weighing many hundreds of pounds, which travels at high speeds) but that driver is expected to act responsibly.  Alcohol can be purchased by adults because they are expected to consume responsibly.  Renewal of a driver’s license is often not confined to business hours in recognition that many people are working or otherwise occupied hours during the RMV/DMV office hours.  I have paid my local, state, and federal income taxes by mail for over 60 years, and in fact I don’t know if, or how, they can be paid in person.

And yet voting is considered such a dangerous activity that the right to vote is restricted.  Mailing ballots to those who are registered, but may not choose to vote, is often prohibited.  Handling a ballot of another, by mail or in election drop boxes, is restricted.  The ID to vote does not include many forms of photo IDs.

Let’s be honest.  Voter restriction laws are enacted because the people who vote by mail, vote not during poll booth hours, or don’t have the right kind of proof of ID, etc. are the “wrong” people. If only the “right” people were voting, these restrictions would not have been enacted.

If these same restrictions were put on driver’s or other government licenses, paying taxes, buying alcohol or tobacco, etc. they would be viewed as a joke and would not be even considered. Placing restrictions on the right to vote is no less of a joke,…. but it is a very poor joke.