The renewal of the USA Patriot Act, initiated by President George W. Bush within just six weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, would extend the greatest threat to the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution since World War II. On February 8, 2011, the House of Representatives unsuccessfully sought a further extension of the Act through the end of 2011, failing largely because Tea Party House support was not there. This surprised Republican Party leadership; avid supporters of the Act, but Tea Party Patriots are dedicated to the Constitution first. Without an extension, the Act is set to expire on February 28, 2011.
The Fourth Amendment reads, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
This was placed in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution because of the tendency of the British government to simply walk the streets arresting anyone who looked the least bit guilty of something, invade their premises, and draw up accusations based upon what they found. The Founders saw this as harassment and invasion of privacy and did not want our government empowered to do the same thing.
Among other things, the USA Patriot Act allows searches without notice to the suspect; grants roving wiretap warrants that allow government eavesdropping on any telephones used by suspects; and allows the interception of email. So much for the right to be secure in one’s “houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches.” All of this is Constitutionally permitted only with a search warrant that emanates only upon probable cause (a real definable reason). Reasonable is determined, not by the secret agent snooping through your papers or eavesdropping on your conversations, but upon probable cause determined by someone disassociated from the accusing party, a judge, who holds his position by his sworn oath to preserve the Constitution. Even then such a Warrant must describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. All of this must precede governments disturbing your house, papers, and effects.
The USA Patriot Act also allows investigators to obtain information from credit card companies, banks, libraries, and other businesses; authorizes the seizure of properties used to commit or facilitate terrorism; and allows the indefinite detention of non-citizens whom the “Attorney General believes may cause a terrorist act,” all clear and major violations of the Fourth Amendment. How could the Constitutional language “not be violated” be any stronger? The American Library Association objected and issued a statement that the Act “allows the government to secretly request and obtain library records for large numbers of individuals without any reason to believe they are involved in illegal activity (USA Patriot Act, Wikipedia).”
With the word terrorist poorly defined one wonders why the government was/is more interested in internal terrorists (fellow Americans) than external “terrorists” (foreigners). The same government appears unconcerned about our very porous southern border even knowing that many come across from terrorist countries—even Hezbollah (See “A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border,” House Committee on Homeland Security, 2006).
All of this initiated by a Republican President and approved by a Republican Congress with almost unanimous Democratic Party support, falls short of meeting even basic constitutional standards of due process and fairness, as it allows the Attorney General to detain persons based on mere suspicion (see USA Patriot Act, Wikipedia). Where were the Constitutionalists from either party? Certainly, the times were drastic and unusual but the urgency was over-stated and is now largely gone thus mere renewal is not the proper course. We have time and another chance to do this right without distorting the Constitution. Hopefully the Republicans who gave us the USA Patriot Act will join their Tea Party and Democratic Party colleagues on preserving the Constitution instead.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College.
We are presently over 14 trillion dollars in debt, three trillion of which was incurred the last two years under President Barack Obama. So what is a trillion dollars? Let me try to give some perspective. To begin with a trillion is the number 1 followed by twelve zeros. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion and a billion is a thousand million. This still means very little to my students who count their money in fives, tens and twenties.
One mathematician gave us a more practical way to evaluate our outstanding debt. One trillion one-dollar bills stacked atop each other (not end to end but flat) would reach nearly 68,000 miles into space—a third of the way to the moon. If so, the debt incurred under President Obama alone would take us to the moon. Moreover, if you like traveling atop this stack of ones, you could return to earth for yet another three trillion dollars which is six trillion dollars. You could repeat your visit to and from the moon for yet another six trillion, making 12 trillion total. We have two trillion in debt remaining, just enough to get us two-thirds of the way to the moon again (See CNN News Cast, Feb. 4, 2009).
Senator Mitch McConnell gave another illustration just as awe striking. He calculated that if we spent a million dollars every day since Jesus was born we still would not have spent a trillion dollars—only three-fourths of a trillion dollars. We would have 13 1/4 trillion left.
Someone else equated our national debt to seconds and concluded that a million seconds is about 11 ½ days and a billion seconds is about 32 years. A trillion seconds is about 32,000 years thus 14 trillion seconds is 448,000 years (See CNN News Cast, Feb. 4, 2009). This is not helpful and only makes my head spin. My Ph. D is not in math.
I ask my students, “Who gets to go without so that this debt can be paid?” Go without?” That is a concept foreign to this generation!! They do not know and neither do their parents and grandparents who laid it on their backs. When they are told that their immediate share of the debt is $127,529 (see USDebtClock.org) due immediately, they are angry. The 13th amendment ending slavery has been rescinded. The past generation wanted nice costly programs for free and were willing to sell their children in order to drive new Cadillac’s now. Well, the Cadillac’s are in the auto wrecking yards, Communist China owns a tenth of us and the bills are due. What is worse the older generation is still anxious to incur even more debt on our defenseless children and grandchildren. Are we the most debt addicted, insensitive generation in all human history?
But there is hope. When you go bankrupt in your personal life you are expected to sell everything that you own to get out of debt. The nation has one asset left that could probably vaporize this national debt and do so in one generation but I am reluctant to bring attention to it until we have learned the lesson that we cannot spend beyond our means without someone paying for it latter. Unfortunately, neither party is fully there yet. Sell government land. Most are surprised to learn that the federal government unconstitutionally owns a third of the landmass of the United States. The Constitution limits the amount of land that the federal government can have to 10 square miles for a capital and land acquired through the limits of the Constitution for military purposes.
Over the decades the federal government withheld the land that went with statehood in the West. New states were so anxious to gain statehood that they overlooked the omission. According to public land statistics Alaska owns only 1 ½ % of itself. Arizona 56% of itself, California 52 ½ % of itself, Idaho 36% of itself, Nevada, a mere 12% of itself, and Utah 36 ½ % of itself. We, of course, would have to restrict foreign countries and perhaps place a limit on individual takes, but the idea would be to spend every penny derived from the sales to liquidating our 14 trillion dollars of debt.
On September 19, 1796, just prior to leaving the presidency, President George Washington issued his famous Farewell Address. He said that he offered his advice as the “warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel.”
In his usual stately manner, as the father of this great nation, he warned posterity of possible pitfalls that could undermine or destroy liberty. His warnings may well be even timelier today as we commemorate his birthday.
In strong terms he cautioned us to avoid debt. He said: “As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit … use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense … [Use the] time of peace, to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.”
Today our national debt exceeds 14 trillion—the highest in our history—three trillion of which has come about in the last two years. This is about $127,700 for every taxpayer in America growing at $171 per week (See USDebtClock.org). The President’s 3.73 trillion dollar new budget, 2 trillion of which will be passed on to posterity, does not suggest that we are following this wisdom.
Washington pleaded with the nation to keep religion and morality strong. He said: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.… Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? … Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
The Founding Fathers never supported the notion of separation of religion and government—only the separation of an organization of religion from government. What would Washington say of the immorality that prevails today?
His warning about foreign aid was especially good. He basically told us that gift giving in foreign affairs is a good way to be universally hated. He said it placed us “in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more.” Today there is hardly a nation in the world, dictators and tyrants alike, that does not have its hand out, and when the amount is reduced or terminated we are hated all the more for it.
He warned against the origin of “combinations and associations” whose intent was to suppress the desires of the majority in favor of that of the minority. He called them artificial power factions. We call them special interest groups. Such factions, he said, “may answer popular ends and become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.…” The antidote for this, Washington explained, was “to resist with care the spirit of innovation” upon basic constitutional principles or premises no matter how flowery, appealing or “specious the pretext.”
Washington worried about posterity not holding their elected officials strictly to the limits imposed by the Constitution. He knew many would seek to undermine that document by twisting it to give power they could not acquire without the distortion. He said: “But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” Today much of what the federal government does is not even mentioned in the Constitution.
But patriots are not likely to be popular. “Real patriots,” he said, “who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.”
Our practices are largely the opposite of what George Washington advised. No wonder we have all the problems he predicted and are losing our freedom.
Almost all political pundits were amazed with the extent of the Republic Party victory in the midterm elections when sixty-three congressmen and six senators were replaced, making this election perhaps the biggest one-party swing in the House of Representatives since 1932. Certainly the republicans had not earned it. Their departure from constitutional limited government, the free market, and fiscal responsibility during the George W. Bush administration amplified in the Barack Obama administration, resulted in the Tea Party movement. Moreover, their endorsement of slow socialism, as opposed to fast socialism as espoused by most democrats, certainly did not endear the GOP to the majority of Americans who mostly wanted big government to just leave them alone.
The Tea Party movement was responsible. It moved the Republican Party closer to America’s core values (now those of the Tea Party), even causing them to pull the badly neglected Constitution out of their pockets (some few actually carried it with them to use as some kind of prop when needed) and open the previously unturned pages. That said, they actually read it in The House of Representatives and should be applauded for having done so. Those of the opposing party probably had to go online, or to a bookstore, to find a copy. We still await Senator Harry Reid to follow suit with a similar reading in the U. S. Senate. The democrats probably will not do so as many no longer even pretend to follow it. I hope that I have shamed both political parties with their measure of neglect of this document.
So what about the December political tsunami? The election gave the clearest rejection of the political direction that has been given in several decades. What should a congress do, realizing that they have proceeded down a path that so alarmed a majority of their fellow citizens? Let them slow down and walk away with some dignity! Instead, in total contempt of the American people, the 111 Congress accelerated their disregard for limited constitutional government, fiscal responsibility, and the free market. They were so “hell-bent” in the opposing direction it was as though there had been no election. With their “the sky is falling” type of legislation, the rejected party bulldozed forward. Americans were hit with at least seven major pieces of legislation that had to be approved within a month and before the new congress was seated, each of which should have had at least two months of hearings and serious debate before a vote. One party government still prevailed for another month, and “Yes We Can” was still their war cry.
Among them was a revision of food legislation, the new Food Safety Bill, in place since 1932, gave expanded power on domestic production to the Federal Government and cost an estimated 1.4 billion to implement. A new Nuclear Arms Treaty with Russia (START) in which Russia threatened lawmakers not to alter the treaty’s terms as they wouldn’t renegotiate if anything were changed. Why did we not wait for the new congress rather than let those removed from power in three weeks have final say? We cowered under Russia’s intimidation strategy, and both the President and Vice President went to the phones pushing for quick acceptance. Debate was limited. Yet another major change allowed gays to serve openly in the military.
Everything was placed on fast tract. Another major piece of legislation was The Dream Act, designed to assist young illegal immigrants in becoming citizens if they attended college or joined the military. It alone, of all the measures, failed. Then came the compromise extending both unemployment compensation for the nth time, at an estimated cost of $858 billion, and the Bush Tax Cuts. Finally, there was the bill funding the government, due early last fall but not legislated prior to the elections as the party in power did not want their fiscal irresponsibility “flash-lighted”—a mere 1.3 trillion dollar bill—laced with gobs of self-serving pork. The bill passed as is until March. Funding the government and the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts were the only two issues that needed fast track status. The new congress could do everything else.
This collection of sweeping laws, the most in a single month in my lifetime, is dubbed December’s Political Tsunami. The vast majority of which was at odds with the message of the mid-term voters: slow down, the sky is not falling, and more debt must cease to be the solution to every problem. So many changes in a mere 3 ½ weeks were head spinning.
Newsweek, November 22, 2010, featured an article “God of All Things,” with President Barack Obama shown with six hands handing out “presidential blessings” in all directions. The sub-title, “Why the Modern Presidency May Be Too Much for One Person to Handle.” The article goes on to quote a staff member who reported, “Some days around here, it can almost be hard to breathe.” A senior adviser added, “sometimes the only way to bring the president important news is to stake out his office and ‘walk and talk’ through the hall.”
This is not a new problem the magazine noted, “The growth is exponential in these last 50 years, especially the number of things that are expected of the president.” Therein lies the problem—we want a king. We want someone to do everything for everybody—a God if you will. Obama wants to be like Abraham Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt, a trans-formative president.
Then without knowing it, Newsweek gave the solution. “Both men ran slim bureaucracies rooted in relative simplicity.” They continued, “Neither had secretaries of education, transportation, health and human services, veterans’ affairs, energy, or homeland security, nor czars of pollution or drug abuse…. Lincoln had time to think…. that kind of down-time just doesn’t exist anymore.”
And therein lies the second problem that is at the heart of this column. Most, if not all, of these things are not in Article II of the Constitution nor have they been added by way of amendment as outlined in Article V of that document thus they are unconstitutional. Presidents, in their thirst for power and /or proclaimed expediency, have empowered themselves to the point of “kingship” with their worshipful, unchallenging, party followers (whether democrat or republican) quite willing to look the other way as government grows beyond its ability to be efficient. Its ever enlargement is choking-out the president and he is doing it essentially with his own hands by his enlargement of bureaucracy. At any time he could remind the people of his real constitutional powers but he will not as that would drastically reduce his power that is beginning to look limitless.
The answer to this strangulation problem is simple. We must return to the Constitutional powers of the President as outlined in Article II only adding to them by way of amendment as described in Article V—no exceptions! Under the Constitution the president has but eleven powers. Lets identify them: 1) “commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States” including the militia when called into actual service of the United States; 2) supervise departments (cabinet) each presumably established by the Congress (George Washington had but four); 3) grant reprieves and pardons; 4) make treaties with the help of the Senate; 5) with Senate help fill positions established by law such as ambassadors, ministers and judges; 6) fill vacancies “during recess of the Senate;” 7) make recommendations to Congress on the state of the union; 8) convene both houses on special occasions and handle disputes with respect to convening (Prior to the 20th Amendment, ratified on Feb 6, 1933, Congress convened on the first Monday in December and were out before Christmas—maybe three weeks.); 9) receive ambassadors and other public ministers; 10) makes certain that “laws be faithfully executed;” and, 11) “commission all the officers of the United States.”
Simply stated the president has two supervisory powers over existing organizations and two shared powers with the Senate, otherwise he pardons, recommends, appoints and entertains. That is it!! Notice the absence of power to make any rules and regulations on us. This is the job of Congress alone.
Adherence to this list would drastically reduce the bureaucracy that is choking the President allowing him to be efficient like his two model presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt. Newsweek magazine, without realizing it, identified bureaucracy as the cause of inefficiency–the executive branch has grown too big to be efficient. Two side benefits would result: we would have more liberty and he would have more time to think.
Everyone recognizes natural law in science. Eat too many cherries have diarrhea. Run naked in the sun too long have sunburn. Jump from an airplane without a parachute have broken bones. But are there natural laws that apply in government as well regardless of culture, language, race, wealth, or time?
I ask my female students if it is ever right, under any circumstances, for someone to rape them even if the law said that it is okay. No woman has said yes to that question or ever will. Then there must be absolute truths—natural law if you will—and law before there was written law.
During the 1970’s, Montana had no daytime freeway speed limit because natural law says that people will drive the speed to which they feel safe, and they did. It worked for a decade. Speed signs simply read, “Reasonable and Prudent.” Today they have speed limits because the Federal Government mandated their returning to them or forfeit any federal highway improvement funds. They complied.
Cicero, a Roman philosopher and politician prior to the time of Jesus Christ, was first to put the principle of natural law in print when he said. “Nor may any other law override it, nor may it be repealed as a whole or in part… Nor is it one thing at Rome and another at Athens, one thing today and another tomorrow, but one eternal and unalterable law, that binds all nations forever.”
The Founding Fathers identified three inalienable rights based upon natural law in The Declaration of Independence—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The U. S. Constitution, using the same base, finally harnessed government as never before enabling, as long as it was followed, the freest nation in all history. Limiting federal government power enabled the people to gravitate to that which they did best which Adam Smith explained, “unintentionally promoted the economic welfare of the nation as a whole.” The world was presented with the first “rich” nation where a vast majority of the people were rich in the eyes of the vast majority of the rest of the world. Simply said, man was “led by an invisible hand (natural law) to promote an end which was no part of his intention” which brought wealth. Instead of the ancient destructive philosophies of shared poverty, it made us stunningly wealthy. Natural law, moreover, was also the base for most of the Bill of Rights.
Consider the following natural laws hypothesized by the great French philosopher Frederic Bastiat. “Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims.” When he can, man prefers to “live and prosper at the expense of others” this is a derivative of a higher natural law that postulates that man’s “instincts impel him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.” “When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.” Consequently the “safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable.” When the function of government changes from protecting property to violating it “then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.” In which case, “political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing.” Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent. The law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice. “Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in.”
There exists a cause and effect relationship in matters of governance that is predictable, as for example, “vengeance begets vengeance. “ All forms of government and governmental matters ought to be molded around the concepts of natural law, and human nature. They cannot be avoided nor defied without a natural consequence. As it now stands, and has for much of the six thousand years of recorded history, matters of government are structured or enacted oblivious to them. Conversely, they prefer to defy or deny them. We want gratification without consequence.
An in depth study of the writing of the Founding Fathers justifies the statement that they collectively had a much greater understanding of human nature and cause and effect relations than has any group ever assembled in the past or present. Yet the Constitution and their writings are hardly considered today, hence we have lost an awareness of the importance of this understanding. The inevitable consequence of this neglect will be the loss of individual liberty even with public support. Our ignorance is killing us. As said in the movie Star Wars, “So this is how liberty is lost, with thunderous applause.”
