I've been listening to people talk about reforming the police and they all have good ideas. Some want to simply defund the police – even eliminate them – One twitter friend says [same as me].
"We need REAL police reform:
Governor Cuomo is calling for the reorganizing of our disjointed and dysfunctional health service into a National Health System.
This would necessarily include a National Health Service, public private partnerships, and a mix of reserve elements and active elements. A lot of people, including me, have seen the need for this for a long time, and so it is about time we begin taking the concept seriously.
A national system has to be organized under either the current National Guard or in parallel to it. The easiest way would be to add a Reserve Health Guard Militia to the National Guard Schema. The existing Uniform Health Service would be expanded. And Reserve Health Guard Officers trained using existing medical schools in country, of Citizens, in return for service according to uniform standards. These officers would then be used for emergencies, shortages, to serve the Naval and Land forces, and in deprived locations where market based healthcare fails. Once they had completed a term of active service they would remain either reserve officers or Auxilliary Reserve officers but be free to go into private practice.
Private doctors and healthcare companies would fall under the Reserve Health Service as Private Reserve Auxilliary "militia" members. Their entire companies could be called into service during emergencies. As a condition of their operating license, each company, institution, installation and provider would have to sign a contract with the National and State HealthCare Reserve and agree to meet readiness demands, in return for Federal compensation at a reasonable price when they are called into service or voluntarily serve emergency medical needs. They would have to meet federal and state standards.
Just in time supply would be supplemented by Emergency reserve capabilities. The scenario is that factories producing consumer coulds would have standbye protocols and equipment for rapid retooling to produce vital goods. Active duty Public Health Medical Logistics and forecasting Professionals would be able to create forcasts and requisition reserve supplies to meet those needs rapidly when called on. Congress should reconstitute the Pandemic Response institutions necessary for this.
The plans can be put into place and prepared in advance. Drills can be done. Food, Medicine, Health Care is as much a Security issue as weaponry and force of arms. Wars have been lost because armies were too sick to fight. Cuomo's recommendations are overdue. Universal healthcare does not mean we have to nationalize industry. It does mean that industry needs to remember they are part of a country and have duties as well as privileges. It does mean that profiteering and privateering, for private separate advantage, have no legitimate place in healthcare.
Chris Holte
This post enlarges points made in:
As I've said elsewhere owning and using weaponry for self defense is an "auxiliary and subordinate" right. Samuel Adams quoted Blackstone and Parliament when he wrote, referring to the Glorious Revolution when English Parliament overthrew the Stuarts:
“At the Revolution, the British Constitution was restored to its original principles, declared in the bill of rights; which was afterwards passed into a law”
Note the wording "restored" and "afterwards passed into a law", is expressing the principle that these human rights existed all the while in their denial, which is the reason that any right to own and use arms other than in the military is actually linked to the 9th and 10th Amendments and the product of hundreds of years of resistance by Citizens against Government Oppression. The right to bear arms is the right to participate in the defense, and by logical extension, the governance of the country.
This was a principle that dated back to "Old England." Samuel Adams in an essay published in the Boston Gazette during the early stages of the rebellion in New England that became our Revolution referred to the right to “have and use” arms as part of a list of "auxiliary and subordinate" rights that only apply;
Which are rights that people have auxiliary, to resisting oppression:
These are only rights in a context of protecting the primary rights of:
In Britain, only those with real estate property, "the gentry" were permitted to bear arms in the Militia. The Gentry were afraid of "the rabble" being permitted to bear arms, and as a result, Sam Adams said that:
“having arms for their defense” ... “a public allowance under due restrictions of the natural rights of resistance and self preservation, when the sanction of society and society are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.”
This right to bear arms is an auxiliary right necessary to resist "the violence of oppression", not a right of mere disaffection, or to engage in oppression or ethnic cleansing. If there is no oppression and no occupying military, there is no need to possess and sue arms. Hence the word "auxilliary." To the nascent Rebellion, it also was a response to the presence of “Military Troops” due to the fear that;
“Violence is always to be apprehended from Military Troops”
If you talk to any gun nut, they know full well this history, and that the great fear of "Standing Armies" was what drove the founders of this country to create a second Amendment. But they interpret that fear the way Southerners did in the antebellum period before 1865. They saw it as a right for the Free Men (they expanded the franchise from the Gentry) and Gentry to defend their property, which included other people. They didn't see slaves, peasants, indentured servants and the property-less worker, as full equals in society. But their arguments saying "All Mankind" meant that this was a deluded attitude.
Expanding the role and scope of the National Guard to include health care, emergency response and police training, is in the scope of what the intent of the Militia clauses in Article 2 Section 8 and the Second Amendment would have intended.
This post continues a theme I started long ago, but directly follows my post:
It is my contention that the second amendment is not primarily about the right to bear arms, but about the right to participate in self government and in the defense and security of our local areas and of our United States.
It is important to remember that from the beginning of the country, for Democratic Republicans:
“Arms were merely a tool to accomplish the constitutional end.”
The Founders sought in militia a corps of civic mindedness and self reliance, a:
...a band of brothers, and maintain your rights, liberties and independence with your last breath.” [Palladium]
Thus the core of the militia concept and the second amendment is the notion of Virtuous Citizenship! The Second Amendment is about the importance of Arming with the appropriate tools and training needed for citizens to participate in their own governments, self defense, disaster response and emergencies both local and national. That spirit is present in first responders to this day.
Therefore being "Armed" has a broader meaning than merely carrying an AR-15 or a military weapon; it means people being educated, trained, drilled and provisioned with the tools and resources needed to respond flexibly to whatever situation may arise both within or outside our country. Not everyone need bear a musket, but the underlying concept also includes all the tools and resources needed to rescue, repair, restore, and sustain our society. Thus in the modern and broader sense, the "right to bear arms" is the right to opportunity to participate in our Country's welfare and to become fully participating citizens. The "arms" involved include medical supplies, tools, tools and resources needed to keep communications open, power-lines and pipe-lines, all of them, operating, repaired, sustained and restored during emergencies and in preparation for emergencies.
The fact is that all our Police, Firemen, military forces in general, all descend from Militia. Health-care, power distribution and communications emerged within our communities, often tied to the necessities of self defense. When they are of, by and for locals, people feel a sense of both belonging and personal empowerment.
When police, fire, etc... come “from outside the community” they tend to be “standing armies” When police kill innocent people, it is usually because they feel like they are trying to control people who are alien to them. Police can be local volunteers and professionals or they can be from outside. When from outside they are either acting the role of “Standing Armies” or coming to the aid of locals who needed help. The founders saw standing Armies as an evil. As:
“that potion of idleness and corruptor of morals, a standing army”
The militia were meant to be an antidote to standing armies. A modern national guard can be an antidote to communities that feel oppressed and invaded. The old militia became unworkable as drilling for war became irrelevant to most people's daily lives. The country went to “select militia” they brought in police and firemen, often from outside the communities they were serving. Even so the modern version of a select militia National Guard was meant to be an antidote to Standing Armies. As also was the draft. A select militia makes service mandatory for a limited period. But not everyone is suited to carry a weapon. And there are so many more important services needed to respond to disasters and exigencies than Ar-15s or Military weapons.
This is pure Tyranny and breaking International Law: [UNHCR Child Asylum]
To me there is a process issue in the awful oppression of our Immigration and Naturalization Courts and ICE. This oppression is the expression of a corrupt administration. But it is inherent in the constitution of the Immigration System. The fact that we have administrative courts at all is an inheritance of our Colonial and Feudal origins. I noted the injustice and wealth favoritism of our system when I made the half joking, very serious comparisons between admiralty courts and administrative courts in this previous post:
I take the constitution seriously, and the second amendment, But the second amendment makes no sense without the context of, and reference to, Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. The Second amendment really refers to a requirement of good Government, that we preserve the “Security” of our “Free State,” therefore the SEcond amendment refers to the:
The Right to Bear Arms is Auxiliary and subordinate to the right to own oneself, to liberty and security.
National security requires State Security which requires local security.
If people don't feel secure in their persons and possessions, the country isn't secure. If some people are secure (Oligarchy), the majority are less secure. The "Right to Bear Arms" is auxiliary, but necessary to, the right to participate in governing ourselves. Samuel Adams referred to the Right to “have and use arms” as Auxiliary and Subordinate to the rights to personal security, liberty and property.
In ancient times the greatest power of common people was that the Government had to ask them to fight for them.
As I've said elsewhere owning and using weaponry for self defense is an "auxiliary and subordinate" right. Samuel Adams quoted Blackstone and Parliament when he wrote, referring to the Glorious Revolution when English Parliament overthrew the Stuarts:
“At the Revolution, the British Constitution was restored to its original principles, declared in the bill of rights; which was afterwards passed into a law”
Note the wording "restored" and "afterwards passed into a law", is expressing the principle that these human rights existed all the while in their denial, which is the reason that any right to own and use arms other than in the military is actually linked to the 9th and 10th Amendments and the product of hundreds of years of resistance by Citizens against Government Oppression. The right to bear arms is the right to participate in the defense, and by logical extension, the governance of the country.
This was a principle that dated back to "Old England." Samuel Adams in an essay published in the Boston Gazette during the early stages of the rebellion in New England that became our Revolution referred to the right to “have and use” arms as part of a list of "auxiliary and subordinate" rights that only apply;
Which are rights that people have auxiliary, to resisting oppression:
These are only rights in a context of protecting the primary rights of:
In Britain, only those with real estate property, "the gentry" were permitted to bear arms in the Militia. The Gentry were afraid of "the rabble" being permitted to bear arms, and as a result, Sam Adams said that:
“having arms for their defense” ... “a public allowance under due restrictions of the natural rights of resistance and self preservation, when the sanction of society and society are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.”
This right to bear arms is an auxiliary right necessary to resist "the violence of oppression", not a right of mere disaffection, or to engage in oppression or ethnic cleansing. If there is no oppression and no occupying military, there is no need to possess and sue arms. Hence the word "auxilliary."
To the nascent Rebellion, it also was a response to the presence of “Military Troops” due to the fear that;
“Violence is always to be apprehended from Military Troops”
If you talk to any gun nut, they know full well this history, and that the great fear of "Standing Armies" was what drove the founders of this country to create a second Amendment. But they interpret that fear the way Southerners did in the antebellum period before 1865. They saw it as a right for the Free Men (they expanded the franchise from the Gentry) and Gentry to defend their property, which included other people. They didn't see slaves, peasants, indentured servants and the property-less worker, as full equals in society. But their arguments saying "All Mankind" meant that this was a deluded attitude towards their own universal principles. The struggle to make universal universal principles continues.
More to Come
The Founders of this country had faith in the "Militia of the Whole" as the guarantor of our civilization. As long as the Frontier was near most citizens or we had credible outside enemies, this faith was justified. The Second Amendment was originally the "Palladium of Liberty" of this country because the notion of being able to force the entire populace of a county or Town to muster and defend their homes was noble, virtuous and made sense, until most of the country was relatively peaceful and there was no longer any immediate threat. At that point the concept began to seem absurd. By the end of the 19th century the underlying concepts behind the second amendment and Article One Section 8 militia had to change. For the further context here I'd recommend reading these posts:
This post follows: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/03/select-militia-national-guard-and.html
A Standing army:
“....unlike a reserve army, is a permanent, often professional, army. It is composed of full-time soldiers (who may be either career soldiers or conscripts) and is not disbanded during times of peace. It differs from army reserves, who are enrolled for the long term, but activated only during wars or natural disasters, and temporary armies, which are raised from the civilian population only during a war or threat of war and disbanded once the war or threat is over. The term dates from approximately 1600, although the phenomenon it describes is much older.” [quote from Wikipedia but also in my other sources]
But here is the thing, standing armies used to also serve as police, "peace keepers", enforcers, and often lived off the land as land pirates when governments were tyrannical or occupying hostile territory.
.... which means that modern armed forces; police, security guards (private armies), and similar; also are standing armies, because they are permanent, professional and sometimes they act like occupying forces when they operate in (or as if in) occupied territory.
There is a lot of propaganda about the concept of Militia. But there are three definitions we should focus on when talking about guns and the second amendment. These are:
They were also scared of private armies, though if the army was raised, authorized by the government it could be tolerable.
As I read the current propaganda about this subject I'm finding both standing armies and "select militia" criticized heavily by pundits who work for the NRA. The NRA formally understands that the second Amendment was written in the context of the militia portions of the Constitution, but they claim that it nevertheless grants an individual unregulated right to own firearms based on it. They use cherry picked "historiography" and a kind of faulty originalism to make this point.
Antonin Scalia has died since I drafted this post. There were 3 separate mass shootings before I published this post. And since I published this there have been many more mass murders using fire-arms that have no business being on the street. I hope the NRA paid him well, because I'm sure he is burning in hell. To come up with Scalia's corrupt claim that the second amendment conveys a unilateral individual right to bear arms, Scalia had to corrupt the English language, parse the plain text of the first half of the second amendment and invent an interpretation that hearkens more to 80 years of NRA propaganda but not to the "originalist founders" he claimed to get his inspiration from.
The fact is that the second amendment is not and should not be a barrier to regulating arms, yet the Supreme Court in their extreme combination of recklessness and fecklessness overturned 200 years of understanding of the Second Amendment. I explained why in this post:
Why DC vs Heller was badly decided
But if you want to truly understand the Second Amendment you have to turn elsewhere from the Corrupt Supreme Court. A good place to start, indeed the smart place to start was with Patrick J Charles' book:
"Armed in America, A history of Gunrights"
While I drafted this before Scalia died. I've been researching the subject since long before the Heller decision. But I needed to do a deep dive. The Heller decision was so awful that it made me do that deep dive on the subject. Anyone wanting to understand the subject deeply should read that book. Maybe others too. It's a big subject.
To Govern utilities well:
The Principle of Democratic Subsidiarity is based on the notion that:
“Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority.”
In Application in democratic societies, it is why the Constitution guarantees a "Republican form of Government to the States" and why the states should guarantee republican forms to local government. In application to public utility it why large monopolies and centralized utilities fail to deliver well. Utilities should be organized on republican forms with local governance. Central Governance is good for general, universal principles, but not for their specific application. One of the drawbacks of centralization is the converse of subsidiarity principles, that central government is often incompetent to handle local matters.
People in this country are really confused about how Government should function. Many think it should be run like a business. Indeed Government should be run like a well run business. But more importantly a well run business is a well governed business.
The reason people are confused about the relationship between business and government is that businesses are governing entities! When Government is run for the sake of Oligarchs only, it is tyranny and privateering!
The Lockean Definition of Tyranny is government for "private, separate advantage.":
We give the people within them the privilege of governing property, their own affairs and in return a sane society expects them to operate within the parameters of that title or charter. This corporate privilege allows Businesses to be run for the private separate advantage of the owners and senior management, within restrictions set by law. When everyone behaves it works for the greater good. When they don't, you get tyranny and privateering.
Government is a business of all the businesses, all the many factions and associations of the people within its jurisdiction. So it has to be run for the people's business, like a virtuous business, and not like a pirate camp.
The best way to manage our health care rationally, and to provide for good healthcare for everything, is to put at least a component of it under a National Service Framework. The education, training and minimum provisioning "arming" of healthcare providers all should be organized at a National level and also carried out in each State.
We currently have shortages of Doctors and health care service in much of the country, while we have a surplus of people needing healthcare. This at the same time as some folks flock to what seem like high paying specialties of healthcare because they are more lucrative, and these jobs concentrate where people with wealth live. The result is that much of the country (urban poor and rural poor) are neglected. This reflects "bad constitution" of our healthcare service and Utility.
Public Healthcare is, and should be treated as a strategic public utility vital to the National Security. We've dealt with this before. We treated healthcare as a utility until privateers sold us the bright idea (but costly) that freebooting competition could somehow reign in costs and that running healthcare companies at a profit was a sane idea. It is possible to standup a healthcare service that meets the needs and traditions of our country by associating that service with the national guard and principles derived from militia and voluntary service.
In an Article in Linkedin:
Dr. Nelson tries to make the case for using "free market principles" to reform health care. In so doing he makes points that a little rational thought will demonstrate make no sense. But they do make the case for a single payer system and socialized medicine. This is because the Healthcare System is:
"a proper social function, which should be controlled and managed by and for the whole people concerned, through their proper governmental, local, state or national, as may be."Constitution
There is a recurring argument between those who want "order" and suppression of crime, and those who want community policing where the police respect the right of local citizens. In community policing police are often asked to fill roles that they aren't trained for. When they operate on a purely law enforcement level they tend to act like occupying armies. The reason for this is that our society neglects to systematically apply principles of good government locally. We claim to be a democratic republic, yet our communities are often voiceless, powerless, neglected and sometimes feel oppressed. We need to apply principles of democratic subsidiarity to our policing. When we start doing that we'll get better outcomes. The answer is to restore Policing to it's relationship with the militia requirements of the Constitution, and diminish the "standing army" portion of modern policing to a general aid function called on by communities in need or the courts. All that is part of applying principles of democratic subsidiarity to local government.
For any Economic System to be functional, it needs to have both top down forms and controls. It needs Checks and Balances. And it also needs bottom up forms and controls (Ordinary Courts, Representation, Juries). Key to the success of such forms is a well educated and informed citizenry, and the kinds of checks and balances that prevent people from straying outside their lanes of excellence. Key to the success of an economic system is that it achieves the properties of a commonwealth. It has to serve the interests of all the people living within it, starting with majorities. To make any changes to our national and world economy sustainable they have to be institutionalized in a way that gives the right folks power while limiting the ability of folks to game, usurp or achieve too much power. Thus the issue is how we constitute our economy and how we execute that constitution.
This post is about some of the necessary Checks and Balances.
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I believe that DC versus Heller was badly decided. But since I'm not a lawyer and I agree that people should have a regulated right to own a gun under some circumstances. There are two fundamental reasons for this:
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note: This segues off of my post "why DC Versus Heller was badly decided" and a series of other posts written before and after this one, which are listed at the end of this post. It directly follows up on Thoughts on Defending Democracy which talks about the Swiss Militia and the even earlier post Militia Second-amendment and Democracy post where I talked of the second amendment referring to the Federalist Papers.
