Demagoguing Politicians in Shepherd's clothing

To be fair many Christians do follow Jesus' teachings, but many of their preachers, ministers, priests exploit those teachings, parse them, or quote conveniently from different passages of the bible, often out of context; and add to the materials their own distorted exegesis.

The Catholic Church has alternately practiced, exploited, profited from, or paid lip service to his teachings; and the Church has a 1900 year history of persecuting people who took the Bible too seriously. When they took the old testament too seriously they were burned as judaisers. When they took the New Testament too seriously they were burned as Heretics. The teachings require wisdom to resolve contradictory passages, and people tend to take literal admonishments too literally, figurative turns of speeches or mythic parts literally, and to completely miss context, even when they try to practice Jesus' teachings. Unfortunately they aren't alone. When the protestants revolted against them, they continued many of the same practices they'd rebelled against. Christians have been fighting over material issues using religion as a cover for centuries, as have other members of other religious groups.

It's not as simple as deliberate evil. Much of what goes on comes from three sources: deluded thinking caused by emotions of anger, hatred, or hurt; perverse thinking caused by emotions of hunger, greed, or jealousy; and manipulation related also to greed and ambition. This happens with other religions too, as I found out to my shame when I spent 30 years studying an Eastern Religion only to find myself being recruited by both sides of an internal war between religious factions I'd over-estimated the wisdom of. Many religious leaders are religious politicians in Shepherds clothing.

Redeeming religion starts with the humble recognition that even our best teachers are frail human beings like ourselves, and the scoundrels among us are potentially within all of us. Their roles are to comfort the sick and grieving, teach their flocks and guide them to enlightenment and redemption, and to master their own spirituality so that they can do these things wisely.  When they step into politics or power and money they step into it.

Juries and the Supreme Court Process

Marbury versus Madison was part of a Federalist part to preserve influence with the Federal Government once the Federalists were voted out of office in 1800.  In the last days of the Adams Administration a whole series of Federal officers were appointed by Adams and approved by Congress.  Some of those people did not arrive in the capital in time to take their appointments before the new administration took office.  The New President refused to accept these appointments. One of the appointees sued.  In Marbury versus Madison, John Marshal affirmed the right of Jefferson to refuse their appointment but established a ruling which ruled:

“All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.” Marbury vs Madison 5 U.S. 137, 174, 176.

“The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void and ineffective for any purpose; since its unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment… In legal contemplation, it is as inoperative as if it had never been passed… Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection and justifies no acts performed under it… A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the land, it is superceded thereby. No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.” 16 Am Jur 2d S177, late Am Jur 2d S256”

This angered Jefferson, and over time it angered him more. He saw this decision as the  “usurp[ation]  of exclusively explaining the constitution.” And over time he realized that:

“the constitution had  deprived the people control “Over the judiciary department.” And that therefore he wrote that even after years of Republican government the Federalists “ therefore, has continued the reprobated system, and although new matter has been occasionally incorporated into the old, yet the leaven of the old mass seems to assimilate to itself the new, and after twenty years' confirmation of the federal system by the voice of the nation, declared through the medium of elections, we find the judiciary on every occasion, still driving us into consolidation.” [1]

The Republicans could not do things in the national interest, or enforce their conception of what is constitutional or not because the Supreme court was dominated by Federalists appointed by Adams and would strike down their laws as unconstitutional.  In Jefferson’s view:

“The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please”

Jefferson felt that the constitution had made the Supreme Court a potential locus of absolutist and undemocratic government:

“It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law.”

Jefferson believed that:

“each department [should be] truly independent of the others, and ha[ve] an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal.”

Jefferson was referring to the autonomous right of each branch of government (Judiciary, executive, and legislative”) to decide its own cases.  In some cases the judiciary has since respected Jefferson’s perspective but not in all.  They typically defer to the executive on some legal matters.  So, while the Judiciary has frequently overruled the executive and the legislative on matters where the court assumes the executive knows what they are doing [which is what Jefferson is inferring]. This is sometimes appropriate.  Thus the courts have protected the rights of minorities and the oppressed, but sometimes the appeal to the Supreme Court has been an instrument of tyranny [Private Separate Advantage].[2]

A “mere thing of wax in the hands” of either Judges or Executive.

To me Marbury Versus Madison exposed a process issue where both sides had issues that needed to be resolved, not with merely the courts overriding the executive, but with better process.  Andrew Jackson applied Jefferson’s theory when the Supreme Court overruled his decisions on ethnic cleansing of American Indian Indigenous peoples living in territories he had control over.  He told the court ‘you made the decision, now you enforce it” and then dispossessed and murdered thousands of human beings with impunity.  The executive with the concurrence of docile courts or in spite of them have also treated the constitution as a “thing of wax.”

When there is injustice there needs to be judicial review. But that review in many cases deserves to be heard by an independent jury, prosecuted by experts representing all legitimate points of view, and subject to the old principle of separation of powers; “No man should be judge, jury and executioner, in the same case. Jefferson rightly noted:

“The nation declared its will by dismissing functionaries of one principle, and electing those of another, in the two branches, executive and legislative, submitted to their election. Over the judiciary department, the constitution had deprived them of their control.”

On first perusal, it is hard to see how the nation could establish democratic controls over the Judiciary. But there is an age old way, which while under assault in our modern times, represents an even more pure exercise of democracy than that of elections. It is the Jury.  A body of independent citizens, not ignorant or totally unbiased, but selected at random from the general population, could form commission style juries that could make better, more fair, and more representative decisions than a panel of paid permanent jurists who are selected from professional judges and serve for life.  The ancient Greeks didn’t trust to elections, they believed that volunteers should directly make decisions, and in our modern society volunteers, national guard, and juries are the best democratic institutions we still have.  The process problem Jefferson identified with Marbury versus Madison is in how to have judicial controls on decision making that represent the people, and not special interests such as the Federalists represented in his times.

If disputes were subject to jury review [Juridical Controls, Judicial Oversight] in the governments departments and agencies, there too would be better process.  For independent juries composed of a representative (and temporary) sample of the American people would embody Jefferson’s principle that  ”Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass.” The purest expression of democracy in action is the Jury. If a jury had ruled on Marbury versus Madison, what would Jefferson have been willing to say?

Footnotes:

---

[1]http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_18s16.html

[2] Reference is to John locke’s definition of tyranny in “Twin Treatises on Government”

The Empire Strikes Back -- Trying to Avoid Responsibility

Right now we are in the middle of something like an episode of the "Empire Strikes Back" fueled by people who think they have, or at least want to convince others that they have divine wisdom and divine purpose. This may be the result of having the power to influence others and not having spiritual wisdom, or it may simply be the result of misplaced fanaticism, but in either case at least some of the folks involved are showing massive cynicism.  When people are convinced that they are right and everyone else is wrong, in the pursuit of their ends they justify the means, but after a while they simply wind up using corrupt means to achieve corrupt ends.  For that reason this sort of Machievellian thinking has been a source of tyranny and violence for 1900 years. The person who would set themselves up as omnisicent inquisitor is stepping into a realm where they can only be poseurs usurpers, but never the real thing. In my [previous post]

So it is that religious politics is just as vicious as electoral politics, office politics or any other kind. And when prelates invade secular politics they become even more corrupt than the secular world they seek to control. And there is nothing like fear to propel folks to heights of absurdity. The same Catholic Church that chose to cover up the misbehavior of it's priests for years, now is using an alliance with Republicans to try to avoid responsibility for the crimes their own people committed:
http://www.cathnewsusa.com/2012/08/bishops-god-votes-republican/
Bishop Dolan is:

"Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is scheduled to deliver the concluding benediction at the Republican National Convention next week, after Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech."

But I take heart. If Dolan is channeling the darkside, egged on by his Pope Benedict (formerly Cardinal Ratzinger, of the former Inquisition and the enforcement arm of the Catholic Church), you have these wonderful Sisters traveling the country preaching the liberating theology taught by their founder. The Church can't burn them yet. At least I can hope. I pray they don't face the inquisition.
But the Church can play legal games. Right now they are claiming that they are having their religious liberty to oppress their flock, employees, and priests; infringed on by the Affordable Health Care Act -- and suing.

And because the Democrats, including Catholic Democrats, won't champion their cause, they are planning to run a fear and hate campaign to vilify us Democrats as attacking their freedom. And of course evil minded priests can only get away with going to the dark-side if they have perverse or ignorant and ambitious lay leaders to support them:

"The news — both its substance and the venue in which it was conveyed — make clear three things: that Romney intends to make the Bishops’ bogus arguments about religious liberty infringements a centerpiece of his campaign’s faith outreach; that any efforts the Obama administration made to placate the Bishops’ unattainable demands on insurance coverage for contraception were a fool’s errand; and that the USCCB has unequivocally attached itself at the hip to the Republican Party." [Same article as picture]

This article: http://www.religioustolerance.org/relfreebctrl.htm sums up the issues well enough that I won't go into detail. But the argument that somehow requiring the Church as a corporate entity to pay for women's medical needs is tyranny butts up against the fact that many of those women aren't even Catholic and are working for the Church in its secular capacity as an educator and provider of places of healing. The article talks about Ontario, and the reality is that the Church is campaigning worldwide:

"The religious freedom claimed by the Roman Catholic Church to restrict the use of contraception by the employees and students in the Church's affiliated hospitals, universities, colleges, schools, social service agencies, etc. Typically, these employees and students identify with the Catholic Church, other Christian denominations, non-Christian religions, or have no religious affiliation at all."

This is tyranny, not religious freedom. Nobody should have the right to take away individual rights because they are a collective claiming that God told them they could deny those rights.

"The religious freedom claimed by those students and employees who have examined their conscience about the use of contraceptives on religious, ethical and moral grounds, and have personally decided that they wish to freely use contraceptives. Some wish to use them in order to regulate or avoid conception and pregnancy; others wish to use them to treat one of many medical problems unrelated to conception."

One Man's freedom is a woman's tyranny. But this hasn't changed since the Church first discovered witchcraft and heresy during the later Roman Empire. The Catholic Church has claimed the right to be a Corporation not subject to Secular law, to be a Secular State not subject to rule of law, and to be a religious institution over and above it's own moral codes. Birth Control is the modern version of the kind of apothocary, medicine that midwives and herbalists used to practice in order to be identified as Witches by the Doctors of the Church, who would dunk them and if they survived that, burn them. This is a form of 1984 newspeak. They claim they deserve the right to the religious liberty to deny religious liberty to their employees and members. A kind of newspeak where honesty and freedom of consciousness becomes heresy and was tyranny becomes "liberty." Corporate liberty = individual tyranny for the employee, or in the case of the US Church, the non-employee not subject to labor law because he/she is not really employed by the Church, even though they are.

And the irony is that they advance the right to put shackles on their employees and deny women medical insurance coverage in the name of religious liberty and their corporate rights as a church. But in the meantime they are trying to avoid responsibility for their members and employees on the grounds that they don't really work for them! Who'd have thunk it? How'd they get away with that? They didn't get away with it in Britain, but here our courts are either intimidated or thoroughly corrupt. When they get into trouble because of their own crimes they shout "our priests "don't work here!":

In the USA "a judge ruled that the Holy See is not the employer of molester priests."

[Source: Vatican not employer: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/vatican-not-priests-employer-us-judge-says_n_1813001.html]
But this is not merely tyranny at work. The Catholic Church is losing money. They've started borrowing from Wall Street, always a bad move, instead of raising money from their employees. And that is making them nuts. The problem isn't just tyranny, it is financial incompetence looking to recoup losses:

"The picture that emerges is not flattering. The church’s finances look poorly co-ordinated considering (or perhaps because of) their complexity. The management of money is often sloppy. And some parts of the church have indulged in ungainly financial contortions in some cases—it is alleged—both to divert funds away from uses intended by donors and to frustrate creditors with legitimate claims, including its own nuns and priests. The dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy may not be typical of the church as a whole. But given the overall lack of openness there is no way of knowing to what extent they are outliers."

So to deal with their finances, they stick it to their congregants who've been damaged by scumbag priests whose behavior they'd covered up and hidden from those same congregants.

"Thousands of claims for damages following sexual-abuse cases, which typically cost the church over $1m per victim, according to lawyers involved, have led to a liquidity crisis. This seems to have encouraged a pre-existing trend towards replacing dollars from the faithful with publicly raised debt as a way of financing church business. The church is also increasingly keen to defend its access to public health-care subsidies while claiming a right not to provide certain medical services to which it objects, such as contraception. This increased reliance on taxpayers has not been matched by increased openness and accountability. The church, like other religious groups in America, is not subject to the same disclosure requirements as other non-profits or private entities."

I guess I'm supposed to feel sorry for the Vatican, but then it doesn't employ all those wonderful, fully human and frail priests and nuns, monks and lay-people that I've come to know and love over the years. Even though it had senior prelates relocating perverted priests and sometimes moving them to out of the way places where they could practice their perversions with impunity. [See this article http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/22/nation/la-na-nn-priest-sex-abuse-trial-20120622]

ROME — "The Vatican on Friday reaffirmed its position that the future Pope Benedict XVI "had no knowledge" of a decision to allow a known pedophile priest to resume pastoral duties when the pope was archbishop in Munich in 1980. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said an article that appeared in The New York Times on Friday that said the future pope had been sent a..."[was false"

Of course if the future pope hadn't known that then he was recklessly incompetant, and the article was sourced, but I can only judge facts and if they say he didn't know about what his Church was doing when it moved priests around, sent them to special retreats for Pedophiles, tried to rehabilitate them, and allegedly covered up for them, then, well. What can I say? But what would be funny is that after all those efforts which show just how closely the priests worked with the Vatican and worked for the Vatican, it is Ironic that the Church now claims they were mere independent contractors and on that ground the Church isn't responsible!
It claims it didn't employ the Pedophiles! -- though a British court didn't buy that argument.

"The ruling by the High Court in London for the first time defined in British law the relationship of a priest to his bishop as that of an employee to an employer, instead of seeing the priest as effectively self-employed."

When Cardinal Dolan endorses Romney and joins the attempted coup against Democracy in our country I will feel sorry for the Catholic Church -- the one that is pictured in "The City of God." But I can't feel sorry for the pedophiles and the priests who covered up for them, or the many women who may be reduced to coat hanger abortions if the Church gets its way. My sense of history and historical outrage won't let me. I feel sorry for their victims.
Previous Post: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/08/love-hierarchy-and-tyranny.html
Source for last two quotes; http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2012/08/while-were-on-the-subject-.html
British court decision: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2011/11/10/court-rules-that-church-is-liable-for-crimes-of-priests/

Love, Hierarchy and Tyranny

I have mixed feelings about Christianity. I was baptized when I was a baby, and when I was little I sincerely sang "Jesus Loves me Yes I know, for the Bible Tells me so." And attended Church. I was a weird kid. I actually enjoyed theology class. My bible study teacher thought I was going to grow up to be a theologian. It might have happened but I met born again Christians who convinced me that there was something wrong with history. And my study of history and it's 19 and 1/2 century history of conflict, intolerance and authoritarianism convinced me to abandon it and go on what I now would call a "walk about." I had a severe argument with the concept of God on High, and had even worse troubles reconciling the trinity. Eventually I got into Eastern Religion, got into critiquing esotericism, and that led me to study and critique Kaballa, which led me to fall in love with Judaism and appreciate both the good and bad of religion all over again. So I still have mixed feelings about Christianity, but I appreciate it better. My main problem is with Christians and the sometimes demagogic way that their leaders mislead them. I no longer blame true believers, or even believers, it's the teachers who get on my nerves.

So it is with regret, but not surprise, that I observe current trends in a few of the major religions. My old Church, the Episcopal church is wracked in a war between fundamentalists who are also rather intolerant, and the remnants of the enlightenment movement, who've been on the decline for 100+ years. The result is that the fundamentalists sometimes become Catholics.

And in studying all this stuff I encountered the ancestral church of most Western Europeans. The one that held the monopoly, until Luther and Calvin came along, in the Western part of Europe. It too had had an enlightenment of sorts, that culminated in Vatican II, but it seems that it too has a civil war of sorts as well. One side of that Civil war resembles enlightened Episcopalians of the Church I grew up with. I remember the Berrigans, and how they became Episcopalians when they left the Church and got married. There is no theologically integral reason that a priest can't marry. At one time it was De-riguer that priests married. Judaism required their Rabbis to marry, and Cohain couldn't be proper priests unless they had progeny to pass their post to. Early Christians included women priests and all sorts of priests, and there are even stories of priests married to each other. But that is not dogma today.

Did I tell you my main fight when I was 13 was with Dogma?

So of course Vatican II, Ecumenicism, and enlightenment all sound good. In Polyanna the Priest has a high minded conversion when he engages in some exegesis and counts the amount of times the Bible talks about love. But talking about love doesn't stop the hemorrhaging of believers or the outflow of money. Fundamentally all Churches are among the oldest forms of corporations, and priests, ministers, bishops, etc... are in one of the oldest professions and can't live without donations; so letting people come and go at will from their churches guarantees them a secular job and a Church that hangs a new moniker on it. Formerly Catholic or Episcopal churches now house fundamentalist or Born Again Churches now because the priests failed to hold on to their flock. So how do they do that?

By fear, vilification, and hate.

while I was studying Eastern Religion I spent most of that time with a Buddhist sect founded by a teacher Named Nichiren. He talked a lot about misuse of religion, which his disciples used mostly to vilify rivals, but one day it hit me that his teachings were universal, which meant that the enemy is the tendency to misuse religion itself, all the ways that religion is misused. He called the teaching Six devils and Three powerful enemies; and the three powerful enemies were ignorant lay people, manipulative priests and incorrect sages. Well that teaching did apply potentially to their rivals, but it also applied to the leaders who embraced that teaching -- and like all people possessing a mirror they tried to use it to look at everyone else. That doesn't change.

Misapplied it leads to esotericism for the initiated and exotericism for everyone else. It leads to efforts to vilify rivals instead of teaching distinctions. It doesn't help. And that is what is going on within the Churches, just as it has done since Christianity started having second and third generation disciples of it's founder and the believers started conflating the Messenger, the once and future King of Jewish theory, with God himself. You see it in Acts, where Paul notes all the people who identified Jesus with Apollo. This shouldn't be surprising, when the Prophets condemn Israel for worshiping the Baalim, the most popular of the Baalim was Baal Peor, or the Lord Son of God, who died each spring so that crops could grow. It's amazing how similar the concept of Jesus is to that of Baal. He goes from being a teacher to a God, and his priests from being teachers and missionaries to being priests of a God, thanks to human frailty on the part of ordinary folks, and human ambition on the part of their teachers.

So I'm not in the least surprised to see corruption in the various churches. On the contrary as I get older, I'm simply mighty pleased to discover there are brief exceptions, or sometimes even enduring one, to the rule about the three powerful enemies, religious exploitation and the evolution of divine revolution into profane dogma; because the temptations are impossible to risk.

In studying the weaknesses of religion I discovered realities about human psychology and spirituality that I could have used to establish myself as a Ron Hubbard type Messiah. Indeed I'm sure that is what he did. I love the Catholic Church, the Jewish Sages, the Buddhist founders, the Sufi and the Sikhs; even Moses, David, Mohammed, Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard -- all the more for knowing that they are, after all, only frail human beings in the end. What do I know? When the divine talks directly to us, it always takes the form of a vision, something so much realer than real that it can shake the sanity of those who experience it. I've come to listen to those messages. I am a poet and that means I hear them. I've been right about events way too often to be arrogant about my powers or to discount the power of Insight either. Religion should be about Enlightenment and Religion, not about tyranny.

Nevertheless we have a duty to love and take seriously all truths, but aslo to combat all lies and false dogmas; and all misuse of the gifts of spirituality to manipulate people. For no matter how high and mighty, or frail and holy, a person might seem, we are all ultimately only frail human beings -- and because of that frailty we are all subject to the darkside.

Right now we are in the middle of a situation which resembles an episode of the "Empire Strikes Back." The darkside, hiding as usual in the minds of both friends and enemies alike, has infiltrated the minds of great people, sages, educators, politicians and turned good teachings into angry mush, clear teachings into deliberate lies, and made people who should be rockes we can rely on into untrustworthy liars. People who should be teaching love and things like "honor thy father" or "love thy enemy" are teaching enmity and fear instead. Bishops who ought to be on the side of the poor and dispossessed are fighting to preserve their possessions by igniting anger in their parishoners and reviving dogmas that in the past burned down civilization and destroyed learning. The barbarians are not always at the gates, they are often in the Gates, and now we have people who insist that they have ownership of God and the Truth, when the reality is that that is delusion. When the sages say "Judge not lest ye be Judged, the sages are warning that none of us dare take on the role of inquisitor without possibly taking on the role of the "Accuser", a word that in Hebrew is rendered as Satan.

This is the first essay in a series. The next one is:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-empire-strikes-back-trying-to-avoid.html

Hamilton's Revenge I

I like Alexander Hamilton. He is the true founder of the "Business Wing" of our Democratic Republican republic. During his necessarily brief honeymoon with James Madison, the two wrote the majority of the Federalist Papers and outlined the concepts behind and goals of the American Revolution and its constitution. It was their endeavor that solidified our republic as a republic and the quality of that output is why we still have the same constitution, essentially, that they authored.

Their honeymoon was brief because they represented different ideals, different constituencies, and different visions of government. None of these visions were perfect. To "perfect" our government requires that all of us inheritors of those people recognize this. Each founder offered an incomplete piece of a whole. Like blind men describing a giant tesseract of a beast it is up to us to complete this vision. They offer visions, and clear guidance, but were not saints. They don't speak for God. Our Constitution has to be treated like a living document or it will break into pieces.

June 18th, 1787 http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/burr/HamiltonBio.htm

Nobody illustrates that point better than Alexander Hamilton. He was the friend of James Madison, but ended his life as a bitter enemy of the Jefferson Administration in general, James Madison to a degree, and Aaron Burr Specifically. Indeed there is an entire society of people who champion Aaron Burr and see him as the intellectual founder of Wall Street, our shadow economic elite, and all that is wrong with America. They note that Alexander Hamilton was an Anglophile, openly admired British Economic Royalism, and despised democracy. And they'll gleefuly share this quote:

http://aaronburrsociety.org/aaron_burr_society_home.html

“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct permanent share in the government… Can a democratic assembly who annually revolve in the mass of the people be supposed steadily to pursue public good? Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy…”

From: Howard Zinn "People’s History of the United States" (at Amazon) online: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html

http://aaronburrsociety.org/aaron_burr_society_home.html

I don't see that extreme. But the counterpoint is that Hamilton and Madison represent two very different views of Democracy. Madison did indeed champion Democratic Republicanism (at least for Whites), and that therefore anyone claiming the "founding fathers" were uniformly in agreement on a single set of theocratic authorities setting up a single vision for our Governance (Our Constitution) and agreeing on anything -- is genuinely either absurd or dishonest.

The other point is that those who talk about "original intent" that way (as if it were something fixed in time) miss the point. The "original intent" of a law was often deliberately high level so that the implementation could change over time. Where it is specific there is usually a reason, and that reason, unless modified by later laws and understanding should be preserved. But it is not a dead hand. The Constitution was meant to be a "living document" in the sense of a high level charter whose implementation could change over time.

And indeed we can speculate endlessly. If Jefferson, Franklin, and others saw reporters and the press as a "fourth estate," there is every reason to believe that by founding Wall Street, creating our first National Bank, and creating the New York Stock Exchange; Hamilton was founding a "fifth estate" that would eventually come to have more power than the other estates combined.

Indeed I'm see our current financial meltdown, and the previous ones that were all caused by the same financial elites, and their fraudulent schemes (compare "Bucket Shops" to modern derivatives) for parting honest Americans from their savings -- as all part of a piece. I'm labeling that piece "the revenge of Alexander Hamilton."

At the same time Alexander Hamilton was right about a lot of things. His prescription of mild protective tariffs, stable currency, and modest debt works when applied intelligently. On the other hand I think his promotion of economic elites, joint stock companies, and fractional banking has been at best a mixed blessing and at worst a curse.

I'm not with the Aaron Burr Society folks who see it as a massive conspiracy. For one thing it is quite open how these folks part the rest of us with our wealth; so its hardly a secret. And for another, these kinds of things rarely involve secret "conspiracies" so much as herd behavior and insider economic politics.

On the other hand the following points are true. You really should listen to this report:

"The best way to rob a bank is to own it."

You Tube:

"Bernie Maddow was a piker."

http://aaronburrsociety.org/Bibliography.html

continued, part II:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/08/hamiltons-revenge-ii.html

Originally posted at Fraught with Peril

http://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2010/05/10/the-revenge-of-alexander-hamilton/

http://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2010/05/11/revenge-of-alexander-hamilton-part-ii/

Hamilton's Revenge II

This continues my discussion of Alexander Hamilton and the authorship of the constitution. As noted in the previous post, he was a Republican, but also a man who was an Anglo-phile and admitted that he preferred the British form of Government. This shouldn't be surprising. American Republicanism was partly a reaction to the extreme Parliamentarianism that was in turn a reaction to the "Glorious Revolution" which defenestrated the Stuart Kings and replaced them first with a Royal Line from the Netherlands, and then with an obscure German Family. The Revolutionaries also concentrated power in Judicial and Parliamentarian hands; and had trouble conceiving of the notion that English people outside the Home Country would want "representation" in Parliament eventually. As a warrior Hamilton fought the British, as an able warrior he understood them.

Madison Notes:

..."In his private opinion he had no scruple in declaring, supported as he was by the opinions of so many of the wise & good, that the British Govt. was the best in the world: and that he doubted much whether any thing short of it would do in America."

I can put myself in his shoes. As a man who understood the British Government and openly admired its constitution, he was steeped in British Common law and its tradition of Representation, preservation of rights, and order. Compared to the other countries in Europe it was the best government of the time.

"He hoped Gentlemen of different opinions would bear with him in this, and begged them to recollect the change of opinion on this subject which had taken place and was still going on. It was once thought that the power of Cong[res]s. was amply sufficient to secure the end of their institution. The error was now seen by every one."

Hamilton understood an important principle of reality: One should never throw out the baby with the bathwater. There are gems in the British system; Common law, the concept of rights, the principle of "constitutionality" which predates our written constitution, and the principles that no man is above the law and that all men should be subject to "ordinary courts" rather than special treatment -- when charged with a crime:

"...The members most tenacious of republicanism, he observed, were as loud as any in declaiming ag[ain]st. the vices of democracy. This progress of the public mind led him to anticipate the time, when others as well as himself would join in the praise bestowed by Mr. Neckar on the British Constitution, namely, that it is the only Govt. in the world "which unites public strength with individual security."

Few of the leaders of his time were out and out Democratic Republicans. Madison argued for that, but even he was afraid of "faction" and the power of demagogues and mob rule. But Hamilton also admired monarchy. And that is a different animal.

-"In every community where industry is encouraged, there will be a division of it into the few & the many. Hence separate interests will arise. There will be debtors & creditors &c. Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many. Both therefore ought to have [FN6] power, that each may defend itself ag[ain]st. the other."

This sounds remarkably like Madison's argument in Federalist 10 except that Madison comes around to the side of Representative Democracy as the least evil of all available systems. But here is where he diverges from James Madison and Thomas Jefferson:

To the want of this check we owe our paper money, installment laws &c. To the proper adjustment of it the British owe the excellence of their Constitution. Their house of Lords is a most noble institution. Having nothing to hope for by a change, and a sufficient interest by means of their property, in being faithful to the national interest, they form a permanent barrier ag[ain]st. every pernicious innovation, whether attempted on the part of the Crown or of the Commons."

Of course this assumes that the wealthy people in the house of commons are genuinely neutral and disinterested. Hamilton is admiring economic royalty here and assumes that all "pernicious innovation(s)" will come from the commons. His Point Of View is entirely that of an economic royalist. Indeed by the time he participated in the Constitutional Convention he was already turning his attention towards commerce and banks and played an indirect role in founding the Bank of New York.

"No temporary Senate will have firmness eno'[ugh] to answer the purpose. The Senate [of Maryland] which seems to be so much appealed to, has not yet been sufficiently tried. Had the people been unanimous & eager, in the late appeal to them on the subject of a paper emission they would would have yielded to the torrent."

For Hamilton a stable banking system, a system that favors the accumulation of wealth, and as little Democracy as he could get away with was his goal. Never mind that the kinds of banks he was founding would be a leading source of **instability**

"Their acquiescing in such an appeal is a proof of it. -Gentlemen differ in their opinions concerning the necessary checks, from the different estimates they form of the human passions. They suppose seven years a sufficient period to give the senate an adequate firmness, from not duly considering the amazing violence & turbulence of the democratic spirit. When a great object of Govt. is pursued, which seizes the popular passions, they spread like wild fire, and become irresistable.

Madison here is summarizing Hamilton's arguments;

"He appealed to the gentlemen from the N. England States whether experience had not there verified the remark."

To Hamilton, like Burke, the common folks involving themselves in politics was a horror that could only lead to violence and turbulence. From this speech it is pretty obvious that Hamilton, whatever lip service he might have given the commons, or democracy, was no democrat:

"-As to the Executive, it seemed to be admitted that no good one could be established on Republican principles. Was not this giving up the merits of the question: for can there be a good Govt. without a good Executive. The English model was the only good one on this subject.

To Hamilton there were no examples of successful Republican executives. His feelings went to promoting royalism in the executive area as well. Indeed, he doesn't sound that different from any of his well to do contemporaries. In many Latin American Countries the "executive" quickly became an unstable succession of dictators. His heart pined for the stability of hereditary monarchy:

The Hereditary interest of the King was so interwoven with that of the Nation, and his personal emoluments so great, that he was placed above the danger of being corrupted from abroad-and at the same time was both sufficiently independent and sufficiently controuled, to answer the purpose of the institution at home. one of the weak sides of Republics was their being liable to foreign influence & corruption. Men of little character, acquiring great power become easily the tools of intermedling Nei[gh]bours.

Of course the reality is not so cut and dried. There are instances of Kings being corrupted from abroad (The Polish Kings come to mind), and there are many examples of Kings being pure tyrants simply because placing the roles of Judge, Jury and Executioner in the same top down organization and/or person invites tyranny. As to "men of little character" we see that set of traits scattered from top to down in every country and community. Hamilton only need have looked objectively at the then occupant of the English Throne, who was totally unsuited for it.

But the main point is that, an analysis of this speech, recorded by his friend Madison (there are other even less flattering versions of the same speech), demonstrates that the two main authors of the constitution had widely divergent beliefs about the value of Democratic Republicanism. Hamilton is the true founder of Undemocratic Republicanism, while we can yet give credit to Madison for founding the principles of our republic.

A secondary point is that, nevertheless, it was important to represent Hamilton's view in the founding of the country. His intrinsic fear of paper money, demagogues, and mob actions, is one that most of us ought to fear as well. Aaron Burr was a demagogue and a populist, and it is no accident that he's also the one who killed Hamilton and in the process destroyed his own political career.

This is a reprint of a post originally at Fraught With Peril The first part of this series is here:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/08/hamiltons-revenge-i.html

John Locke on The Virtues of liberty

As a society forgets it's requirements and it's virtues, it becomes ugly. Viciousness comes from the word vicious, which shares a common root with the word vice. A societies vices are the distorted mirror image, or shadow, of it's virtues. When we talk about wanting liberty, that is a virtuous thing. But the opposite of liberty is the attribute of oppression. Liberty is to be able to move freely, do what one pleases with only natural constraints, and to live one's life and pursue happiness.

The opposite of being able to move freely is to be oppressed, restrained. Complete oppression is slavery, when one isn't even able to own one's self. One is never, in this world, completely free; nor is one completely restrained until death. While in the material world every human being is both free and constrained to a degree.

6. "But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of license; though man in that state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions; for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one sovereign Master, sent into the world by His order and about His business; they are His property, whose workmanship they are made to last during His, not one another’s pleasure."

Liberty and oppression are not absolutes, they aren't binary. To the degree that one has access to and control of the properties a person needs to be free to pursue happiness and achieve one's life's work and needs, one has liberty. To the extent these attributes are denied, one is not free. That is why imprisonment and slavery are the ultimate in oppression. Our own liberty should not impinge on others. As John Locke Says:

"6...Every one as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he as much as he can to preserve the rest of mankind, and not unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another."

Liberty is also associated with power. It requires power to pursue happiness, control properties, use tools and achieve one's goals. Powerlessness is associated with slavery. Rule is the exercise of power. To be truly free one must have power over one's own life. That is why self-rule is self-empowerment. At the same time a state of war starts when someone tries to utilize his power to take away the liberty of another. John Locke says;

17.."he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him;...He that in the state of Nature would take away the freedom that belongs to any one in that state must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away everything else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest; as he that in the state of society would take away the freedom"

Ironically just the act of recognizing where one is powerful and where one has no power is the first step in getting self rule. Even a prisoner who can rule his or her own mind cannot be completely shackled. Some of the greatest works of freedom were written in Jail. The virtue of liberty is that it starts inward and emanates outward. Liberty is not anarchism. John Locke said of liberty:

21...."The liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth, nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact according to the trust put in it. Freedom, then, is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us: “A liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws”; but freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it. A liberty to follow my own will in all things where that rule prescribes not, not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man, as freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but the law of Nature."

The virtue of liberty is to be free within the boundaries of one's own swimlanes, one's own life, with rules everyone can understand. Libertarians get this wrong, and anarchists get this very wrong.

John Locke continues:

"57....For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom. For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others, which cannot be where there is no law; and is not, as we are told, “a liberty for every man to do what he lists.” For who could be free, when every other man’s humour might domineer over him? But a liberty to dispose and order freely as he lists his person, actions, possessions, and his whole property within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own"

He says this in the context of a parent:

63. "The freedom then of man, and liberty of acting according to his own will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct him in that law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will. To turn him loose to an unrestrained liberty, before he has reason to guide him, is not the allowing him the privilege of his nature to be free, but to thrust him out amongst brutes, and abandon him to a state as wretched and as much beneath that of a man as theirs."

Notes:

"9. “Human laws are measures in respect of men whose actions they must direct, howbeit such measures they are as have also their higher rules to be measured by, which rules are two—the law of God and the law of Nature; so that laws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made.” Hooker, Eccl. Pol. iii. 9. “To constrain men to anything inconvenient doth seem unreasonable.” Ibid. i. 10."