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.
The East India Company is the Model for the Modern Corporation. This is an extraordinary fact because that company ran its own foreign relations, own armies (The famous Sepoy's), fought their own wars,bribed, subverted, suborned, got contracts to perform government services and then exploited those to take over governments. They went from running trading posts in coastal cities on a lease from the Mogul Emperors, to keeping them virtual prisoners on a pension. They invaded what is now Afghanistan and both loved and despised the Moslems who had formerly dominated in India. Eventually their greed and stupidity forced them to step aside from Governing India to the role of continuing to loot it. Heck the word "loot", both as noun and verb, comes from India.
"The rights and privileges of natural persons under this constitution originate in the right of the individual to himself, therefore these rights are the rights of natural persons." [Source: Henry George in the Condition of Labor]
"Any privileges of Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state derive from the people and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, as appropriate. These rights are not to be construed as inherent or inalienable but are privileges established to serve the public good."
All citizens shall have the right to participate in the political process, to vote in elections in their permanent domicile and to effective representation in Federal, State, and local governing entities.
All contributions of any person, or artificial entities to the political process must be publicly disclosed. Undisclosed contributions may be construed as bribery or undue influence with or without evidence of quid pro quo.
A Free Press being necessary to a Free Republic, all meetings and interactions of Government officials, elected or appointed, executive, Judiciary or Legislature; shall be recorded for posterity; and unless a compelling reason exists for the deliberations to be kept secret, shall be witnessed by members of the press and reasonable representation of the general public. Any records marked secret shall only be kept secret for the minimum appropriate time for such secrecy, and only those parts such as necessary to protect actual natural security shall be redacted when released before that time. The press shall be compensated for performing recording, reporting, archiving or witnessing efforts by the hour at the same hourly rate as the House of Representatives is compensated.
The President shall be elected by a majority of voters. If no candidate shall achieve 50% + 1 of the popular vote, then there shall be a run off election between the 2 candidates with the highest percentage of the vote.
The Post Office shall enable people to cast ballots through the Post Office in all jurisdictions where there is an election and shall accept ballots from 5 days before the election to Midnight of Election Day.
No Government, State, Federal or local may infringe on the right of citizens to cast their ballots within their neighborhoods and for each citizen to cast one vote in the elections of their permanent place of residence that have jurisdiction over them. Reasonable identification may be required and the security of ballots shall be protected. But no legitimate voter may be denied a vote due to improper challenges of their identity and no vote may be ignored or thrown out that was cast by a citizen without that citizen being notified and given a chance to make a correction.
The People shall have the right to vet all candidates for elective office and to require that they disclose relevant information on their fitness for office under oath. All elective and appointed offices shall be audited at the end of their term of office and the information reviewed by a bipartisan or non partisan panel and put into a report.
All Citizens and legal residents residing in the United States or its territories shall have the right to meaningful work and to be compensated for such work at a reasonable wage.
All Citizens and legal residents residing in the United States or its territories shall have the right to adequate shelter and to be secure in their possessions within such shelter from unreasonable search and seizure.
All natural persons residing in the United States or its territories shall have the right to adequate medical care
All Citizens and legal residents of the United States shall have the right to economic care during sickness, accident, old age, unemployment or infirmity.
The above is suggested language.
Background Notes
"This right of property, originating in the right of the individual to himself, is the only full and complete right of property. It attaches to things produced by labor, but cannot attach to things created by God." [Condition of Labor]
Said Henry George in a letter to Pope Leo XIII in response to Rerum Novarum in 1891. Of all the responses to Rerum Novarum his was the most electric & most enduring. Rerum Novarum was cited by Catholic groups around the world, incited Catholic Social Action but also was part of the creed of Mediterranean fascists in the 19th century. It started as a seemingly radical left doctrine, but because it also protected ownership of land, it became a conservative force for the next century and into the present. Henry argued against being branded a socialist. And the above quote was the basis for that argument
""To attach to things created by God the same right of private ownership that justly attaches to things produced by labor is to impair and deny the true rights of property. For a man who out of the proceeds of his labor is obliged to pay another man for the use of ocean or air or sunshine or soil, all of which are to men involved in the single term land, is in this deprived of his rightful property and thus robbed." [Condition of Labor]
We humans have a basic right to possess land, shelter, work-places, access to markets and transportation:
"While the right of ownership that justly attaches to things produced by labor cannot attach to land, there may attach to land a right of possession." [Condition of Labor]
But that right is not unalloyed, without limits:
“God has not granted the earth to mankind in general in the sense that all without distinction can deal with it as they please,” [Condition of Labor]
And there are logical and rational rules to such limits:
"regulations necessary for its best use may be fixed by human laws. But such regulations must conform to the moral law — must secure to all equal participation in the advantages of God’s general bounty." [Condition of Labor]
If man would apply moral law to the access to, control of and disposition of resources, we'd be in much better shape.
This post is part of a series intended to clarify how to write a second bill of rights and what should be in it in order to implement not only F.D. Roosevelt's vision, but the lessons of subsequent years. Obama proposed a constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United, but clearly that alone will only deal with one piece of the problem.
My wife and I couldn't visit Argentina for the first few years we were married. Her passport was good everywhere but back home, yet Argentina lacked passport quality paper to make new passports, and so if she'd returned to Argentina she'd have been stuck there. She would have had to renew her passport there and it would have been months before they could do so. That is how dysfunctional Argentina was. She had no control over her own finances, her own money supply, etc...
There is so much happening right now, that if you are only watching Fox TV you'll never know half of it. And if you aren't reading critically, you'll never grasp it's significance. I'm not really interested in the ephemeral minutiae of the moment right now. But current scandals are enduring, historical events, so it is important to help people keep up. In the news today, are leaks of Trump's conversations with foreign leaders, threats to attack North Korea, Mueller's investigation standing up a Grand Jury & more and more evidence that we elected a Traitor. And that this has been a long term project. These are the important stories to me and a brief summary of why:
The term "Tory" comes from a Celtic Root, thru the Irish,
"toraidhe ‘outlaw, highwayman,’ from tóir ‘pursue.’" [Multiple Dictionaries]
A Free Press has to have these three Attributes:
Currently all three of these attributes of a free press are under assault
The Free Press in the United States is under attack from enemies & counterfeiters. These overt enemies want to either take over and control the news for corrupt partisan purposes, or to shut down legitimate news and substitute "entertainment" and propaganda. The usurpers are succeeding principally by buying networks, local TV and Radio and replacing local news staffs with centralized propagandists and central instructions. This is concentrating ownership of news and creating local monopoly and reinforcing local, regional and national oligarchic power. Meanwhile Counterfeit news is propagated by partisans with no means to verify and validate accuracy. This news is often picked up by the Oligarchic news as if it were the real thing.
If this is allowed to continue the Utility of honest and accurate reporting will be replaced with agitation propaganda, advertising & purely partisan information. This is already happening with Companies like Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting. And the influence of front office and back office powers over editing and content is felt across the media. Meanwhile many qualified veteran reporters are doing web broadcasts or blogs. That is not a stable or efficient substitute to truly free press.
This is a threat to both the Democratic Party and Democracy. Until it is fixed we have to act as inadequate substitutes for the press ourselves.
