Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has written a book, as he approaches his 94th birthday. In the book, based on his experience and knowledge as a Supreme Court Justice, and recent events in our nation's history, he proposes six changes to the United States Constitution. . . and five out of six of his proposed changes are idiotic, and very dangerous. The other one is just not going to happen.
Among the amendments to the United States Constitution that Stevens suggests:
•Changing the Second Amendment to make clear that only a state's militia, not its citizens, has a constitutional right to bear arms.
•Changing the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishments" by specifically including the death penalty.
•Removing from First Amendment protection any "reasonable limits" on campaign spending enacted by Congress or the states.
•Requiring that congressional and state legislative districts be "compact and composed of contiguous territory" to stop both parties from carving out safe seats.
•Eliminating states' sovereign immunity from liability for violating the Constitution or an act of Congress, which he calls a "manifest injustice."
•Allowing Congress to require states to perform federal duties in emergencies, in order to reduce "the risk of a national catastrophe."
Let's discuss them one at a time.
1: Changing the Second Amendment to make clear that only a state's militia, not its citizens, has a constitutional right to bear arms.
Chicago and New York City are among the two strictest cities in the United States regarding gun control laws. They also rank number one and two as the cities with the most murders in the United States year after year. But the reason we have the right to bear arms goes beyond the ability to protect ourselves from the violent element of society. The language of the Second Amendment itself, and definitions provided by the U.S. Code, helps explain why Justice Stevens' suggestion to change the Second Amendment is not only dangerous, but actually misses the whole point in regards to his premise regarding that God-given right.
The first error made by Justice Stevens in his suggestion comes down to definitions. He characterizes the state's militia, and its citizens, as being two separate groups. According to the U.S. Code, that is just not the case.
Title 10 of the United States Code provides for both "organized" and "unorganized" civilian militias. While the organized militia is made up of members of the National Guard, State Militia and Naval Militia, the unorganized militia is composed entirely of private individuals. Citizens.
United States Code: Title 10 – Armed Forces, Subtitle A – General Military Law
Chapter 13 – The Militia:
Sec. 311. Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of
the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Other than age, health, gender, or citizenship, there are no additional provisions for exemption from membership in the unorganized militia. While it is doubtful that it will ever be called to duty, the United States civilian militia does legally exist.
Under Stevens' suggestion, only the state militia should have the right to bear arms, not the citizens, but the citizens are the unorganized militia, which makes his suggestion a contradiction.
The premise Stevens is operating under is the assumption that a "well-regulated militia" is a militia regulated by the government. Again, Stevens misses the mark.
In reality, a "well-regulated militia" is a militia that is "in good order."
During the American Revolutionary War, the militia was comprised of a rag-tag collection of farmers, businessmen, and merchants. They were not well trained. They were not uniformed. In fact, many had no shoes, or socks. One of the wonderful things Martha Washington, wife of General George Washington, did for the revolutionaries during the war was darn socks for them. The muskets were not the same sizes, as well. The fighting force under General George Washington was not in good order.
In the 1828 edition of Webster's Dictionary, under "regulated," the second definition, after the one about weights and measures, was the definition the founders meant by the word "regulated." The definition is: To put in good order.
The Second Amendment's "well-regulated militia" is comprised of citizens, who are acting as a militia, that is in good order. The people need to be armed in order to populate this unorganized militia, not because we expect another invasion from Britain, but for the purpose of having a militia in good order so that it may protect the States against tyranny. To protect the States from a potentially tyrannical federal government, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
How does it make sense that the entity in which we are to be armed to protect ourselves against can tell us to disarm?
Being armed, as stated in the U.S. Constitution, and as defined by the English Bill of Rights of 1689, is a natural right, a right given to us by God. If the right to keep and bear arms is a God-given right, then only God is authorized to take away that right. Not government.
Stevens' suggestion is based on the wrong premise, and goes against freedom, and God.
However, if Stevens got his way, then the States could simply pass their own State Constitution amendments proclaiming that all citizens are members of the State Militia, and "boom," we are right back where we started.
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." — George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788
2: Changing the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishments" by specifically including the death penalty.
In Jefferson's view, the Federalists "retired into the judiciary as a stronghold . . . and from that battery all the works of Republicanism are to be beaten down and destroyed."
By the 1820s, the Federalists became irrelevant, and faded into history as the party became incapable of winning any elections. But their statist idealism lived on, and still does today, in a federal court system strengthened by John Marshall, and catapulted to the top of the political food chain by misrepresentation, and a series of bullying tactics from the bench. He was the longest serving Chief Justice in American history, giving Marshall plenty of years to orchestrate his damage to the original principles of the United States Constitution.
The Eight Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishments" is not about what the punishment is by itself, but what the punishment is in relation to the crime. In other words, the punishment must fit the crime. The death penalty because someone stole a loaf of bread from a street vendor would be cruel and unusual. A permanent life imprisonment because somebody ran a stop sign would be cruel and unusual. But would being put to death for the rape and slow strangulation of a child be cruel and unusual? How about applying the death penalty to the serial killer that craved having blood on his hands, and murdered freely, and at will? What if that person molested your children, or killed your spouse in front of you for the joy of it? Would it be cruel and unusual, in relation to the crime, to have that convicted killer put to death?
The Constitution refers to "capital crimes" on occasion. The death penalty did exist, and apparently they did not believe it to be cruel and unusual under the appropriate circumstances.
What has always bothered me, and this includes pro-abortion Justice Stevens, is that the folks that call the death penalty "cruel and unusual" also support the senseless slaughter of helpless babies while they are still in the womb. Now that is cruel and unusual.
5: Eliminating states' sovereign immunity from liability for violating the Constitution or an act of Congress, which he calls a "manifest injustice."
3: Removing from First Amendment protection any "reasonable limits" on campaign spending enacted by Congress or the states.
This one is directly connected to the Citizens United case, where it was decided that corporations are people, and that their freedom of speech is exhibited through campaign spending. In Justice Stevens' dissent summary, he explains, "Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office…[t]he financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races."
What was the purpose of creating corporations in the first place? Was not the idea to create a fictional "person?" Ever heard of a "fictitious business name?" Why is it "fictitious?" Is it because the business is fictitious? Of course not. The personhood of the company is.
In the 1700s, William Blackstone wrote: “it has been found necessary, when it is for the advantage of the public” to “constitute artificial persons, who may maintain a perpetual succession, and enjoy a kind of legal immortality. These artificial persons are called ... corporations.”
Corporate personhood, therefore, exists.
Does not a corporation, as a person, hold the same rights as an individual? A corporation has a right to own property. It has the right to form contracts. And if anyone tries to stand in the way of either of those rights, a corporation has the right to sue in court.
Regardless of employees, leadership, or the stockholders, a company’s property is held in its own name and belongs to it, not to the investors. If the corporation breaches a contract, it’s the company, not the individual stockholders, that is responsible. If the corporation is harmed in some way, the individual investors are not allowed to sue. The corporation has to do it.
Are these not all features of personhood?
In Citizens United, despite Stevens' dissent, the court ruled that corporations enjoy the same free speech rights as ordinary individuals. As the majority commented, corporations are “associations of citizens”—and those citizens who make up the corporation have constitutional rights.
4: Requiring that congressional and state legislative districts be "compact and composed of contiguous territory" to stop both parties from carving out safe seats.
This one actually makes a little sense, though it really shouldn't be a federal authority. The idea, here, is to eliminate gerrymandering. A grid-style of districting may be the closest to being fair. However, the likelihood of eliminating political and lobby monkeying with the district lines, which they do to protect incumbents that favor their agendas, would hardly be something the Congress, or any other governmental body, would undertake, or enforce. It's sort of like that old idiom about asking the fox to guard the hen house. It's not a good idea, and no matter how convincing the fox may be that he won't eat the chickens, we all know what will happen.
The suggestion to limit State sovereignty is like telling parents that their authority is limited over how they can govern their children.
Oh, wait, the leftists believe in doing that, too.
To understand the Constitution is to understand State Sovereignty, and apparently Justice Stevens chooses not to support the school of thought that promotes the idea that the States are sovereign, individual, autonomous entities, or that it was the States that created the federal system to serve the States, not control them as if it is a national government.
To properly address Justice Stevens' idea that the States can't "violate the Constitution, or an act of Congress," it is important to define what he means, and what the States authorities truly are.
Stevens suggests that the federal system was created to unite and control the States, rather than unite and protect their sovereignty. He suggests that the federal government is supreme over the States in all cases. He suggests that if States dare come against the federal system, they must be punished for daring to be contrary to the ruling elite that run the federal system. On all counts, he is sadly mistaken, and way off base.
Clarification resides primarily on two clauses in the United States Constitution. The Supremacy Clause at the beginning of Article VI., and the Tenth Amendment.
It is assumed, and erroneously supported by case law, that the federal government is supreme over the States in regards to all issues, actions, and cases. This concept was first instituted by John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States, appointed by John Adams in 1801, just before Thomas Jefferson took office, during an expansion of the judiciary by the Federalists where Adams appointed numerous "Midnight Judges," and an action that was called by Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans "appalling."
In Jefferson's view, the Federalists "retired into the judiciary as a stronghold . . . and from that battery all the works of Republicanism are to be beaten down and destroyed."
By the 1820s, the Federalists became irrelevant, and faded into history as the party became incapable of winning any elections. But their statist idealism lived on, and still does today, in a federal court system strengthened by John Marshall, and catapulted to the top of the political food chain by misrepresentation, and a series of bullying tactics from the bench. He was the longest serving Chief Justice in American history, giving Marshall plenty of years to orchestrate his damage to the original principles of the United States Constitution.
John Marshall repeatedly confirmed his opinion that all federal law is supreme over all State law, and redefined "The Rule of Law" to mean the same as The Rule of the Courts.
A strict examination of the Supremacy Clause, however, reveals that all federal laws are not supreme over all State laws. Only laws "made in pursuance" of the Constitution are supreme. If the federal law, or action, is not authorized to the federal government by the Constitution, it is an illegal law, making it null and void, and incapable of being "supreme" over any State law.
Which brings us back to State Sovereignty. The States, represented by delegates that were trusted members of the community, during the Constitutional Convention, created the federal system as a means to serve the States, and to handle the external issues that the States independently could not take care of, like common defense, foreign trade, and to act as a mediator between the States whenever there was a dispute.
Before the United States Constitution, under the Articles of Confederation, and prior, the States enjoyed complete autonomy. They were independent, individual states that handled all issues locally. The States held "original authority" on all issues. The Tenth Amendment alludes to this reality in the language that the clause uses. It reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The word "reserved" is our clue.
In the 1828 Webster's Dictionary, in the first definition of reserved, resides the word "retained." When you look up "retained," the definition of "reserved," as it is meant in the Tenth Amendment, becomes apparent. It reads: "Held; kept in possession."
In other words, the powers already belonged to the States, and the ones they did not grant to the federal government was retained by the States.
In the Constitution the words "granted" and "vested" are used often, when referring to authorities granted to the federal government. Granted, by that same dictionary from the time period shortly following the founding of this nation, is defined as, "Admitted as true; conceded; yielded; bestowed; conveyed." Vested is explained by the dictionary with the following:
Vested legacy, in law, a legacy the right to which commences in presenti, and does not depend on a contingency, as a legacy to one, to be paid when he attains to twenty one years of age. This is a vested legacy, and if the legatee dies before the testator, his representative shall receive it.
Vested remainder, is where the estate is invariably fixed, to remain to a determinate person, after the particular estate is spent. This is called a remainder executed, by which a present interest passes to the party, though to be enjoyed in future.
Vested legacy, in law, a legacy the right to which commences in presenti, and does not depend on a contingency, as a legacy to one, to be paid when he attains to twenty one years of age. This is a vested legacy, and if the legatee dies before the testator, his representative shall receive it.
Vested remainder, is where the estate is invariably fixed, to remain to a determinate person, after the particular estate is spent. This is called a remainder executed, by which a present interest passes to the party, though to be enjoyed in future.
In both the cases of "granted," and "vested," the ultimate meaning is "to legally transfer."
So, if powers are being granted, or vested, there must be a provider, and a recipient. The provider would be the one establishing the agreement, and establishing the contract. The recipient, a system created by the contract between the States, would then be bound by the agreement, and only allowed to operate within the limited authorities it receives. So, how would it be reasonable that the federal system, created by the States, allowed to exist by the States, and given its authorities by the States in order to handle external issues, would be "authorized" to control the States that gave it life?
It is sort of like the rise of the machines (to use a "Terminator" reference), except in this case it is the rise of the federal government. An illegal, unconstitutional rise, at that.
6: Allowing Congress to require states to perform federal duties in emergencies, in order to reduce "the risk of a national catastrophe."
This final one is actually quite comical. Once again, the premise is wrong in the first place.
First off, the language is dangerous. "Allowing Congress to require states to perform. . . "
Since when can the federal government "require" the States to do anything. And if you allow the federal government to require the States to do this, what stops them from requiring the States to do other things?
Oh, wait, in the world of the liberal left, that's what the federal government is for. To "control" the States.
Again, State Sovereignty is the key here. Yes, I know that the liberal left thinks State Sovereignty is dangerous, because they don't believe the States should have any rights at all. I have actually seen in forums people suggest reducing the States to territories and provinces, and doing away with State government in totality - and allowing the totalitarian of government rule to belong to the federal government.
Another word for that idea is "totalitarianism." You know, like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao?
Bad idea.
To go deeper into this suggestion by the retired Supreme Court Justice, what Stevens is referring to is situations like Hurricane Katrina, where the State of Louisiana dropped the ball, did not evacuate people, and a whole fleet of buses that could have been used for such an action were left empty, and under water. Meanwhile, the federal government was held back, because Bush dropped the ball (according to the democrats), and the disaster could have been avoided if Bush had moved faster (once again, according to the democrats), or if Louisiana had been authorized to do the things the federal government was going to do.
First of all, most of the "duties" that Stevens believes belongs to the federal government are unconstitutional actions. Second, the federal government, as in the case of Bush and Katrina, cannot do anything until the State allows the federal government to move in. In the case of Katrina, the governor of Louisiana never gave the okay, and so the federal government was unable to move in. In other words, Bush followed the Constitution, and held back until authorization by the State was given.
This all returns us to the State sovereignty thing. The States are their own entities, and the federal government has no authority to enter the States, or operate inside the States, without the State allowing them to do so. Remember, in the Constitution the army is limited to two years appropriation of funding at a time, because the founders feared the federal government using a standing army against the people. The people, through the House of Representatives, hold the purse strings, so if the people felt the federal government was using the army inappropriately, they could starve the subject military operations financially. This was a fail-safe check against the federal government to keep the federal government from acting in a tyrannical manner against the States.
With all of this in mind, the States need to act responsibly, to perform their duties, and not wait for the federal government. The federal system is not the salvation of the States. It is simply there to serve the States on matters the States cannot handle individually. . . like common defense, international trade, and settling disputes between the States.
Bonus: Legalize Marijuana
Speaking with NPR’s Scott Simon, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens endorsed the legalization of marijuana and argued that the government’s decades-long fight to ban the substance will in retrospect be seen as a mistake.
There is no constitutional authority allowing the federal government to regulate drugs, therefore, it is a State authority. In other words, it has to be up to the States. If a constitutional amendment was proposed, and ratified, giving the federal government the authority, that would be one thing. But in the interview, that is not what Stevens suggested. He suggested in the interview that the federal government just legalize pot, as if they have that authority.
Title 10, Chapter 13, U.S. Code, Militia - U.S. Code, House.gov
Which is one of the reasons why the judiciary is not technically authorized to "interpret" the Constitution as we have been taught. The States are the final arbiters, not the courts. . . but that is for a different discussion, another day.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Justice Stevens: Make 6 Changes to the Constitution - Yahoo News
How Chicago became Chiraq - Yahoo News
The 15 Most Murderous Cities in the United States - Policy Mic
Regulated: Definition - 1828 Webster's Dictionary
Citizens United, Stevens dissent summary - Patriots for Change
William Blackstone: Of Corporations - The Laws of Nature and Nature's God
Reserved: Definition - 1828 Webster's Dictionary
Retained: Definition - 1828 Webster's Dictionary
Granted: Defintion - 1828 Webster's Dictionary
Vested: Definition - 1828 Webster's Dictionary
Vesting - Wikipedia
Grant - Wiktionary
Dangerous State Sovereignty Myth (so you can see what these "national government" folks really believe regarding state sovereignty - and notice how an extreme racist element is being applied to Voter ID Laws -- I will write an article breaking down the falsehoods of this article at a later date) - Consortium News
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