Monday, March 27, 2017

reg•u•late, v.t.

 

From Noah Webster's dictionary, 1828

reg•u•late, verb transitive

1. To adjust by rule, method or established mode;  as, to regulate weights and measures;  to regulate the assize of bread;  to regulate our moral conduct by the laws of God and of society;  to regulate our manners by the customary forms.

2. To put in good order;  as, to regulate the disordered state of a nation or its finances.

3. To subject to rules or restrictions;  as, to regulate trade;  to regulate diet.

Note that placing rules and restrictions on a subject was the last thing Revolutionary era Americans thought of when they said 'regulate'.  The first thing they thought of was 'adjustment':  to make something work properly, the way one might adjust a clock to keep correct time.  Thus, a 'well-regulated militia' is one that functions as a unit and all of whom know how to clean, load, and fire their weapons.  To 'regulate commerce' did not mean 'suffocate under a mountain of legislation';  it meant 'make it work the way it should'.

Under Congress' article I section 8 power to 'regulate commerce among the states' the implication was that Congress would facilitate commerce rather than micromanage it.  This was the primary impetus behind FDR's threat to pack the Supreme Court with additional judges who would see things his way:  FDR wanted more power than the interstate commerce (hereafter IC) clause allowed because his vision was of a larger, more powerful central government that could mold the economy in ways that would dispel the economic depression of the 30s and 40s.  He got his needed reinterpretation and today almost everything Congress does is justified under those expanded IC powers.  That new interpretation is so expansive that the Gun Free School Zones Act was cast as justified by the IC clause because it claimed to protect future consumers in IC!

In fact, although article I section 8 grants power to Congress in only 17 specific areas, this new interpretation of the IC clause is so broad that it can truly be said that article I section 8 now grants power in 16 specific areas and one other which is 'anything else Congress wants'.

Virtually everything we see as 'wrong' with the federal government today arises from that faulty interpretation:  we are supposed to be living in The Free Trade Zone Of The United States but are instead saddled with rules that require (just as one example) special certification for over-the-road long haul drivers who operate in more than one state — and those rules cost money.  In the one recent case where Congress should have been using its original powers to prevent damage to the consumer, they conspired with a state to promote it.  Before 1974, if you wanted to fly to Dallas, you landed at Love Field (DAL), 5 miles NW of downtown.  When DFW was proposed as Dallas' new airport, Texas asked for and Congress agreed to limit the use of Love Field in order to promote DFW (and American Airlines).  As a result, as soon as DFW was operational, the FAA no longer accepted flight plans for Love Field to or from airports outside Texas.  You could then fly DAL-Abilene-Seattle, or DAL-ElPaso-Hawaii, or DAL-Houston-Paris, but you could not fly non-stop to any of those destinations unless you flew from DFW.  The 40-year agreement expired in 2014 having cost Southwest Airlines 40 years of business out of Love Field and funneling most of that business to America Airlines which, for all intents and purposes, owns DFW.

Because of Congress' new-found power over the economy, corporations whatever their size and, in fact, entire industries are at the mercy of Congress which now wields the power of life and death over them.  Is it any wonder Washington DC is awash in corporate lobbyists and campaign contributions?  People who complain about the corrupting influence of corporate money over politics are complaining of the wrong thing.  They should be complaining about the corrupting influence of the incorrectly-interpreted IC clause.

 

Sunday, March 26, 2017

A Muslim majority?

 

What happens if Islam becomes the majority religion in America?

There is already a Muslim mayor of London, so don't think it's not possible.  That same mayor just announced, in response to the recent terror attack on Parliament, that such things are part of the price for living in a big city and that people should get used to it.

The first thing that will happen in a Muslim-majority America is that the 1st amendment to the Constitution will come under attack.  Long before that, Islam will have become a major religion among the U.S.Congress and the several statehouses, and that's where the process starts.  Either 2/3rds of both houses propose an amendment or 2/3rds of the states call for a convention.  Why the 1st amendment?  Well, technically anyone may broadcast or print negative words about the Prophet.  This cannot be tolerated in an Islamic country or by Muslims anywhere.  The first has got to go.

"The First Amendment to the Constitution is hereby repealed."  If 3/4ths of the states, either by ratifying convention or by the legislatures ratifying on behalf of the people, accept this, it could then become a crime to speak against the Prophet or Islam, even if what you say is true.  There would be no escape, either, for those who merely make such remarks among family and friends because, as we have seen from recent events, the government has the ability to spy on us even in private via our phones and television sets, and that spy apparatus would be in the hands of a largely-Islamic government.

It would then also be possible to have a state religion, and it would be Islam.  As in nearly all other Islamic nations, the practice of other religions would be forbidden.  Media outlets that took adverse positions could be lawfully shuttered.  There would be one voice throughout the land, and it would deliver a single message, and the Republic would be no more.

There comes a point in such a struggle that the tide sweeps the victor onward to inevitable victory, and we are too, too close to that point for comfort.

"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed;  if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly;  you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival.

"There may even be a worse case.  You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."

— Winston Churchill