Re-Movement.Org

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Declaration of Independence

"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."

Amendment X, Constitution of the United States

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

President Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

We've forgotten where the real political power in America lies.  Or perhaps, better said, we've become apathetic to where the real political power in America should be vested.

The power in American politics was always designed to lie in the People.  To be vested in the citizens of this country.

And it was meant to be used to correct our representatives when they get out of line.  We seem to have forgotten that the elected officials are our representatives.  They work for us.  They are elected to voice our interests.  To reflect the interests of their constituents.  To zealously advocate for those interests.

The position of our elected officials was never meant to be a permanent one.  It was not meant to be a full-time job.  It was designed for average citizens, connected to the people, to go to their representative bodies and then to go back home.  To stay connected to their constituency.   We've let that get out of hand, particularly in the Congress.  We've placed term limits on the Presidency, but we've let the Congress go unchecked.

As a result, the trend of the average length of service of our Congressmen has continually increased.  We are at a point where they spend an average of ten to twelve years in their position.  Forty-four of our current Senators have been serving longer than eight years.  One hundred and fifty of our Representatives have been serving longer than eight years as well.  Fourteen of our Senators and Representatives rank among the longest serving Congressmen ever.  

This continues because reelection rates for incumbents remain ridiculously high.  Reelection rates for House incumbents have been over 80% since 1964.  Reelection rates in the Senate have been generally lower, but have still been generally over 60% in the same time frame, with little exception.

This is in our power to correct.  The majority of Americans are dissatisfied with American politics.  Seventy-seven percent say they are currently dissatisfied.  Public trust in the government is even at near historic lows.  Only 17% of Americans today say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” or “most of the time."

This creates the paradox.  Why do we keep reelecting our representatives, if we're not happy with their results?  

Why do we keep doing the same things and expect different results?

Isn't that the definition of insanity?

Is our allegiance to party and blind devotion there so strong that it's lead us to insane results?

We have to do something to break the cycle.

To that end, I've proposed a pledge.  A Re-Movement.  A movement about removal, regarding a movement. 

It's a commitment to vote against every incumbent in the upcoming election.  If we want to take back the power to the people, we have to do it through the ballot.  If we want to show the representatives that we have the power and we will use it, we have to vote them out.  And if we commit to vote out every incumbent over the next six years, the next three elections, we can replace them all.  We can show them that their current tactics will no longer work.

And it takes a commitment to voting them ALL out.  Top down.  From President to local Representative.  It's about showing the parties that we will be listened to and reckoned with.  It's about getting the attention of the national parties.  

If you can't vote against party, it's about voting in primary elections to keep incumbents from getting their party's nomination.  It's about finding third party candidates to support instead of the major party that you cannot support.  

It's easy, it just takes dedication to the cause.

To that end, if you're interested, if you're willing to commit to removing them, watch re-movement.org.  The site is up and ready to go.

And further, pass it along and get others to share in the pledge.

This is the kind of movement that can really get traction.  And it can restore political power back to where it was designed to belong.

If we want it.

The Second Amendment

The following entry is a post that was shared previously on Facebook.  It is presented here as a way to raise again for discussion and archive the content.  I have added formatting and a bit of color commentary that resulted from the previous online discussions.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Warning – Treatise and Rant. Not necessarily what I would like to discuss, but since everyone has decided they are Constitutional experts, it felt time to add a little to the conversation. Not that I view myself as an expert, but in my line of work, I’ve had to study it a bit, and feel as qualified as anyone else to discuss.

Of course, this relates to the Second Amendment.

Let’s first start by clarifying what the Second Amendment actually says. It does not just state “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The full Second Amendment reads “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” This is important because the “well regulated Militia” and “necessary to the security of a free State” are so often ignored, when they are so closely tied to the right in the text itself. This will be important later on.

{Please note, the bulk of this discussion is on Federal rights outlined by the Second Amendment.  It's what most people refer to when discussing gun control.  There are many individual states that do have personal rights to bear arms that have been in their Constitutions since inception.  There are a few states that are silent on such issues.  For the purposes of this entry, I focus solely on the Federal Constitution.}

Now, a few points…

• Only the government can infringe your Second Amendment right – 

Again for repetition, only an action by the government or branch thereof can be considered an infringement of your Second Amendment right. Wal-Mart or Dick’s refusing to sell assault rifles does not infringe your Second Amendment right. Target or Chili’s preventing you from bringing in a firearm does not infringe your Second Amendment right. If I ask you to take your concealed carry weapon out of my home, your Second Amendment right is not infringed. Conceivably, you could be prohibited from carrying a gun anywhere but your home and government controlled spaces and still not have your Second Amendment right infringed (as all limitations would be placed by private entities only).

• Your Second Amendment right has only been your personal Second Amendment right for 10 years – 

Prior to 2008, the Second Amendment was not recognized as a personal right to bear arms protected by the Constitution. The Constitutional Second Amendment, prior to 2008, tied the right to keep and bear arms into the well-regulated militia, making the right a collective right of the people to organize into militias and protect themselves in that fashion. Further, there was not a right to organize private militias (i.e. groups of people creating a militia for their own purposes), the militias were intended to be individual state militias (i.e. the Texas militia, the Louisiana militia, etc.) which could provide for a state’s defense and protect an individual state from a tyrannical federal government. The Second Amendment was not recognized as a codification of a common-law right to self-defense. We did not start treating it as such until the 2008 District of Columbia v Heller Supreme Court case, in which the court determined that the Second Amendment did recognize a personal right. This means that up to 2008, when looking at whether the Second Amendment had been infringed, courts did not look at whether any one person’s right to protect themselves had been impaired. They looked at the restriction on the weapon under the context of a state militia. Conceivably, the Court in the future could overrule Heller and determine that the right to bear arms is inextricably tied to the well-regulated militia. For now, we will work under the current assumption of the personal right.

{It can be argued whether the Court in Heller reached the correct decision, whether the Amendment should have always been interpreted accordingly, whether the decision was politically motivated, and on and on and on.  This point is merely to highlight the previous understanding of the Amendment in our legal system for the first 232 years of our existence and how new the Federal personal right in the Amendment truly is.}

• Like most other rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited – 

To have a functioning society, we have agreed that there are certain limitations that can be placed on nearly all of the rights we have enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Your right to free speech cannot be used to yell “fire” in a public theater. Your right to free press cannot be used to commit libel. Your right to the free exercise of religion does not include human sacrifice. Likewise, the government can put certain limitations on the right to keep and bear arms; it has always been in the government’s power to do so. Most often these restrictions occur when one person’s right to keep and bear arms runs up against another person’s rights. We see examples of this with gun-free school zones, prohibitions on fully automatic weapons, background check requirements. Semi-automatic weapons seem to be the cause of a lot of current discussion and it’s important to note that they were themselves part of heavy restriction from 1994 to 2004, so there is definitely precedence for government action in this area. It would not be that great of a stretch for the government to reinstate a more effective version of this ban (with fewer loopholes) in the future.

• If some form of restriction is put in place, it does not mean we are headed toward Nazi Germany (or your other totalitarian nightmare) or that we are destroying the Constitution – 

There are many countries with functioning democracies that have stricter gun laws than we do. It’s not an either/or situation, either we have full unfettered access to weapons or we are heading toward a totalitarian nightmare. There are a number of other scenarios, if for no other reason than not all gun control measures are equal. There are different measures of scope, efficacy, level of restriction, etc. And we should be able to talk about them and explore different possibilities without immediately shutting down the discussion. You can guarantee whatever restriction is put in place will be challenged and raised to the court to determine its Constitutionality.

{This point is not meant to argue that there is no slippery slope, it is merely to show that the slope is not as steep as some people would argue.  For a slippery slope argument to work, the feared end needs to be something that would occur in quick succession after the first step - a steep slope.   One counter argument to any gun control is that we go right from any gun control to Nazi Germany, or the slaughter of the Native Americans, or Communist Russia, etc. etc. etc.  This point is merely to illustrate there are a long list of steps between the two.}

And finally –

• No one is coming to take away all your guns –

Seriously, no one wants to take away all your guns, like your shotgun or your pistol. Ok, maybe someone on the complete fringe does, but most everyone else just wants to be able to explore different options. Most of the steps than an overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of have nothing to do with taking away current guns at all. They focus on closing loopholes that allow people to purchase guns without a background check, tightening restrictions on the ability of people with mental illnesses to purchase guns, or tightening restrictions for people on terrorist watch or no-fly lists. They include digitizing the gun purchase records so they can be easily searched and preserved. They include being able to study the impact of gun violence. We can even seek to make gun design safer (why is it possible to easily modify a semi-automatic weapon to a functioning automatic weapon – is that a design defect or intentional feature?) And yes, it may eventually include restrictions on buying certain types of guns (like assault rifles). That particular ban has far more support than you probably realize. But there are a lot of common sense things that can be done if we could only get past ourselves and discuss them.

If we could, we might discover that this goes way beyond the mass shootings that really bring the issue to our attention. We need to explore the impact it could have on mass homicide, on domestic homicide, and on suicide. And remember, we do not have to do only one thing. We can multi-task and should be addressing mental health in this country, crime, poverty, bullying in schools, depression, AND guns. But we should be doing something. It’s way past time to do so.

Shared on Facebook, March 26, 2018, 5:24 pm.