Off the Editor’s Desk 9-14-22
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Who wants to take away our freedoms?
In his “Red Rant” speech in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago, President Biden told the American public that MAGA Republicans wanted to take away our freedoms.
But if my memory serves me right, and I have thought for some time that Biden’s party has come out against the freedom of speech in the First amendment and they attack the Second Amendment, that’s the one that gives us the right to bear arms.
I have written several times about the First Amendment, and it’s very important that we all know the rights that are granted to the people of the United States in that amendment. Those rights include the freedom of religion, speech, press, the right of the people to peacefully to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
You are allowed to bring your grievance before any government body and you can do that without fear of physical or financial harm. However, the government body is under no obligation to address your concern.
There are those that say that the Constitution is outdated, so I would like to put forth some of the reasons some feel it’s outdated, that was published by the Hoover Institution six years ago.
“How our founding document undermines effective government, and why we need a more powerful presidency.
“The media’s wall-to-wall coverage of Donald Trump and the presidential horserace is a distraction from the main event. The point of the horserace, and all politics, is to run a government is precisely what we don’t have. America’s greatest challenge is that it is burdened by a government that doesn’t work, and indeed is dysfunctional.
“Congress is right at the center of the nation’s modern-day dysfunction. As a decision-maker, it is inexcusable bad. It is immobilized, impotent, and utterly incapable of taking effective action on behalf of the nation.
“With some exception, Congress has never been capable of crafting effective policy responses to the nation’s problems.
“Congress’s pathologies rooted in the constitution, the ultimate problem is the Constitution itself. The founders crafted a government 225 years ago for a simple agrarian society of just four million people, some 700,000 of whom were slaves. Of the free population, 95 percent were farmers. Government was not expected to do much, and the founders, mainly concerned about avoiding’ tyranny of the majority’ purposed designed a byzantine government that couldn’t do much, separating authority across the various branches of government and filling it with veto points that made coherent policy action exceedingly difficult.
“This approach to governance may have been fine for the late 1700s. Within 100 years, the nation grew to fifteen times its original population, stretched all the way to the Pacific, and was developing along the way, from rapacious monopoly to tainted meats to unregulated drugs, that the founders never anticipated and their antiquated government was never designed to solve. It is already a relic of the past.
“What can we do? A practical strategy is to seek out small, low-risk constitutional changes that promise big pay-offs for effective government. Here, specifically, is an approach that makes eminently good sense: With congress the prime source of dysfunction, it should be moved to the periphery of the policymaking process where its pathologies can do less damage, and president should be moved to the center where he can do the most good.
“All presidents aspire to be the nation’s problem-solvers in chief. And if policymaking power can be shifted in their direction, and away from Congress, the prospects for effective government will be much improved.”
A strong President is a scary idea, but it would take the special interest people out of decision-making.
Thanks for reading! ~Carlton