Government in theory is bound to be somewhat different than
government as designed. People are generally busy making a living and
so have limited time availability during the hours when government
work is being performed. They may also have an unfortunate
disinterest in how government work is performed or dangerously
simpleminded ideas about how government should work. The work of
government is also done by people trying to make a living, some of
whom are sincerely trying to do a good job, while others are doing
that work out of a desire to gain power or prestige.
In the United States, one of our founding documents is the
Declaration of Independence. It was written by leaders seeking their
freedom from Great Britain to describe their grievances and why those
grievances justified seeking independence from their mother country.
It states that government derives its just powers from the consent of
the governed and that a sufficient train of abuses need only be
tolerated by its citizens for so long before they are justified in
altering or abolishing it.
Once their independence was won, they created a Constitution and its
Bill of Rights to describe the limited powers their new government
had and the rights of its citizens which government could not, in
theory, interfere with.
Some 240 years later, that Constitution and Bill of Rights are
largely ignored. We have fallen into a situation where two corrupt
parties control our elections and we have acceded to the awful idea
that 51% of the population can enact any law they want attacking the
rights of the entire population. People are being taxed to death,
literally: income, purchases and possessions are taxed and officers
enforcing those taxes are seen as justified in escalating force to
the point of death, even when no threat is presented to their lives.
Recently, in New York, a man named Eric Garner was strangled to death
by a police officer for the crime of selling loose cigarettes without
collecting taxes on them. That death was filmed and yet no bystanders
tried to prevent that police officer from killing him.
However, the person who filmed that homicide WAS arrested for filming
the police at work. The police in the US are generally hostile and
will arrest and assault people filming them, even thought that act of
filming is perfectly legal. At the same time it denies our rights of
oversight, our government claims an unrestricted right to collect
information on us, whether directly or indirectly (collected by an
allied nation or some corporation).
The situation is now arguably direr than it was when King John of
England was forced to sign the Magna Carta or when representatives of
the 13 colonies wrote the Declaration of Independence. Maybe it’s
time to start talking about how a government can be designed with
better and with more built in safeguards so that it can effectively
be kept the servant of the entire populace and not their master?
Here are some ideas for limiting government powers so that they are
back in line with the Constitution and Bill or Rights
- - Limit/right enforcement – attach criminal penalties to violations
of governmental power limits or violations of citizens’ rights.
Penalties for crimes such as excessive use of force NOT to be paid by
taxing citizens but by the perpetrator(s) of the crime.
Examples: When a police officer uses egregiously unnecessary force
and a financial penalty is chosen, his penalty is to be paid by
him…not by the citizens whose rights were infringed
If a legislator enacts a law attacking peoples’ rights and it is
invalidated by the courts, that legislator is to be fined personally
and perhaps serve jail time.
- - Law expiration. Criminal laws can be divided into two categories:
“malum in se” laws regarding acts such as murder, robbery, rape,
which are inherently bad
“malum prohibitum” laws regarding victimless crimes such as drug use,
gambling, weapons possession and prostitution, which are only treated
as bad because some people view them as bad
If "Malum prohibitum" laws automatically sunset and have to be
reconsidered every 1-5 years, a lot of laws which are utterly idiotic
will go away
- - Law quality. Laws are sometimes voted upon by legislators who have
not read or do not understand the contents. Further, these laws are
sometimes attached to an unrelated “must pass” piece of budget
legislation. Require that laws be thoroughly understood and debated
before being passed and by those voting upon them (and with veto
power by the populace)
- - Absolute parity between citizens and government. Any legislation
affecting the populace also applies to the legislators and all levels
of government or it is invalid. If the government can use or threaten
force in a situation, the people can too. If government can intercept
peoples’ communications, people can intercept government
communications.
- - Escalating force or penalties. In some parts of the US, law
enforcement is granted virtual carte blanche is using force in cases
of non-cooperation. This force can be in the form of actual physical
force or financial penalties. Some restrictions on these powers would
make sense so that the rights of individuals or small groups are not
trampled.
These are some ideas which I feel are worth seriously discussing. We
as a society need to have a serious discussion regarding what form of
government will best protect our rights and future.
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