No Tyrant Need Apply

The current President of the United States, Donald Trump, has taken an extremely combative position verses our free press and generally expressed a disdain for traditional American principles. He has expressed admiration for bloody and cruel dictators around the world such as Duterte in the Philippines, Putin in Russia and Xi in China. While in China, he expressed great admiration for XI’s authoritarian state. There are differences between China and the United States however. While Xi has virtually suppressed the news media in China, Trump despite all of his harsh efforts has failed to discredit our free press and has actually made it stronger. The rule of law has always been a weak restraint on leaders in China but here institutions built up over the past 2 ½ centuries have continued to be able to restrain Trump for now. As Thomas Friedman said in the New York Times on May 9, 2018, “But they will have to hold for at least another 2 ½ years, and that will not be easy with a President like Trump who was surely not 100% joking when he said in March of President Xi ‘President for life…I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll want to give that a shot one day.’”

Our founders had some things to say about people like President Trump.

“A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of Government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of the republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.”
– Alexander Hamilton, 1788

“Some boast of being friends to Government; I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principals of reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.”
– John Hancock, 1774

“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God”
– Benjamin Franklin, 1787

“I have sworn upon the alter of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
– Thomas Jefferson, 1800

“The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in the majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical counsel, and an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor. Equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody and in every respect, diabolical.”
– John Adams, 1815

John Jay

The Price of Honesty on National Security Threats

On March 4, 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former intelligence agent for Russia, who was an informant for the British Foreign Intelligence Service and his daughter Yulia, were subjected on British territory to a nerve agent attack, which many believed was instigated by Russia.  Mr. Skripal and his daughter had been living in Great Britain since he was exchanged in a spy swap some years previous.  This attack, attributed to Russia, has been strongly denounced by the British Prime Minister.  In addition, on March 12, 2018, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, described the attack as an “egregious attack” and said that it clearly appears that it came from Russia.  Mr. Tillerson said that, “….this is very, very concerning to me and others…this is a pretty serious action.”  “It’s almost beyond comprehension that a state, an organized state, would do something like that…”

President Trump has often complimented Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, while as over time, Secretary Tillerson has become increasingly critical.  The day after Secretary Tillerson made these remarks he was fired by President Trump, making it appear that he was, in part, fired because of his comments.

Subsequently the US Administration supported the British Prime Minister in her position but did not use language such as Secretary Tillerson.

This action does seem to be questionable.  As the headline in the editorial in the Wall Street Journal says, “Why Now?”  There is an ongoing investigation into whether the Trump Campaign collaborated with the Russian Government in pursuit of winning the election for Mr. Trump.  President Trump has made no secret of his admiration of Vladimir Putin and has been reluctant to criticize or act against the Russian Government.  For example the US Congress passed a set of sanctions some months ago against the Russian Government but President Trump refused to implement them.  All this leads to the question of foreign influence on our country.

Last month, in concert with American allies, the US Government expelled 60 Russian diplomats identified as intelligence agents in retaliation for the nerve gas attack on Mr. Skripal and his daughter Yulia on British territory.  This appeared to represent the most forceful action that President Trump had taken against Russian up to that time, but unbeknownst to the American public at the time, President Putin was informed that he will be able to send 60 “new” Russian diplomats right back in to fill those rolls.  There must have been must mirth in the Kremlin to witness again their control over Mr. Trump.

In his farewell address, September 19, 1796, President George Washington said, “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens, that the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican government.”  Also in 1788, in the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton said the following, “Nothing was more to be desired than that every practical obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue and corruption.  These most deadly advisories of Republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches for more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.  How could they better gratify this than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magestry of the Union?”

“So all American patriots, beware.”

John Jay

 

Republican Tax Bill

In a radio interview on December 6th after the passage of the Republican tax cut bill Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House was discussing what will happen when the tax cut legislation is signed by the President and becomes law. He said that the next year the target would be “entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit [including the huge additional debt of one trillion dollars caused by the tax cut legislation].” He added that the Medicaid and Medicare programs “are the big drivers of debt so we spend more time on the health-care entitlements, because that is where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.” But the Republican Party objectives go beyond that. For many years privatizing Social Security and Medicare and destroying these central New Deal and Great Society programs has been the primary Republican Party goal. Ryan added in his radio address that he believes that “the President understands that choice works everywhere, especially in Medicare”—even though during the campaign Trump pledged to protect Social Security and Medicare from cuts. Or put differently as was reported in the New York Times on December 3rd, “…Republican leaders have been blunt about their motivation (for the tax cut bill): to deliver on their promises to wealthy donors and down the road, to use the leverage of huge deficits (created by the bill) to cut and privatize Medicare and Social Security.”

Paul Krugman in his column in the Times on December 5th noted: “Republicans don’t care about budget debts and never did. They only pretend to care about deficits when one of two things is true: a Democrat is in the White House and deficit rhetoric can be used to block his agenda, or when they see an opportunity to slash social programs that help needy Americans, and can invoke deficits as an excuse.”

And the bait and switch happened faster than anyone imagined that it would says Krugman citing as an example the remarks of Senator Orrin Hatch on the failure of Congress to continue the Children’s Health Insurance Program—known as CHIP—which covers nine million U.S. children. Senator Hatch asserted that he supported CHIP “but insisted that ‘ the reason CHIP’s having trouble is because we don’t have money anymore.’ ―just before voting for a trillion and a half tax cut that will deliver the bulk of its benefits to the richest few percent of the population.'”

This is unconscionable, unpardonable, reckless behavior by the leadership of the Republican Party. Everyone knows that the strength of a democracy is the strength of its middle class. Social Security has been an essential part of American life since the mid-1930s (around 80 years) and Medicare since the mid-1960s (around 50 years). An effect of this bill will be eventually to eviscerate the middle class. In the place of our vibrant Republic it would push us toward banana republic status. It is unpatriotic, un-American and contrary to our principles. The Founders of this country would not have liked any part of it. A few examples:

“This branch of Charity [health care] seems essential to the true Spirit of Christianity; and should be extended to all in general, whether Deserving or Undeserving, as far as our power reaches…The Good particular Men may do separately, in relieving the sick, is small compared to what they may do collectively….”
Benjamin Franklin 1751

“As riches increase and accumulate in few hands…the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.”
Alexander Hamilton 1788

“Property monopolized or in the Possession of a few is a Curse to Mankind.”
John Adams 1765

“I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable…But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery in the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property… [a] means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”
Thomas Jefferson 1785

John Jay

Lady Liberty Is Right

On August 2, 2017, President Trump announced his support for a Senate proposal that would, pursuant to legislation, drastically change the legal structure of United States immigration policy to be a skill-based system–and with an emphasis on fluent English speakers–away from a family-oriented policy with a priority on bringing families together.  But the real intent of this proposed law would be to reduce immigration by 50 percent over the next 10 years–from around one million a year to 500,000 intended green card holders per year.

This would be of course a drastic reduction in the number of permitted legal immigrants–not at all what our country’s Founders had in mind for the Republic.

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent & respectable Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of our rights & privileges, if by decency & propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.” George Washington, 1783

This is a skilled-based policy?

“There is one principle which pervades all the institutions of this country, and which must always operate as an obstacle to the granting of favors to new comers.  This is a land, not of privileges, but of equal rights.  John Quincy Adams, the then Secretary of State, 1819

The Statue of Liberty dominates the entrance to New York Harbor and is a welcoming beacon to those who wish to be free everywhere. It represents in statue form the symbol, the manifestation of George Washington’s vision that America is open to receive not only the respectable people but the “oppressed & persecuted of all Nations and Religions.” In 1883 in connection with an effort to raise money to fund the statue  Emma Lazarus submitted a poem entitled “The New Colossus” to the authorities managing the money raising exhibit.  (The term “Colossus” refers to the Colossus of classical antiquity, a giant statue of a warrior straddling the entrance to the harbor on the Greek island of Rhodes.  This is the “New Colossus,” Liberty, instead of a warrior.) It was the first entry read at the opening of the exhibit.

The Lady Liberty statue was opened to the public in 1886. Subsequently in 1903 this poem was put on a bronze plaque and attached to the statue’s base.  Currently it has a prominent place in the museum within the statue’s base.  Some have sought, for their own political reasons, to denigrate its significance. because it was not  part of the statue’s formal opening  in 1986.  But of what importance is that? It was written prior to the opening to help raise money to construct the statue as well as to describe Lady Liberty. It was included in the statue base some 17 years later, 114 years ago.  But most importantly it completely captures our first president’s vision and the meaning of the statue.  Lady Liberty was a gift from France as a symbol of liberty and welcome home for immigrants who enter the United States especially by sea.  The second of two verses of this poem reads as follows describing a call from Lady Liberty herself:

“‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she
With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'”

Perhaps President Trump should read this poem.  Then maybe he could devise an immigration policy consistent with American principles.

John Jay

 

 

 

The Nature of Public Men

On Sunday, June 11, 2017, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post submitted a column to the Post commenting on the testimony of former FBI Director, James Comey before the Senate Intelligence Committee.  In the column, Milbank, a long time observer of the Washington scene, said that for him the most “chilling” part of Comey’s testimony was his explanation of why he wrote lengthy, descriptive notes immediately after his private conversations with President Donald Trump.  It was in Comey’s words “the nature of the person, I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting and so I thought it really important to document.”  Milbank later quotes Trump’s spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, to the effect that “the President is not a liar.  I think it is frankly insulting that that question would be asked.”  Milbank sums up his column by disagreeing with Sanders: “No, what’s insulting – to America- is that the question (whether the President is a liar) didn’t need to be asked.   Comey, until last month the nations top lawman, confirmed what we already knew.

What to make of this?   Milbank claims that the Founders of our country did not anticipate such a situation “that the President is at his core a dishonest and untrustworthy man.”  That what we have is “a defect not just of private misconduct  (which we have seen before) but of public character.”  But is this true, that our Founders in framing our Constitution did not anticipate such a development?

“The essence of the Government is power: and power lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.  – James Madison, 1829

“The whole art of Government consists in the art of being honest.”                           – Thomas Jefferson, July 1774

Nothing is more essential to the Establishment of Manners in a State than that all Persons employed in places of Power and Trust be Men of unexceptional Characters, the Publick cannot be too Curious concerning the Characters of public Men.”   – Samuel Adams, November 1775

“Enlightened statesman will not always be at the helm.”  – James Madison, Federalist #10, November 1787

“if ever the Time shall come when vain & aspiring men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its Patriots to prevent Ruin. ”  – Samuel Adams November 1780

“The aim of every political constitution, is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their pubic trust.”  – James Madison, Federalist #57, February 1788

In making his argument that the Founders hadn’t see today’s dilemma Dana Milbank said, “the moral certainty that the Enlightenment broke down with the election of something more medieval.”  But do the above comments appear morally uncertain?  They had seen all that we see, in their times and in previous centuries.  Our Founders knew vain & aspiring men when they saw them.  They knew what was right and would say that what America has in 2017 is not right.  Perhaps Thomas Jefferson said it best, “the whole art of governing consists in the art of being honest.”

  •   John Jay

Dangerous Foreign Influence Part 2

On May 9, 2017, President Trump fired the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James B. Comey.  The White House explained the decision as being prompted by Mr. Comey’s poor handling last year of the investigation of candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during her tenure as Secretary of State.  But this claim, as many have said, is extremely difficult to accept.  Shortly before the end of the campaign last year Mr. Trump praised Mr. Comey and the time to fire Mr. Comey for this reason would have been President Trump’s first day in office not after more than 100 days on the job.

The only investigation Mr. Trump mentioned in his letter to Mr. Comey dismissing him from office was Comey’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign organization and the Russian Government, during the election, saying that he was grateful that Mr. Comey three times told him that he was not himself under investigation.

The New York Times on May 10th reported that reaction to Mr. Trump’s firing of Mr. Comey was “swift and fierce”.  The Democratic Senate leader, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said that Trump’s action would make Americans believe that there was a coverup.  Many Republicans attacked the President for his action as well.  Representative Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan, said that he now supported an independent commission to investigate Russia links to Mr. Trump.  He was reported to have referred to the President’s claim that Mr. Comey had cleared him as “bizarre”.  Senator Flake, Republican of Arizona, reportedly said, “I’ve spent the last several hours trying to find an acceptable rational for the timing of Comey’s firing.  I just can’t do it.”  And the first grand jury subpoena for records from a Trump advisor, General Michael T. Flynn, were recently issued.

The New York times in an editorial said on May 10th: “The obvious historical parallel to Mr. Trump’s action was the so-called Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973, when President Nixon ordered the firing of the Special Prosecutor investigating Watergate prompting the principled resignations of the Attorney General and his deputy.  But now, there is no Special Prosecutor in place to determinate whether the public trust has been violated, and whether the Presidency was effectively stolen by a hostile foreign power.  For that reason, the country has reached an even more perilous moment.”

Also on May 10th rumors began to circulate in Washington about who the President might select to succeed Mr. Comey  which were focused on Rudolph Giuliani and Governor Chris Christy, both Trump campaign officials.  Whether these rumors are based on fact or not, their existence reveals what the public thinks of Mr. Trumps actions – that he appears to be trying to organize a coverup which of course would be assisted by his earlier firing of all US Attorneys around the country.

The founders of our country has some thought about issues like this:

Alexander Hamilton may have said it best:

“Nothing was more to be desired than that every practical obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally be expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter but chiefly in the desire of foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.  How could they better gratify this then by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union.  – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers 68, 1788.

“The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations ought to be to have as little political connection with them as possible.  So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled – with circumspection but with perfect good faith.” – George Washington , Farewell Address, 1796

John Jay

 

Our Fragile Democracy, Part Two

David Remnick, in his comment in the New Yorker Magazine of May 1, 2017, addressed the first hundred days of President Donald Trump and said: “This is the brand that Trump has created for himself—that of an unprincipled, cocky, value-free con who will insult, stiff, or betray anyone to achieve his gaudiest purposes. ‘I am what I am,’ he has said. But what was once a parochial amusement is now a national and global peril. Trump flouts truth and liberal values so brazenly that he undermines the country he has been elected to serve and the stability he is pledged to insure. His bluster creates a generalized anxiety such that the President of the United States can appear to be scarcely more reliable than any of the world’s autocrats. When Kim In-ryong, a representative of North Korea’s radical regime, warns that Trump and his tweets of provocation are creating ‘a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out at any moment,’ does one man sound more immediately rational than the other? When Trump rushes to congratulate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for passing a referendum that bolsters autocratic rule in Turkey—or when a sullen and insulting meeting with Angela Merkel is followed by a swoon session with Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the military dictator of Egypt—how are the supporters of liberal and democratic values throughout Europe meant to react to American leadership?”

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 when the world was close to nuclear war and complete destruction, President John F. Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to seek the support of France.  In his meeting with President Charles de Gaulle, Acheson offered to show him the CIA’s surveillance photos of Russian missiles in Cuba. De Gaulle waved them away saying, as JFK Counselor Ted Sorensen reported in a new memoir, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History,  “I don’t need to see pictures of the weapons of mass destruction.  The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me.”

Not with this president.

Remnick points out in addition that Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that researches trends in global liberty, has recently stated that there has been an eleven-year decline in democracies around the world and has produced a list of countries to watch.  The ones that concern Freedom House the most at this time are: South Africa, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Ecuador, Zimbabwe and, a new addition, the United States.  This new addition is there, says Freedom House as reported by Remnick, because of Trump’s “unorthodox presidential campaign” and his “approach to civil liberties and the role of the United States in the world.’”

On the other hand, Francis Fukuyama in an article in the Washington Post on April 28, 2017 writes that while “President Trump’s election provoked extraordinary fears that he would become an American strongman in the mold of authoritarian leaders he admires such as … Putin of Russia and … Erdogan … of Turkey… the very robust set of institutional checks and balances” that exist in the U.S. appears to be holding and that therefore “Trump is more likely to go down in history as a weak and ineffective president than as an American tyrant.”

In much the same vein on April 28, 2017 David Brooks noted in the New York Times that Trump has become “smaller and more conventional” and that though some still act “as if atavistic fascism were just at the door… the real danger is everyday ineptitude.”  Brooks argues that Trump has “hired better people and has shifted power within the White House to those who are trying to at least build a normal decision-making process…. His foreign policy moves have been, if anything, kind of normal.”

But is this entirely true?  First, there is the immense damage Trump has already done to the Republic.  He has ceded the economic leadership of Asia to China by withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and the global leadership in new energy technology development also to China by receding from leading the fight against climate change. Does anyone really believe that this American president—as a result of Trump’s feckless leadership―retains even close to enough credibility to evoke the same response as did JFK from a French president at a time of great crisis, “The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me”?

Anne Applebaum on April 30 in commenting on the inclusion of Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter in a group of women leaders consisting of the Canadian Foreign Minister, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and the Chancellor of Germany at a high level meeting in Germany on “Women in the Workforce” asserted that there are  “are sinister precedents here. Daughters have long been used cynically to ‘humanize’ thuggish men.”  Trump appears, in Applebaum’s view, to resemble the brutal dictator of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, in his governing style. Karimov used his daughter to make him appear to be a milder and more beneficent man. “One of the things that distinguishes rule-of-law democracies from personalized dictatorships is their reliance on procedures, not individual whims, and on officials — experienced people, subject to public scrutiny and ethics laws — not the unsackable relatives of the leader.”  Seen from this vantage points Trump’s refusal to fill some 200 top Executive Branch positions, in the State Department and elsewhere just below Cabinet level, speaks volumes.

Margaret Atwood, the great Canadian novelist, in an interview with Politico on April 25 in commenting on how quickly society could slip into totalitarianism, said, “More of the people interested in having those kinds of things happen are in power now.” But she added “Give America credit. It’s very ornery as a country. It’s very diverse, and you have already seen that people are not just going to stay at home for all of these things…. The danger would be that people get burnt out and tired of watching the whirligig and trying to figure out what’s going on, and they give up on it.”

Remnick in his article cites John Adams’ letter to John Taylor in 1814 in which he said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”  But the Founders said many other things about the strength of democracy, such as:

The very definition of tyranny is when all powers are gathered under one place. James Madison, The Federalist No. 47, 1788

If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last…. A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. Alexander Hamilton, 1794

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. John Adams, 1765

A lady asked Franklin: “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” Franklin replied: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”  Benjamin Franklin, 1787

A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, 17 July 1775

John Jay

Constitutional Education

 

Retired US Supreme Court Associate Justice David Souter – A member of the highest Court for 19 years – in a speech in support of increased funding for the humanities at the State Museum in Albany, NY in September, 2013 expressed serious concern about the level of civic ignorance in the United States.  He noted that “Less than a third of adult Americans i the United States understand that the basic constitutional structure of American Government is one of power divided into three branches that they can name.”  That is of course, the executive, legislative and judicial or in other words the President, the Congress and the Courts.  “Two-thirds of the country doesn’t have a clue about that”, he said.  This is because of the complete failure of the public and private secondary system to teach elemental civics to every student.  From the founding of the country until recently this was a required subject for everyone.

Souter, in his speech, went on to say that he did not believe “that constitutional government as we know it in the United States can ultimately survive in that atmosphere of pervasive civic ignorance disassociation from the basic process of American government.”  He added, “I would not expect American constitutional democracy to survive those kinds of statistics indefinitely under any circumstances.  But certainly not now in this age of ideological polarization and increased political spending by interest groups and by corporations at a time, when for example, one of the manifestations of the health of American democracy is the increasing trend of its military into a mercenary force.  I do not believe American democracy can survive in this state of civic ignorance and disengagement.”

The New York Times published an editorial entitled “Betsey DeVos Teaches the Value of Ignorance” on February 7, 2017, the day after her confirmation by the Senate to head the Department of Education in the Trump administration.  The Times began the editorial with a 2015 DeVos quote from a speech to educators, “Government really sucks.”   The editorial noted that she had, “Never run, taught in, attended or sent a child to an American public school”.  And that while advocating the replacement of Traditional Public Schools with charter schools and the converting of “taxpayer dollars into vouchers to help parents send children to private and religious schools”, she opposed, “Any real accountability for these publicly funded, privately run schools”, unlike public school in this regard.   The editorial asserted that, “her confirmation hearings laid bare her ignorance of education policy and scorn for public education itself.”  This does not appear to be someone who has any interest in insuring that any American student has a basic education in the constitutional structure of our national government.

The Founders of this nation had no doubts on this issue.  “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”  Thomas Jefferson, 1816

“Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty.  There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong.  A love of truth and a veneration of virtue….  If a people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply then to the sense of this difference?”  John Adams, 1775

“It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction.  This is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.”  Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Washington, 1786

“It is universally admitted that a well instructed people alone can be a free people.”  James Madison, Annual Message to Congress, 1810

“It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice.  For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail.”

– Samuel Adams, 1772

“It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt when the degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty….  Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.”

– James Monroe, First Inaugural Address, 1817

John Jay

Constitutional Requirements

 

David Souter, Retired US Supreme Court Justice, in a speech in New Hampshire in 2012 said the following:

“I don’t worry about our losing republican government in the United State because I’m afraid of a foreign invasion.  I don’t worry about it because I think there is going to be a coup by the military as has happened in some of the other places.  What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible.  And when the problems get bad enough, as they might do, for example with another serious terrorist attack, as they might do with another financial melt down, some one person will come forward, ‘Give me total power and I will solve this problem.’…..

“If we know who is responsible, I have enough faith in the American people to demand performance from those responsible.  If we don’t know, we will stay away from the polls.  We will not demand it.  And the day will come when somebody will come forward and we and the government will in effect say, ‘Take the ball and run with it.  Do what you have to do.’

“That is the way democracy dies.  And if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night.”

In November, 2016 Donald Trump won the Presidency in a close, divided election  In the polling in the Electoral College, it was the closest of the last three elections and his opponent, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2,862,000 votes, more than five times the margin of Vice President Gore in the 2000 election, the last time there was a divided result with one candidate winning the Electoral College vote and the other candidate winning the national popular vote.

On Friday, January 27, 2017, seven days after the inauguration of President Trump, by executive order, he closed the nation’s borders to refugees from around the world, ordering that families fleeing the slaughter in Syria be indefinitely blocked from entering the United States and temporarily suspending immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries.  There followed protests all over the the United States:

“Protests against Trumps immigration plan rolling in more than 30 cities.”

“Protestors marched, chanted and waived signs across the nation Sunday as angry immigrant advocates pressed their demand for an end to President Trump’s executive order banning citizens of 7 Muslim majority countries from entering the US.  Rallies underway in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Washington Los Angeles and other cities drew thousands, part of a groundswell of furry that erupted at airports across the nation Saturday and showed no signs of abating.”

The protests continued until a Federal District Court judge in Seattle, a few days later, granted a temporary restraining order sought by the State of Washington, temporarily halting the implementation of the executive order.  This decision was unanimously by a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stating that the administration failed to show that the order met constitutional requirements.

Our country’s founders might have had some thoughts on this.

“…great innovations should never be forced on slender majorities.”

– Thomas Jefferson, 1808

“In Republics, the great danger is that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the Minority.” James Madison, 1801

“All too will bear in mind this sacred principle that the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possesses their equal rights, which equal laws must protect and to violate would be oppression.”Thomas Jefferson, 1801

Of course in the current case, the minority, and the eyes of the majority, is the one engaging in oppression.

“It is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the other part.”  James Madison, 1788

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privilege if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.”                             – George Washington, 1783

“….a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask for zeal for the rights of the people then under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.  History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the later, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of the republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.”                                 – Alexander Hamilton, 1787

John Jay

 

Health Care for All

In February 2017, Congressman Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina said: “We believe we need to fulfill our promise we made to the American people, which is we need to repeal the Affordable Care Act.”  Earlier on January 4th, then Vice President -Elect, Mike Pence and the top Republicans in Congress made clear, more explicitly, that they are dead serious about repealing the Affordable Care Act according to a report in the New York Times.

A contemporaneous article published by the Guardian newspaper said, “A Republican plan to repeal key provisions of the Affordable Care Act would leave 32 Million people without health coverage and double the cost of insurance premiums over the next decade, according to an analysis by the non partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO)…..the CBO report…estimated that 18 million people would lose their insurance and premiums would rise by 20% to 25% in the first year following the dismantling of the law.  The number of uninsured could rise to 32 million by 2026 while causing premiums to double in that time frame.

A repeal of the Affordable Care Act would thus be likely to cause many thousands of additional deaths per year.  A study on what happens to death rates published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that for every 455 people who gained coverage pursuant to an expansion of Medicaid, one life was saved per year. Multiply that by a conservative estimate of 20 million losing their health care insurance results in a figure suggesting a very large number of preventable deaths annually.  This is not the way a civilized country should behave, especially one committed to the right of all human beings everywhere to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

On February 25, 2017, a leaked and subsequently published report, which analyzed a lengthy proposal made by the Republican Congressional leadership and which was presented to the National Governors Association meeting, indicated that millions of people would lose their health insurance pursuant of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and its replacement by the Republican Leadership’s plan.

Benjamin Franklin had some thoughts on this issue.  His friend, Dr. Thomas Bond, convinced Franklin to champion the building of a public hospital in Pennsylvania. Through his hard work and political ingenuity, Franklin brought the skeptical Pennsylvania legislature to the table, bargaining his way to use public money to build what would become the Pennsylvania Hospital.  Franklin proposed an institution that would provide – “Free of charge” – the finest health care to everybody, “whether inhabitants of the Province (this was in 1751 before the Revolution) or strangers.”  Even to the “poor, diseased foreigners.”  (referring to the immigrants of German stock that the colonials tended to disparage and discriminate against). Countering the Assembly’s insistence that the hospital be built only with private donations, Franklin said the following:        “That won’t work, it will never be enough, good health care costs a lot of money….<This> seems essential to the true spirit of Christianity, and should be extended to all in general, whether deserving or undeserving, as far as our power reaches.”

John Jay