Commentary on the Unites States Constitution Article 1 Section 5

The Unites States Constitution Article 1 Section 5

This section deals with the membership, rules, journals, and adjournment. It gives each House the authority to judge their elections, returns and member qualifications.

It establishes a majority of members of each house has to do present to conduct and business other than adjourning for the day. A minority can also be allowed to compel absent members to attend meetings by appropriate penalties.

The House and Senate are allowed to set there own rules and punish members as needed up to expelling a member by a 2/3 vote. They are also required to keep a record of their, meetings that has to be publish with the exception of parts that more than 4/5 those members present are deemed should remain secret. This was allowed because national security some times requires secrecy.

Both the House and Senate need each others consent to adjourn for more than three days, or to a place other than there normal meeting place.

This system has been proven to generally work well but it has from time to time been abused, For example Obama Care was passed through the House of representatives by way by passing all normal procedures to pass the senate version it would have failed to pass the senate again following a special election to fill a vacancy,   

Commentary on the Unites States Constitution Article 1 Section 4

The Unites States Constitution Article 1 Section 4

This places the details electing Senators and Representatives in the hands of the states such as timing and place of elections. However it gives congress the authority to set uniform rules for their elections.

It also sets the first day of congresses session as the first Monday in December but this was change to the 3^rd of January by Section 2 of the 20^th Amendment.

While this section is short it is important for setting the rules and timing of elections. While it is a relatively minor section it is important to the proper functioning of elections in the United State. 

Commentary on the Unites States Constitution Article 1 Section 3

The Unites States Constitution Article 1 Section 3

This part of the constitution establishes the U.S Senate. In this part of the legislature the states all have equal representation. As representatives of states Stators originally elected by the state legislatures but it was changed to being elected by the people of the state by the 17th Amendment. This actually seems to have been a mistake since it has left the states with out actual representation and has done great damage to federalism.

The Vice President serves as President of the Senate, but only votes in the case of a tie vote in the senate. This was done mainly to give the Vice President something to do other than sitting around waiting for the president to die.

The senate also has the duty of trying impeachments made by the house. This process was seen in action for the first time when President Clinton was tried after being impeached on perjury charges by the house. We also saw partisanship at its worst as every democratic Senator went in to the trial already determined not to vote to convict. The fact that some demarcates were needed to get the 2/3 majority required by this section to convict prevented

Commentary on the Unites States Constitution Article 1 Section 2

The Unites States Constitution Article 1 Section 2

This section establishes the U.S. House of Representatives. It establishes representation in the House of Representatives based on the population of each state. The purpose of this is so that each American is equally represented in this body.

It establishes that a census should be taken every ten years to count the population. This brings up the increasingly intrusive questions that come with the census, Note that all that the only question they are empowered to ask is the number of people living in a home. Not one other question is authorized while unwarranted searches are forbidden. In the past two censuses (2000 and 2010) the only answer they got from my family is the number people living in the house and that is all they have any right to know.

There is also a myth about this section that claims that blacks were only counted as three fifths a person. This myth is almost as old as the Constitution but it is totally false. Yes it only counted as three fifths of slaves but there was no racial component to it since all free blacks would be counted.  The reality is that this was actually an anti slavery measure.

Anti-slavery delegates to the constitutional convention did not want any slave counted because the salve population would have given most of the representatives in the house to slave holding states making it impossible to ever abolish slavery. The slave holding slave holding states wanted all of the slaves counted precisely so as to have increased representation in congress. The three fifths compromise was the solution to this problem and it benefited the anti-slavery side.

Commentary on the Unites States Constitution –Article 1 Section 1

The Unites States Constitution –Article 1 Section 1

This section give the exclusive power to make laws to a bicameral Congress of the United States, The congress consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Note the law making power of the United States is bested in congress not the president and not the courts. Sadly congress has from time to time passed laws that given discretionary regulatory power to the president on various issues and they have refused to rain in judges that legislate from the bench.

Congress could reign in both judicial and presidential power grabs by way of impeachment but never have.  As the law making branch the other two can do nothing with out their consent.

Commentary on the Unites States Constitution - Preamble

The preamble to the Unites States Constitution is the Constitution’s introduction and  while purely introductory it shows a lot about the intent of the founding fathers.

They wanted to establish Justice for all which you don’t get form the arbitrary informant with see in the modern federal bureaucracy. 

They wanted to insure domestic Tranquility which is not accomplished by efforts to drive a wedge through society based income for political gain rather than encourage economic conditions that allow people to increase their income.

They wanted to provide for the common defense which the Government is failing to do by letting milling of illegal immigrants enter the country unchecked while not dealing properly with treats from abroad.  For example the failure to realize the Islam is the source of the theorist problem and not just a few crazies.

They wanted to promote the general Welfare but Obama is failing to do by running the national debt at an unprecedented rate while burdening job creators with harmful regulation,

They wanted to secure the Blessings of Liberty for all Americans which Obama and three democrats hostilely attacked by passing an unconstitutional individual mandate of Obama Care which nothing short of declaring every American a slave of  the Federal government by declaring the authority to exercise total control the fruits of labor, because if they can mandate that you buy one product by extension they can mandate how you spend every dime you make and  there by effectively taking all of the fruits of our labor which is by definition slavery.

On Science Education

A basic knowledge of science is needed if you are going to understand the world around us and since science affects most aspect of life so some knowledge of it is needed to get along. It helps students with an interest in science to pursue a scientific career by helping them discover that interest.

In  science education many pre collage science classes are taught by teachers who did not major or minor in math or science so as a result classes are often of low quality a often uninteresting.  As a result children are often thought only facts and theory and are often not taught how to actually do science. They usually are not taught how to critically evaluate scientific claims.

Even worst some times political agendas get in the way of teaching science, a good example is the teaching of man caused global warming without presenting the other side except in ridicule. Furthermore science and other topics are usually taught in a way that encourages conformity which can a actually discourage independent thinking. As a result many people can not think out side the box of what they were taught and it is the independent thinkers and that tend make the great discoveries.

This shows up big time in the way origin is taught in public school science class. Big bang to man Evolution is taught as fact. Efforts to change this to date have been blocked by the courts. Big bang to man Evolution is further pushed by TV programs and other media were in most cases if Creation Science or Intelligent Design are mention all it is in ridicule. As a result people are bombarded by Big bang to man Evolution giving them the impression that it is proven fact despite scientific reasons for questioning it. As a result some people develop a condescending attitude towards Creation Science while actually being ignorant of it, producing an arrogant ignorance that makes an intelligent discussion impossible

References

Parents Understand Importance of Science
But Student Achievement Lags Parental Expectations

 Knoxville Father Wants Biology Book Banned.

The Trouble With Government Grants

Money or other items of value given by a government to non-government individual or group to enable their activities are called a government grant.

Funding of science by way of government has produced many good results but it has also politicized science and the politicization of science is harmfulto the scientific process. It provides a source of funding for research making it easier for research to be funded allowing some research to be done that probably could not get funded other wise.

Sadly science has become too dependent on government grants to the point where 90% of scientific research is funded by government. Getting funding from a given source requires that you appease that source. Getting government funding requires appeasing government officials. While grant requests are peer reviewed but the money altimetry comes from politicians which has a chilling affect on science since some areas of research are funded while others are not. About 1 in 10 unsolicited grant applications are approved so some legitimate research is rejected. Furthermore some paradigms are favored by government over competing ones.  For example research in to manned caused global warming gets funded while opposing research does not get funded.

The reason for this is that politics is about acquiring and holding on to power not knowledge and as a result politicians are often not really interested is the science but sending money to their districts and pushing a political agenda.

Science needs to reduce its dependence on government funding. Priority needs to be given to private funding which can take several forms, foundations, universities, and other nonprofit organizations and for profit organizations while these are already used to some degree, private funding should be encouraged more. It is less corrupting because there is more than one source of funding. This does not mean that Government funding should be eliminated just reduced. Science should be as independent of government as possible to reduce these problems. 

References

 Science corrupted

The Trouble With Government Grants

Deficit Super Committee, the Disenfranchisement of the American People

The Deficit Super Committee created by the deal that needlessly raised the debt limit sets a dangerous precedent. Under this deal this committee of 3 Democrats from the House, 3 Republicans from the House, 3 Democrats Senators, and 3 Republicans Senators was an established to write a bill cutting 1.5 trillion the deficit. The House and Senate then vote “yes” or “no” vote with no amendments allowed with both the military and social programs like social security automatically being targeted for the cuts if the vote is no.

The empowerment of just 12 members of congress to write this bill and not allowing amendments means that the vast majority of Americans have NO representation on this committee and then our representatives are forced to choose between two bad choices.

Now increasing taxes is an option that this committee has and it will likely be used thus since most member of congress have no say in the matter other than a coerced vote. The net effect if taxes are raised by this process is taxation with out representation.

This nothing short of the disenfranchisement of the majority of the American people, we are being deprived of any real say in this process. Even worst the committee is meeting behind closed doors so that even those with representation on the committee can not hold them accountable for their actions because we will never be told what they are. The end result is the total disenfranchisement of the American people and a return of taxation with out representation.

Science and Politics

When ever science and politics interact science is usually the worst for it. This does not mean that all interactions between science and government are negative but the overall affect on science is negative.

 The Reason for this is that politics is about acquiring and holding on to power and not knowledge. In fact politics often is destructive to knowledge since ignorant people are easier to control. Also politicians are often not really interested is the science but sending money to their districts or pushing some other agenda. The biggest example of this is manned space flight which has stagnated for 30 years under government control. 

Even worst government often favors some lines of research over others in funding, education, and recognition. Some times government favors one side in a scientific dispute over others. The best examples are in origins research and climate research.

Government can block lines of research from being perused. Now sometimes this legitimate such as preventing dangerous experimenting on humans, but other times it’s pandering to irrational fears such as those against nuclear power is a good example simply because some people can’t separate reactors from bombs. Giving in to this fear has hampered the development of nuclear power.

In climate research global warming has been favored by politicians who see it as an avenue for increased government control. They have backed and promoted pro global warming claims over data to the contrary despite emails showing the hiding of climate data contrary to Global warming. This issue has become so politicized that finding the truth is hard because it is almost impossible to find an objective source on the topic.

In origins research only evolutionary research funded the government. Both Intelligent design and Creation Science gets no government funding, but they are forced to fund evolutionary research with their taxes. Intelligent design and Creation Science have been kept out of public schools on the claim that they are not science this has even been enforced by law suits whenever local education officials disagree with the claim. There is nothing more grossly anti-scientific than bringing law suits to settle scientific issues by having a judge (lawyer) decree the opposing views are not science. Regardless of your view on origins, this should disturb you.

Dark Side of Capitalism

Sadly capitalism does have its danger. The problem is that the honest pursuit of profit in business can be over taken by greed. When this happens the results can be as bad as any totalitarian system, this takes two main form exploitation and cronyism.

Exploitation occurs when the owner and managers of a business stop seeing employees as people and starts seeing them only as resources to be used. This can take the form of unreasonably low wages with long hours and us safe working condition. The presents of any of these three in a job dose not exploitation make. A job may have low wages simply because the job is not worth much. Long hours are a necessity of many well paying jobs, and some work like mining is inherently dangerous. However it is combination of all three that add up to exploitation

The worst form of exploitation is the sweet shop where all three exist in abundance. Furthermore in the case of sweet shops workers are housed in company dormitories and forced to by necessities from an over priced company store. This condition reduces the workers to little more than slaves.

Cronyism is where business and government become closely related to the point where a business can use the government against competitors. This occurs when a prosperous business starts giving money to candidates for elected office to get favors in return. These favors some time take the form of favoritism in getting government contracts. However these favors often take the form of government regulation that helps put the favored business’ competition out of business or at least make it harder for them to compete.

The worst form of cronyism is a big business being bailed out by the government; while there smaller competitors are allowed to go out of business. This even worst when as in the case of the 2008 economic collapse the companies that got bailed out are the same companies that caused the problem to begin with.

While capitalism is not with out its problems it is still the best and freest economic system there is. With capitalism is the largest possible portion of a population can become prosperous. The United State is prime example of this where even in economic bad times the poorest among us are still among the richest people in the world.

Natural Rights

The U.S. Declaration of Independence says:

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.

This the Declaration of Independence’s statement of natural rights, including Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. This original list also includes property; it was left out of the Declaration of Independence to avoid sounding materialistic.

The concept of Natural Rights presupposes that man kind was created by God. The pushing of Evolution theory while attacking Biblical Creation has brought this concept of Natural Rights under attack. If we were not created there is no Creator to endow us with Natural Rights. If we were created the only rights we have come from government and can be taken away from us at the whim of that government.

As a result is no surprise that the growth of Evolution has been followed by a corresponding increase in the power and size Government.

What is the Purpose of Government?

The U.S. Declaration of Independence states:

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,

So the purpose of Government is to secure our God given rights and not to take care of us or give us things. In practice this means providing legal protection to the individual from those that would take their life, liberty and property away, be they foreign Governments or local thugs. Basically this comes down to setting the rules so that people can live passably with each other.

The problem is that Government has a tendency to grow and when it gets to big the Government becomes the thugs people need protection from. In the U.S. today we are at that point where Governments at levels local, state, and Federal is becoming biggest threat to the life, liberty and property of the American people.