Forum Post: OccupyTheConstitution Faults Missing Issues
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 1, 2012, 9:37 a.m. EST by Nanook
(172)
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One of the larger faults of the Constitution is the things it left out. People often joke that the U.S. Constitution is the shortest constitution on the planet. Let me present just one example: The evils of CENTRALIZATION.
Centralization of wealth and power contributes to social and economic injustice, environmental destruction, and militarization. This was discussed and debated AT LENGTH by the founding fathers. But the few "founding fathers" that understood the danger centralization of power could cause, couldn't muster enough support to put strong language in the Constitution to prevent it. Why? Because the only people who had the stature and could AFFORD to spend the time developing the emerging government were WEALTHY. Because of human GREED, they were not about to write provisions into law that might allow the "peasants" to take away their power and wealth. This has not changed today. The 1% will fight at all costs to maintain their dominance over the 99%.
To eliminate this problem for good, we need to restructure MOST political and economic institutions away from systems which CENTRALIZE power and control to benefit a powerful few. We need to change them to democratic, distributed systems. Decision-making should, as much as possible, remain at the individual and local level, while ASSURING that civil rights are protected at the local level for all citizens.
While this is a very important goal, and seems to be obvious, the world lacks workable models to make it happen. The novel "Lord of the Flies" provides a psychological look into why this is the case. The problem is the human brain has evolved an inherent drive to accumulate power, which leads to centralization. In short, the human brain did not evolve to understand concepts of BROAD decentralization, which is what we need in a modern global society.
Recent discoveries of brain organization and human psychology explain how world-wide human culture has been SIDETRACKED and trapped into NON-WORKABLE, FEAR BASED philosophical social beliefs. Because the human race has never understood these erroneous belief structures, workable structures have not been developed to thwart them. Therefore, aggregation of power is inevitable. These structures are the primary cause behind the establishment of dictatorships, aristocracies and the elitist beliefs at the root of the "Wall Street Syndrome" and the slavery mentality of today's Industry Mongols and Robber Barons. If society doesn't make fundamental changes in its cultural beliefs, centralization of power will not go away. And none of the approaches attempted in the past, including all the religious models, understood or addressed the new information. The discoveries are summarized on http://A3society.org under 7 Deadly Sins, Brain Theory, Language and Psychology.
Please chime in here. What other factors need to be presented as COMMON social needs requiring guidance from a CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENT which leads our society. And remember: NO RELIGIOUS DOGMA: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."
The following topics are provided to kick off some discussions. You can jump to them directly from the list:
NATIONAL STANDARD PRACTICES http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupytheconstitution-faults-missing-issues/#comment-623362
PROCESS FOR STATES TO OPT OUT OF THE UNION http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupytheconstitution-faults-missing-issues/#comment-623358
THE AIR FORCE http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupytheconstitution-faults-missing-issues/#comment-623357
OTHER ISSUES NOT ADDRESSED BY THE CONSTITUTION http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupytheconstitution-faults-missing-issues/#comment-623352
(This post is part of a collection of posts aimed at launching a new process called the National Opinion Collection System (NOCS). For more information on the process, see http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupytheconstitution-introduction/ )
(This post is part of a collection of posts aimed at launching a new process called the National Opinion Collection System (NOCS). For more information on the process, see http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupytheconstitution-introduction/ )
I'm a bit wigged out by this - seems to me there has been a significant effort underway for quite some time to undermine the Constitution with its Bill of Rights.
That tends to make me wonder if this effort is not perhaps the result of some right wing think tank, intent on discovery of the various beliefs surrounding the Constitution in an effort to hone their message and thus dilute even further the citizen's rights - to privacy, freedom of speech and press, to assemble, the current inability to formally organize governmental structure along religious lines, and so on.
You do know what a noc is, right?
I just don't trust ya
Grounds for my suspicions - there is a Constitution Party whose platform, as you can readily see from the link, includes the following:
The U.S. Constitution established a Republic rooted in Biblical law, administered by representatives who are Constitutionally elected by the citizens. In such a Republic all Life, Liberty and Property are protected because law rules.
That each individual is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are the rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness;
That the freedom to own, use, exchange, control, protect, and freely dispose of property is a natural, necessary and inseparable extension of the individual's unalienable rights;
That the legitimate function of government is to secure these rights through the preservation of domestic tranquility, the maintenance of a strong national defense, and the promotion of equal justice for all;
That history makes clear that left unchecked, it is the nature of government to usurp the liberty of its citizens and eventually become a major violator of the people's rights; and
That, therefore, it is essential to bind government with the chains of the Constitution and carefully divide and jealously limit government powers to those assigned by the consent of the governed.
This is a right wing manifesto, so I presume much of what they are in favor of has not been articulated with utter clarity.
There is no proof here that there is any relationship between NOCS and this repelican effort - but I think this does show my deficit of trust is not without reason.
NATIONAL STANDARD PRACTICES
There are practices that should be required nationally as standards to promote efficient communication and interaction in society. The constitution doesn't address these. Here are a few examples:
It should be obvious that many common national standards could not have been envisioned by the founders of the Constitution because the technologies they refer to didn't exist. It should also be obvious that the examples given don't even hint at the thousands of common practices we take for granted that are important in modern life. To deal with this, new provisions of a new Constitution related to national standards would probably NOT list out separate items like those in the examples, but rather establish conventions for the standards to be created and approved.
Also, note that some of the examples purposely raise controversial topics which will need widespread discussion: a national language, methods of power production, and length of time that internet companies must support file structures.
So, jump in here and list out other issues that national standard practices SHOULD be set by citizen voices, not industry.
(This post is part of a collection of posts aimed at launching a new process called the National Opinion Collection System (NOCS). For more information on the process, see http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupytheconstitution-introduction/ )
PROCESS FOR STATES TO OPT OUT OF THE UNION
Article 4, Section 3 tells us how new states may be admitted to the Union. But there is no process provided for a state to opt back out. To the contrary, Article 1, Section 8 states that Congress can "call… forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections…". This practically forces a civil war, rather than a temporary drop-out alternative.
(This post is part of a collection of posts aimed at launching a new process called the National Opinion Collection System (NOCS). For more information on the process, see http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupytheconstitution-introduction/ )
THE AIR FORCE
The Constitution created a national Army and Navy in Article 1, Section 8. But it doesn't address an Air Force, Marines, National Guard or Coast Guard. It doesn't establish an FBI, CIA or NSA. It doesn't address basic principles which guide us as to what or how many different services the country does need as time passes. Nor does it address a MINIMUM number of distinct services we should have.
Why would the constitution have to address a MINIMUM number of services? Most people don't realize that there is an intentional reason to create multiple national forces, and keep them VERY separate from each other: to prevent a military coup in the country. Other documents, like the Code of Federal Regulations 10 USC Chapter 5 and the Goldwater-Nichols Act, were created to address this. For example, a clause in both documents prohibits the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the staff of the Chairman from functioning as an Armed Forces General Staff: "The Joint Staff shall not operate or be organized as an overall Armed Forces General Staff and shall have no executive authority. The Joint Staff may be organized and may operate along conventional staff lines."
How do we deal with the creation and organization of military organizations?
(This post is part of a collection of posts aimed at launching a new process called the National Opinion Collection System (NOCS). For more information on the process, see http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupytheconstitution-introduction/ )
OTHER ISSUES NOT ADDRESSED BY THE CONSTITUTION
Here are some items from a list at http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html#life
Capitalism, Congressional Districts, Education, Electoral College, Equality of citizens, Executive Orders, Executive Privilege, Freedom of Expression, Immigration, Marriage, Political parties, Primary Elections, Qualification of Judges, Right to Privacy, Right to Travel, Separation of Church and State.
(This post is part of a collection of posts aimed at launching a new process called the National Opinion Collection System (NOCS). For more information on the process, see http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupytheconstitution-introduction/ )