The Law - Authority or Science?

LAW - Authority or Science?    10-2-12

I'm constantly running into people and situations where their view of "the law" is one of "Authority."  The Law is what justifies and empowers Authority.  Therefore, it is a handmaiden of tyranny and rigid class structure.  It is part of the War and Conflict Machine, not Peace and Justice. 

The militarization and regimentation of American Society over the past 20 years is unprecedented in our history, and nearly any other history.  The Meiji Restoration in Japan is another (what we call, "the opening of Japan" with Commodore Perry telling the Emperor, "Open up to trade or we'll open fire").  Not a literal quote, but close enough to the truth.  We do this to countries all over the world, and then wonder why they hate us.  

Running a Free Republic is a lot different than running a multi-national Empire or commanding an invincible army which can destroy anything in its path.  Obviously, the Free Republic idea was discarded long ago, and we are now outlaws in the Empire we helped to create.  Such is the Dialectic of History (and yes, Hegel was a horrible person, but he may have been right about the mechanics of this Dialectic). 

"Our Side" (OS, the Green Libertarians) does not share this authoritarian view of law.  To us, law is about discovery.  It is creative science, testing and discarding hypotheses and theories as they prove to be wrong or obsolete.  The present legal system and thinking really hasn't changed since Greco-Roman times.  We have not incorporated any of the more recent findings in psychology or sociology (or even economics and political science - what was once called "political economy") into our "modern" and barbaric "criminal justice system"  (CJS).

This semantic shift is important.  It is no longer a system of Truth, Reason and Justice; rather, it serves the criminal element and those attempting to defend themselves or compete successfully in that corporate war of all against all.  There is little awareness of, or concern for, Justice.  It's all about getting paid off.  It is the jungle rules of individual bosses, gang leaders, or relatively democratic and egalitarian groups like unions or fraternal societies.  Even our so-called "social safety net" is run for anything but social purposes.  It, too, is the province of competing private interests, political machines, etc.  And they have little interest in working together for the common good.  It's all about one's status within the boss-dom hierarchy. 

So, let's start with defining our legal system more along the lines of a free and democratic Republic.  We all seem to prefer that sort of government, don't we?  We don't like to be used as pawns and victims.   What Gov Romney said about 47% of Americans seeing themselves as victims and not paying income tax turned out to be true.  As someone who has explored both the exalted heights and lowest dregs of American life, I agree with him.  I certainly see myself as a victim, although not specifically a victim of "big government".  It's more like I see myself as a victim of gangster capitalism, of which Mr. Romney is an integral part [and just to keep things in proportion, the Obama Machine even more so]. 

For that very reason, they should both be banned (or voluntarily withdraw) from running for President of the United States.  Mr. Obama should be in prison awaiting trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, not to mention crimes against unions, public education, the environment, and many other categories. We're at the point where we have to get it right this time - and every time.  No more room for dancing around the issues and blaming "the other guys."  We have to all agree and work together to implement a program of restoration and preservation, from the personal level to the global ecosystem, where all are interconnected and interdependent.  

We have no more resources to spend attacking and arms-racing with other countries which are poorer than we are, but  hungrier.  If the Brits and other imperialists were correct, this is the road to ruin - taking over and trying to loot, regiment, and control other nations and peoples.  It's nothing but trouble, and it causes a lot more "trouble" (losses of people, wealth, security of all kinds, etc.) than if we'd minded our own business.  And  it also leads to once-subject nations and peoples to finally get revenge, and take over the imperialist countries which long subjected them to tyranny and oppression. 

Mormons often seem to be "imperialistic".  They are a theocracy.  They are growing and proving themselves in all areas of human endeavor.  The one prize which has escaped them is the White House.  Indeed, they never would have thought to put one of their own there until the past few decades, when Marriott, Romney Senior, Thiokol, Word Perfect, and many other Utah names were major players in "creating the future" which is now. 

So, this has a lot to do with Mormonism, and the rights of minority faiths and belief-systems to prosper and succeed.  Mormons are truthful and responsible people, so if Mr. Romney actually believes and intends to carry out things like attacking Iran, increasing military spending by 30%, protecting the "personhood" of corporations, and otherwise following the Ryan agenda and its now (really) Voodoo Economics, he can't be president.  Of course, he also knows that it's only Congress which can do these things, and it is up to him to approve or veto it.  He is showing more and more sanity as the campaign progresses. 

This essay was fairly complete before the debate last night at the University of Denver.  Polls today show that Romney won the debate by 67% to Obama's 25% - apparently a mainstream polling organization which, according to accepted standards, is within a 4.5% margin of error.  (I don't know how many respondents actually understand the statistical methods behind such polls.  I flunked my college statistics course required for an econ degree.  I had to make it up, later, and I cheated.  In those days, we were supposed to memorize the formulas we used, and I wrote them on my hand or a crib sheet of some sort. Still, I knew how to work the problems, and thus "passed" in my own reckoning.  One of the texts we used was "How to lie with Statistics."). 

So, I don't put a lot of stock in such polls, and others show Obama leading in many "battleground states" - sometimes by a considerable margin.  These are the same states where past Republican operatives are alleged to have stolen the votes necessary for a Bush-Cheney victory in 2000 and 2004, and include Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida.  Ron Paul supporters have similar issues with the Republican Machine throughout the West, and in Maine and other more traditional American locales.  We don't all welcome the advance of the hi-tech urban gangster-fiefdoms, and the machine politics they practice.  But like everyone else, we have to deal with it. 

Obama is still somewhat under the direct control of the "fascist left", so he isn't going to do anything really stupid.  He's done more than enough already with his tough "war lord" I-can-kill-you stuff - now openly waged against American patriots.  On the plus side, he has made great capital out of Bibi's bullying.  To counter Israeli gangsterism, you need a lot more than Rev. Wright singing cum bay ya, or however you spell it, and Obama is one of the first to do so openly in quite some time. 

By ignoring our complaints and defending the drone war and other "NATO missions", Obama has demonstrated a singular lack of moral sensitivity, as well as simple humanity.  We know he's killing people needlessly, and destroying our Bill of Rights protections which we expected him to defend.  So, as Glen Ford of BAR famously said, Obama is "the more effective evil."  And that is why he is leading so substantially.  We're not going to get any good guys running for these offices for quite some time, so we may as well choose the most palatable of the lot.  If Mitt Romney can suddenly reinvent himself as a sane and prudent man who fears the wrath of a just God, he can win. 

Now, Gov. Romney's path is clear.  All he has to do is drop his military build-up proposals, quit taking a knee to Zionism, and actually be the American president we want and need.  He needs to affirm the limits of presidential power BEFORE we vote for him.  Those who voted for Clinton and Obama, thinking they were peace and environmental candidates, were severely disillusioned.  Perhaps we can be positively disillusioned with Romney, but I won't be one of those supporting his candidacy.  

I'm a Green, first, and a Libertarian, second, and even though many Mormons I know are one or both of these, Mr. Romney certainly is not.  He has made some good adjustments which give us hope.  But the vote should be reserved for more than hope - to actually affirm those who speak the truth, and who have a real track record of fighting injustice and oppression, and being a serious student of the public interest and what is needed to further it.  

I heard the Libertarian presidential candidate, Gov Johnson of New Mexico. on an NPR clip last week.  He's got the numbers right.  What we need this year is a balanced budget - even a little surplus.  He wants to cut military spending and Medicare by 43%, each.  That would raise about half of what is required.  The rest could be found in cutting all the corporate welfare and subsidies - a view shared by both Ralph Nader and Ron Paul.  I've long been a proponent of a balanced budget rule.  I don't know why it has to be a Constitutional Amendment.  Just do it, and establish that as a fundamental principle of good government, which it always has been.

The NPR segment made fun of Gov. Johnson for this, saying that he makes Ryan look like a big spender.  As indeed he is.  Cutting military spending by 43% is a bare minimum.  We'll still be spending more than twice as China, and we now spend more than all other countries, combined, only a couple of which can be considered adversaries in any way.  We need a balanced budget THIS YEAR, not 10 or 1000 years down the road, long after we are bankrupt and a province of China. 


As for Medicare, we only  need to prioritize it to save the 43%.  More than half of total (not just Medicare) health care expenditures go to expensive, "heroic" procedures and treatments which only prolong life by a few months.  And many other treatments and alternatives are either outlawed (like medical MJ and other folk and traditional medicines and remedies), or suppressed because the "official system" does not pay or support them.  

How about the economy?  According to the Green New Deal, we give everyone a job who wants one.  One of my ideas, which neither the Libertarians nor Greens thought worthy of adoption, is this:
We institute a "freedom tithe" on the richest members of society.  Each year, you will pay 10% of your net worth over $1 million.  In return, you will be buying and retiring federal Treasury Bills.  This will continue until the National Debt is reduced to $1 trillion or less, and a balanced budget amendment or other inviolable law is in place. 

The theory, here, is that since all of these billionaires are the beneficiaries of easy credit and other inflationary policies, and they have profited the most from them, it is up to them to fix it - in as painless a way as possible.  This is the rational, scientific way, consistent with universal principles of justice.  The rich can't simply say that they have a "right" to their wealth, and that the rest of us must live in poverty and misery to sustain them.  John Locke, the great codifier of property rights, also defended chattel slavery, and that's largely why we had so much of it in the United States.

Lobbying and TV advertising for political campaigns needs to be banned, entirely.  All campaigning and advertising will be restricted to statements of policy, the candidate's record on voting or supporting other legislation, etc., delivered in a standardized format and in debates and town meetings, in which all qualified candidates are allowed to participate on an equal basis. We simply cannot allow the wealthiest and least honest members of society to buy the elections, and ruin it for all the rest of us. 

According to Brian Kahn, the Simpson-Bowles proposal (vilified for its "deflationary" cutting of federal spending and increasing taxes) identified more than $1 trillion a year in corporate welfare, subsidies to rich people, and other pork which was of very low priority in a time of shrinking revenues and ballooning public sector needs.  A $100/tonne carbon tax would raise several hundred billions per year, while only adding $1/gallon tax to petroleum (of course, most countries already tax it $5/gal or more).   And it would create millions of jobs developing and building the technology to replace fossil fuels, the continuing consumption of which is destroying our climate and precipitating massive dislocations of ice packs, sea levels, and arable farmland.

The 43% cut in military spending (first year alone) is easily covered.  Get out of NATO, close all overseas bases, suspend all new weapons-development and building programs, and organize the vast resources thus freed to start producing for the American market with cooperative ownership and management by the present employees.  You all have your same jobs and incomes (or maybe reduced to some "industry average" so you don't have an unfair advantage).  Just figure out better things to do than designing weapons of mass or robotic destruction.  Have a bunch of meetings to choose your bosses and other leaders, and reorganize your facilities for public purposes, or to produce for the American market whatever goods and services we most need, and are now importing.  Or, if that is not  possible, just shut them down and prohibit their use for any military purposes. 

Johnson does understand real market economics.  And he realizes than you can't keep borrowing above your ability to repay without eventual collapse and bankruptcy.  We need to make things here, instead of making cheeseburgers for each other.  We need to clean up the environment, the food supply, the corporate media, and most of all, the various levels of government and the "criminal justice system." 

Here in Montana, it's all about coal, oil, gas pipelines, extra processing, the Bakken, etc.  Few know that the Norwegian State Oil Company as well as several different Chinese companies are the main developers of the Alberta Tar Sands.  The Keystone Pipeline is merely a means of transport to China.  All it will do for us is perhaps increase our consumption of Canadian (non-tar sands) oil, which is already quite large, and we run a balance of payments deficit with them.  It would be far easier and cheaper for them to  build a pipeline directly to the B.C coast.  Apparently, there are tribes and the BC government  which oppose it.  Among the richest fishing grounds in the world, the BC coast is far more valuable as habitat  and unspoiled wilderness, inhabited largely by indigenous peoples.   

So, is this a good reason, then, to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline?  A Green would say yes, a Libertarian might say no, and many Libertarians actually deny anthropogenic climate change.  But they don't deny marginal utility theory, or the "Laws of Bureaucracy" which say that the more centralized and politicized an organization is, the less it is capable of actually meeting any human needs, or otherwise benefiting the larger society. 

Because the Democrats and Republicans are owned and controlled by the "resource industries," the "military industrial complex" (plus schools and prisons) and otherwise represent "the establishment" almost exclusively, we only have a meaningful discussion going on amongst the small parties.  If we (the Greens, Libertarians, and Independents) control even 5% of the vote, we have a good chance of  "spoiling" someone's election, as Perrot did Bush I's, and Nader is alleged to have done with Gore-Lieberman (surely Lieberman's selection as Gore's running mate was an admission of defeat before the campaign ever started). 

The Greens are proud to have defeated Gore - if only because of his moral cowardice.  He was not a good Democrat, and he would not have made a good President.  Neither would John Kerry.  Chameleon-like, they change their spots regardless of the science or more sophisticated political analysis.  They are pure power politicians, who should have known better than to sell out for money or the social pressures of America's wealthiest families, AIPAC, ALEC, and other sinister and powerful influences. 

This essay began by distinguishing two opposing views of THE LAW, and why it is necessary reject authoritarianism in order to have a SCIENTIFIC, RATIONAL, OBJECTIVE legal system if we are to maintain a free Republic.  THE LAW is what protects us from government and private, corporate tyranny.  But it has been subverted  to do the opposite - to act as an instrument of oppression, suppression, repression of speech, religion, assembly, the press, and other communications. 

Now, we have the basis for defining the purpose of a positive legal system -  one designed to maximize social welfare, minimize conflicts, and other class hatreds.  It certainly is not based on blind Authority, which all must serve blindly.  Nor is it about personalities, parties, families, or factions.  It's about our survival as a nation.  We're closer  to the brink than most people are even capable of imagining.  And we need to take some drastic corrective actions soon.  Otherwise, there are factions in the military and the National Security State who are already in a position to do that.  If we don't act for our own preservation and future as a nation and people, then they will act in our stead.  Indeed, they are already doing so.  But we are not too far along that we can't reverse this process, and restore all power and force of law to the states and to the people, as our Constitution demands. 

"Too big to fail" isn't just an argument in favor of bailing out the Wall Street casinos or General Motors.  It also applies to empires and other giant multi-national organizations.  We have a United Nations.  U.S. leaders claim it has no authority over us, while small nations are ruined by its decisions or lack of them.  Clearly, large empires have failed, and are counterproductive in our global village of world-wide trade and other interaction.  We need to get rid of the institutions of organized murder and plunder.  And we need to reverse a lot of our dependency on technology, and on irreplaceable resources of minerals and fossil fuels. 

The Future is forever.  We must  return to a future focus, a sense of purpose which is wholesome and universal, not Amerika Uber Alles.  There are actually candidates and thinkers who are still defending "American exceptionalism" - much like Zionism - which says that we are God's Favorite, or "History is on our Side."  God gave us this land, but not at the expense of everyone we claim isn't "us."  There are no slaves and victims unless we create them.  It's time to re-think some of our class presuppositions.  Going to Harvard doesn't give us a "right to rule."  Neither does spending the most money in a Presidential election. 

Other countries do this correctly, including our brothers, the Brits.  They don't allow TV advertising for elections.  Just imagine how much that one simple change would accomplish.  The Prime Minister can spend a total of $150,000 in a national campaign.  And he can only become PM because he has led the Opposition beforehand.  He has to already have that kind of national leadership experience.  We have no such requirements in the U.S.  And thus, our "democracy" is mostly a sham.  Smoke and mirrors.  Rival gangs struggling to control the vote and the allocation of government jobs and powers to "the fittest" or the least ethical and visionary in their goals and methods.  Some system.