What is it that defines us Americans ? Are we the select and elect of the gods ? Are we an eclectic nation with a whimsical attitude of "anything goes" ?
A friend of mine in Australia asked me those questions because he, like me, does not believe the media with its slants and spins much favoured by the advertising industry. He simply does not believe what the media, both print and electronic, have to say about our values, our lifestyles, our belief systems, our politics, our ethos.
I really could not answer those questions in all honesty because I am at a loss to understand as to who we are as a people.
Our government is the bane and butt of every conceivable joke overseas. I know a facial contortionist who makes a very good Bush 43. He uses it during his standup routines at a local pub. At least, we can humour someone using our President's mug. That is sad !!
Politicians supposedly "get away with it" using parliamentary privilege as a cover. But what happens if we accidentally send an honest man to the legislature ? Is that at all possible ? Will he make deals so that his vote counts here and there ?
The Legislature of the United States (LOTUS, hereinafter) is a curious forum. One oddity is that a truck driver, a taxi driver, a laborer, or any ordinary person of humble origins and means, is unable to ever get elected because huge campaign funds are required. There are some essays and articles out there which say that our system of government was envisioned by the rich and pwoerful to keep the ordinary people out of the law-making forum, that is, LOTUS, so that they can decide, as a minority, what the majority of the people require.
So, if I want a wider freeway, byway, highway, or some street, I am told I would be better off seeking my local congressional representative, who in turn would enquire of the experts, and these experts are pen-pushing bureaucrats sitting in some plush office somewhere. Should I not ask a truck driver or a taxi driver about the need for roads or streets to be widenend or rerouted because these are the real experts who are burning rubber everyday instead of the pencil chewing bureaucrats who decide what's good for us ?
Something is not right.
Similarly, education. This powerful weapon of ways, means, and ends is not even mandated in our Constitution, the Constitution of the United States (hereinafter, COTUS). And, get this, COTUS is the supreme law of the land, Folks. Article VI, Section 2 of COTUS says that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, etc. etc.....
Should we not have at least a dozen teachers, or more, sitting in the House of Representatives ? Teachers shape and mould the minds of the future generations. Why are they not in a law-making capacity in a law-making forum ? I get it. They dont have eneough money to run a campaign.
So, money is the magic word. Perhaps, those articles and essays out there about the rich and powerful ruling us is, after all, very accurate and correct.
We are also told that our founding fathers were very afraid of the "tyranny of the majority", or "mobocracy". People power is a distasteful thing, right ? The man from Walden Pond, like Mohandas K Gandhi (the Mahatma), was absolutely right when he opined that civil disobedience is the only true absolution for tyranny.
Fortunately, civil disobedience is also not mandated in the COTUS. I suppose the Ninth Amendment contained in the Bill of Rights as entrenched in COTUS gives the people the right to indulge in civil disobedience.
But, that is in the domain of interpreting the law, and the forum for that is the Supreme Court of the United States, hereinafter SCOTUS. SCOTUS is, constitutionally, mandated to tell the litigant movant and respondent litigant what the law is without adding or subtracting any gloss.
But the tortured history of SCOTUS is peppered with hundreds of judge-made laws, with the occasional cover of "constitutional avoidance" whenever some litigant raises a constitutional issue. Constitutional avoidance, by the way, is not even mandated in COTUS.
People cannot elect federal judges. People cannot elect senators or the president. People are only allowed to elect representatives for the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives. That is the law as written into COTUS.
People power, bah humbug !!
So people get disgusted. They complain to their representative. He or she may do nothing, or if there is some political capital advantage, some action may be forthcoming provided your representative is able to garner enough votes ! Or, the people sue, and end up in a court of law. It is always a court of law, never a court of justice. But that is another story.
The court of law will hear your case and soon, inevitably, several yardsticks are placed in your cause (that is, case, conflict, and controversy). Will your case, based on the facts and evidence and the law, serve a private interest, a public interest, a social interest, a legal interest, a political interest, a constitutional interest, a lawful interest, etc. There are so many metes and bounds attached to your case. But one finally makes it based on the unelected judge's views, or in the view of nine unelected judges as in SCOTUS.
Usually, in SCOTUS, the principal, predominant, and primary rule of construction to win is to find five votes in your favor.
That, Folks, is a democracy in a republic which is another way of saying that a riddle is wrapped in an enigma.
