INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL, GUNS, AND D.C. STATEHOOD

Some stuff to get off my chest...

INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL

Check out a guy named Cameron Smith on YouTube. 

Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CprziVZHqBk 

Settle in. It's over an hour long and he's not the most dynamic speaker. But if you want to think seriously about how the human race might colonize planets in solar systems other than our own, this guy has done the initial serious thinking for you.

 

Some of my favorite science fiction stories have been concerned with generation ships, interstellar conveyances that recognize that sub-light travel between solar systems requires planning for, at the very least, hundreds of years of travel. These works of fiction vary widely thematically. Many end badly or, if they end well, are initially presented to the reader as being a failed project that required saving. Regardless, I think that one of the reasons that I enjoy these stories is that, in order to be serious, they have to take the time to create scenarios that explain the effect on culture of living as isolated populations of humans in a hostile environment. 

There are, of course, differences within the genre. In Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clark, we're not talking about humans at all, but rather an apparently uninhabited generation ship from an alien system that enters our solar system, slingshots around our sun, and leaves for interstellar space without seeming to pay too much attention to either our solar system or the humans that were attempting to explore it. Cities in Flight by James Blish avoids the question of evolving cultures almost entirely by simply putting bubbles around Earth cities and having them leave Earth and bop around space as a backdrop for relatively mundane economic and political story lines. Mundane for hard science fiction fans, anyway. Perhaps the first book that I read that attempts to seriously approach the question of culture on a generation ship is Starship by Brian W, Aldiss. Oddly enough, it's not the work on which the Jefferson Starship based their first album, but my love of acid rock is another story entirely.

Back to Cameron Smith. This guy has given serious thought to a project that he admits is a century away from viability. Given the requirements of establishing a human outpost without the prospect of communication with the home world more quickly than at intervals of light years apart, there is much to consider, from genetic diversity to language and governance and viewscapes and so much more. 

 

Did you know that on a space station with low air pressure and high oxygen content, humans lose the ability to whistle?

 

Smith posits that in order to ensure success, a generation ship should carry 40,000 humans plus all of the necessary plants and animals to approximate human cultural norms. Because, he says, that's one of the main reasons to embark on such an adventure, to preserve human culture. As I said, he's not a very dynamic speaker, but I find the subject matter fascinating. See if you do, too.

GUNS

People who don't see the logic of banning high caliber, rapid firing, large magazine rifles are not the type of people to be swayed by logical argument. I therefore try to use their own twisted logic against them. I tell them that their two most sacred mantras in favor of their idea of Second Amendment rights are actually the most persuasive arguments for gun control.

 

They say: Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

I say: Then explain to me as if we're in kindergarten why you want to make it easier for people who want to kill people to get their hands on the means to kill as many people as they could possibly want to kill. I'll wait.

They say: If you criminalize guns, only criminals will have them.

I say: Good, then the alienated teenager won't have one and the deranged fired worker won't have one and the abusive husband won't have one and toddlers won't have one to accidentally kill a playmate with. If criminals are the only ones with guns, we'll all be safer. Real criminals don't shoot up suburban malls for no good reason. There's no money in it.

There's a logical reason that stricter gun control can be demonstrated to be Constitutional, too. If you happen to be debating about the subject with someone who might be susceptible to a flash of reasonableness now and then, try this...

 

They say: My Second Amendment rights are enshrined in the Constitution.

You say: Explain to me, like we were in kindergarten, why the right to keep and bear arms is not a part of the First Amendment. Let me suggest that the Founders didn't find it necessary to define or add modifiers to First Amendment rights. Freedom of Speech. of Press. of Religion. By right. Every other right does need and receive appropriate modification. No billeting troops in private homes EXCEPT in times of war. No searches and seizures WITHOUT a warrant. Trials for major crimes can ONLY take place AFTER an indictment. And that's why that pesky phrase about militias is in the Second. It was meant to be there. It modifies the right. Otherwise, that right would be in the First, unmodified. Do you think that the Founders just threw the phrase about militias in the Second for the fun of it? Show me another place in the Constitution where they did something like that. I'll wait.

The Second guarantees that the federal government will not prevent states from forming militias. That was a non controversial statement not so long ago. I believe that it is, to coin a phrase, Original Intent.

D.C STATEHOOD

Speaking of the Constitution, these days it seems as though the Constitution is like the Bible. The folks who talk about it loudest are folks who haven't read it or don't want you to read it. 

The Constitution did not create Washington, D.C. The Constitution didn't even require that a federal district be created that would be the seat of American government. The Constitution says that Congress MAY create a federal district. MAY isn't SHALL. It was up to Congress. 

 

And Congress did. And once Congress had, the Constitution says that Congress has EXCLUSIVE authority over ALL of the District. Article 1, Section 8 doesn't require D.C. and does not prohibit Congress from using its legislative authority to make that district a state. That’s what Congress does...legislate. And what Congress giveth, Congress can taketh away.

 

IMPEACHMENT: FOR EUROPEANS AND FOR AMERICANS WHO THINK THAT THEY KNOW BUT DON'T

Talk of the possibility of impeaching President Trump is in the news. As an expat living in France, I've had occasion to explain just what impeachment means and how it works to some of my European friends. For the curious among you, here's the down and dirty version.

There are two ways that the American Constitution provides for the removal from office of a duly elected, living President.

Amendment XXV of the Constitution was ratified about 50 years ago and cleans up a couple of lingering questions including the provision of a path for succession should a living President be unable to fulfill the duties of the office through illness or other circumstance. Although there are those who would declare Trump unfit under Amendment XXV, that's really not a serious possibility.

Impeachment, however, is a serious possibility these days. Written into the body of the Constitution is the following:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. 

Note the distinction between impeachment and conviction. Impeachment roughly corresponds to an indictment. The House of Representatives impeaches (indicts) through a majority vote and supplies the managers (prosecutors). The President (defendant) chooses his/her own counsel, not necessarily elected politicians. The Senate acts as the jury. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides. A two-thirds vote of  the Senators present is required for conviction. The only penalty for conviction is removal from office.

Note the listed causes for impeachment. Treason and bribery speak for themselves. But what is the definition of a high crime or misdemeanor? In simple, real world terms, the answer to that question is that high crimes or misdemeanors are whatever the House says that they are. The history of Presidential impeachments is instructive in this regard.

Two Presidents have been impeached. Democrat Andrew Jackson was impeached by a Republican Congress in an egregious display of partisanship, primarily because of Jackson's refusal to adhere to a law, later deemed unconstitutional, designed to limit his Presidential power. He was acquitted by one vote on three of eleven articles of impeachment. Following the third acquittal, his trial was adjourned. Democrat Bill Clinton was impeached by a Republican Congress for lying under oath concerning his sexual activity with an intern and for attempting to obstruct the investigation. Neither of the two articles of impeachment managed to gain a clear majority of Senators, much less two-thirds.

It would not be a stretch to say that both impeachments were politically motivated and not based on circumstances that the Founders had in mind. But they were, nonetheless, legitimate. They followed form. There's a saying in American jurisprudence: A good prosecutor can convince a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Although a President is not a ham sandwich, the point is valid when it comes to impeachment. The House, sitting as a grand jury, can indict for whatever reason that it chooses.

Contrary to popular belief, Richard Nixon was not impeached, much less convicted. After the House Judiciary Committee passed articles of impeachment, it was clear that the House as a whole would vote to impeach, But it was not certain initially that the Senate would convict. After release of a particularly incriminating recording and after the Saturday Night Massacre (when Nixon fired high-level Justice Department officials who would not order an end to investigations), conviction in the Senate became a virtual certainty. Nixon resigned.

Can Trump be impeached? Certainly. Will he be impeached? Right now, that's an open question. I personally believe that he is most likely to be impeached if he continues to order that House subpoenas for testimony and documents be ignored. If that continues after a Supreme Court ruling against him, he most definitely will be impeached. If impeached, would he be convicted? Under that circumstance, defiance of a Supreme Court ruling, I have to believe that he will be. But we're not there yet. Like Speaker of the House Pelosi, my inclination is to go slowly and see if Trump obliges by putting the noose around his own neck.

EXAMINING HEALTHCARE: SEPTEMBER 2018 RANT (ONE DAY LATE)

In a discussion about healthcare, a friend said that the European system was not socialism. Europe was composed of welfare states, of countries whose people wanted something for nothing. So I decided to look at healthcare in both the USofA and Europe to decide which system worked best, both in terms of cost and in terms of outcomes.

I'm not a socialist or a communist. I'm not even a democratic socialist. I do believe that there are certain aspects of daily life that are rightly the domain of government to undertake or, at least, to heavily regulate. I believe that it is clear that for-profit companies generally care more about profit than about the environment, for instance. When air pollution turned the air of cities like Pittsburgh and Los Angeles noxious shades of brown, it took vigorous enforcement of emission standards, not voluntary action on the part of the emitters, to clear the air.

There can certainly be debates about the limits of regulation. I once spoke with a Libertarian candidate for the Pennsylvania State Legislature who posited that all environmental laws should be scrapped. If a business polluted, those affected by the pollution can and should sue, he asserted. For reasons that should be obvious to any thinking person, that position is absurd. Pollution travels. Individuals lack the resources to map sources. Unless we don't care about the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the food that we eat, we must collectively take responsibility in seeing to that which the Founders described as the General Welfare. In a modern state with hundreds of millions of lives in the balance, that collective responsibility cannot rely on civil litigation. That responsibility is housed in our government. And it is the responsibility of the electorate to empower the government to be both circumspect and scientific in promulgating rules and regulations.

Here's where it gets tricky. Legal scholars have apparently agreed that "...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..." in our Declaration of Independence and "...promote the general Welfare..." in our Constitution are not actionable phrases. Certainly not in The Declaration, since that document has no bearing on modern jurisprudence at all. And also not in the preamble to The Constitution, though perhaps some relevance when the phrase is repeated in the body as regards taxation. Indeed, in modern times the Supreme Court leans toward a doctrine that prohibits the consideration of any words that are not actually written into the body of The Constitution. 

Absurd, I say.

Why absurd, you ask?

Because that same SCOTUS believes that corporations are people and that money is speech. Show me where the Founders promoted those ideas anywhere, much less in the body of The Constitution. And of course, there's that nasty little phrase in the Second Amendment about militias. 

So let's consider the Founders' words as regards the true purpose of government. (Bold lettering is mine.)

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” ~Thomas Jefferson

"We ought to consider what is the end of government, before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all Divines and moral Philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow, that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best." ~John Adams

"The will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people the end of all legitimate government upon earth." ~John Quincy Adams

What can be more important to the happiness of people than their good health? Which form of government best promotes good health? We often hear American elected politicians proclaim that we, that Americans, have the best healthcare in the world. If good health is indeed a prerequisite for happiness, that claim is central to whether or not those same politicians are serving us well. Let's examine that claim.

Americans spend more on healthcare per capita than other developed countries. And the fact that Medicare has been prohibited by Congress from negotiating drug prices adds to the cost. That's right. The largest single purchaser of drugs in the USofA, the federal government, has been prohibited by the government itself from reducing healthcare costs. And so the absurdity begins

And America spends more as a percentage of GDP than other developed countries.

But life expectancy doesn't seem to correlate positively to that spending.

And maternal mortality doesn't seem to correspond positively to that spending.

And infant mortality is, quite frankly, a disgrace.

So is there any metric in which the US shows leadership? Yes. 5-year cancer survival rates.

But then I determined what I believe to be the reason why the US leads in that category. Spending, which of course, in the US relates to profit.

That's one heck of a difference.

There are those who might suggest that the lack of spending in other countries at end of life is due to rationing. But no one that I know in Europe has experienced a denial of service because of age. I have more than one friend older than 70, one older than 80, who received full treatment for cancers on the government dime with no questions asked. My take on it is that the difference is a quality of life issue. Europeans just think differently about how to live their lives than Americans do. It's why they insist on longer vacations and take full advantage of their vacation time. It's why they close businesses to vacation with their families even at the height of tourist season because that's when their kids are out of school. And I suspect it's why they don't demand invasive and costly procedures at the end of life.

So, call the countries of Europe and those with similar healthcare systems Welfare States. They don't care. They pay for that welfare through taxation and, on the whole, they are happy to do so. 

My nurse sister-in-law described a conversation about single-payer healthcare that she had with a colleague, a colleague with a Ph.D. "But I believe in capitalism," said the colleague. What does an economic system have to do with healthcare outcomes? Apparently, the impact is almost entirely negative.

Absurd.

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE - HISTORY VS MYTH

The guy who makes my Friday night pizza here in the south of France had a question: If Clinton received the most votes, why will Trump be the American President? Try explaining that in a language in which you are not fluent. Here's the answer in (relatively) plain English.

Even as Donald Trump was announced winner of the American Presidential election, we knew that Hillary Clinton had a slim lead in the popular vote. As I write this, that lead may exceed two million votes. Why was Hillary not declared the winner? Because Trump had been deemed to have won the majority of Presidential electors, those who vote for President as members of the Electoral College.

EDIT: Consider the Brexit. As I understand it, cities voted REMAIN but not by enough votes to counter the LEAVE vote in rural areas. Very similar in the US Presidential election but with the added layer of the state-by-state Electoral College to consider. Clinton may have won New York State and California by huge margins but the margins make no difference. She still only gets the votes of their allotted number of electors. Trump won enough states, regardless of the margin, to earn the victory.

First, how does the Electoral College work?

The choosing of electors and the manner in which they are to vote is a question left up to the individual states. Each state is apportioned electors equivalent to their Congressional delegation. Washington DC participates and has the same number of electors as the least populous state. In 48 states and DC, electors are all expected to vote for the candidate who gets the most votes state wide...winner take all. Two states apportion electors by vote within each Congressional district with two additional at-large electors representing those states' Senators.

In essence, when an American votes in a Presidential election, the vote is cast for a slate of electors representing that candidate and not simply for the candidate. The candidate winning a majority of electors wins the Presidency.

There have been what are called 'faithless' electors, electors voting for a candidate other than the one that has been certified as winning that state or district. Some states have laws that would punish faithless electors after their vote. One state would void the vote of a faithless elector. Many states don't address the issue. And there is no certainty how the Supreme Court would rule on faithless elector laws. They have never been invoked against a faithless elector, primarily because faithless electors have never changed the outcome of an election.

A tie in the Electoral College leads to a vote in the House of Representatives. A tie in the House leads to a vote in the Senate. As is the case with any tied Senate vote, a tie in the Senate would be decided by the sitting Vice President acting in his Constitutional capacity as President of the Senate.

Those are the mechanics.

What drove the Framers to create such a system? Some would say that the Electoral College was designed protect small states from larger ones. Others argue that the Electoral College ensures that an unqualified candidate would not become President. While both arguments have some merit and quotes from Founders can be cited in their defense, the overwhelming evidence points to a different cause - power politics wielded by the slave holding states during the Constitutional Convention.

Prior to adopting the Constitution, the thirteen British colonies were in essence sovereign countries with their own chief executives, their own legislatures, and their own armies (militias). The necessity of maintaining a strong union while waging a war for independence was a relatively easy sell. After independence had been won, the benefits of a federal union were not so apparent. Such a federation inherently meant that the sovereign states would be ceding a certain amount of their sovereignty to the new federal government. Two intertwined questions came to the fore as the question of the power of individual states to influence the new federal entity was negotiated. How would we elect a nationwide President? How would we apportion representation in the House of Representatives?

Although some like Madison favored direct election of the President by vote of the people, the Framers did not have great faith in pure democracy. They were, after all, the elite of their time - tax-paying, land-holding free men, one and all. The first proposal brought before the Constitutional Convention was that the House of Representatives would elect the President. That idea failed due to concerns that the Chief Executive would be too beholden to the Legislative Branch under such an arrangement. There was also worry that the House, a small group of men that met regularly, might devolve into a cabal, electing a President through nefarious, secret dealings. Thus, the The Great Compromise that included the Three-fifths Compromise prevailed.

The Framers decided that a national census would be conducted every ten years. House delegations would be apportioned by population. More populous states would have larger delegations. Less populous states would be protected by a Senate that gave each state two Senators - large state or small, the same number. Simple? Not so much. What about slaves?

According to the 1790 census, there were approximately 700,000 slaves in a total population of just under 3,900,000 - 18% of the population. The slave states wanted those slaves to be counted the same as free men and women to beef up their House delegations. The free states didn't want them counted at all. Thus the Three-fifths Compromise.

 ...[representation] shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
           ~Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution

So, slaves accounted for about 11% of the population used to determine Congressional representation and electors. Is it any wonder that nine of the first fifteen Presidents came from slave states, that seven of those nine came from Virginia with its 300,000 slaves in 1790, and that after the Civil War the first Southerner from one of the original slave states to be elected President who wasn't first elevated to the job by death or assassination was Jimmy Carter?

The Electoral College. Power politics, played skillfully by slaveholders.

So there you have it. The Electoral College was designed to protect the Executive Branch from the Legislative with a composition mirroring the Legislative, structured as a compromise between the slave states and the free in order to preserve the nascent union. A check on the democratic process? Not so much. Of course, the reason for its founding over two centuries ago does not preclude a new mission for the Electoral College today. But that's a discussion for another time.

NUCLEAR FILIBUSTER FIZZLE

The Constitution wastes few words on the rules of the American House and Senate. With a couple of exceptions, the Constitution's take on the subject of legislative rules is simple: Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

In fact, the rules for ending debates were themselves the subject of some debate early on, at the very turn of the Nineteenth Century, amongst the Founders themselves. As a result, the rules concerning forcing a vote were changed from the original within a few years. But it was assumed that the gentlemen of the Senate (they were all gentlemen in those days) could debate, come to decisions, vote, and move on without the need for those debates to be constrained by specific rules regarding closure. It wasn't until the mid-Nineteenth Century that the need for a way to limit debate became a topic of conversation and not until the third quarter of the Twentieth Century that the current rules were fully promulgated.

I take no position on the question of whether or not the rule change passed by the Democratic majority in the Senate today was a good idea. But I cannot abide the argument that the change slapped the Founders upside the head. The Founders gave the Senate the right to make its own rules and over the years those rules have evolved. If you believe in evolution, it is a continuing process. And the process continues.