Constitutional Issues

The Constitution of the United States is the greatest document ever written by man; it is a sacred text comparable to, if not greater than, the primary texts of the world's great religions. The Founders of this country and the authors of our Constitution were men of high historical, intellectual and scholarly acumen with a strong understanding of human and institutional behavior. In the debates leading up to and including the time at which the Constitution was written, our Founders wrote copiously on every aspect of the Constitution, all of which were left behind from which we can understand the logic and environment each sentence of the Constitution was reflecting.

As such, I am an advocate of the originalist school of Constitutional interpretation. I believe that the Founders left behind sufficient material from which we can determine their intent and the reasoning behind what was written into the Constitution. I do not believe that the Constitution is a "living document" that can be endlessly reinterpretated to the temporary whims of today and reinterpretated again for the whims of tomorrow. If that were the case, then an amendment process would be unnecessary and the Founders would not have provided for it. Therefore, the Constitution should be interpretated according to the intent of the Founders. An amendment process exists for pressing issues not addressed by the Constitution or the Founder's intent.

Based on the above framework, I believe the following:

- The Constitutional rights outlined in the Constitution are strictly limited to American citizens and are not applicable to non-citizens.

- Amendments to the Constitution should be strictly limited to issues of such great importance that, if the Constitution does not allow for it to be addressed, would threaten the integrity of the union or the harmony of society. Otherwise, lesser issues should be dealt with via the legislative process at a sub-Constitutional level. The Constitution is not, and must not ever be, the playground for petty special interests and the temporary whims and fads of the day.

- International treaties in opposition to the framework of the Constitution, the intent of the Founders, or the principles this nation were founded upon, should be rejected.

- The interpretation of laws in foreign countries or at the international level should have no weight and should not be considered by our courts when considering the interpretation of a law. Laws should be interpretated solely based upon other decisions made within the United States and within the framework of our Constitution.

- Federalism is one of the key principles outlined in the Constitution and the vast majority of issues should be addressed at the local or state level.

In light of all of this, there are errors within the Constitution that must be addressed. The following issues must be addressed:

1. There is a major contradiction within the Constitution that has been exploited to create a vast and counterproductive welfare state that shows no signs of slowing in terms of growth. Within the Preamble of the Constitution, which gives a general outline of the purpose of the Constitution and the duties of government, it states that the duty of the government is to "provide for the common defense" and "promote the general welfare." The terms "provide" and "promote" are clearly used in a different context. Yet, later in the Constitution, specifically in Article 1, Section 8, the terms are discombobulated when the Constitution states that "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." (emphasis mine) I therefore recommend that the Constitution be amended to eliminate confusion by adding "promote the" immediately before "general Welfare."
2. Contrary to popular legal belief, the 14th Amendment of the Constitution does not grant birthright citizenship to any and all people born on American soil regardless of the citizenship status of that individual's parents. The common interpretation of Section 1 of the amendment focuses solely on the first nine words - "All persons born or naturalized in the United States," - while ignoring the qualification statement immediately following - "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof..." From this misinterpretation, activists have harnessed this amendment to grant citizenship to foreigners born on American soil. It was never meant to be interpretated this way and the individual who introduced the amendment, Senator Jacob Howard, stated explicitly in his introductory remarks that, "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons." However, due to the confusion that has resulted from this misinterpretation and to ensure that this interpretation never becomes dominant again, it is necessary to amend the Constitution to make up for this fact. Therefore, I recommend a new amendment that changes the verbage of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, with the exception of persons born to foreigners, aliens, ambassadors, or foreign ministers, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
3. In Section 2 of the 14th Amendment, it states that when electoral and legislative seats are apportioned, the entire population of the state, excluding Indians not taxed, not just citizens but including all foreigners and others residing within the state borders, are included in the statistics used to determine how many are apportioned to that state. This is an outrage, and this amendment should either, in light of the above deficiency, be eliminated entirely or amended to state that only citizens count in the official numbers.
4. In Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution, it states that "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote." This has since been amended by the 17th Amendment, which changes the process of appointment from "chosen by the Legislature thereof" to "elected by the people thereof." Senators were never to have been elected by popular vote and the Founders were explicit in their reasoning as to why this had to be. Within the Federalist Papers, it is repeatedly mentioned that Senators are supposed be appointed by and representative of the views of the state legislatures, and act as a check on the elected lower House. As a result of the 17th Amendment, states no longer have any representation at the federal level, there are no checks on the House, and issues that should be solved at the local or state level are increasingly handled at the federal level at the expense of the rights of individual states. Therefore, I call for a new amendment making Section 1 of 17th Amendment null-and-void.
5. A new amendment should be added to the Constitution requiring that the federal budget be balanced every fiscal year.
6. Regarding the interpretation of the 1st Amendment, the right to freedom of expression and freedom of speech does not apply to the destruction of physical objects, such the American flag. There are limits to the 1st Amendment just like there are limits to the 2nd.

Crime

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Defense

As an officer in the U.S. Air Force, my life is dedicated to the defense of this nation and many, if not most, aspects of this blog are defense-related. I believe that we are living in the most critical time in our nation's history and believe that what we do over the next 2-3 decades will determine whether this nation will maintain its primacy in the world for the remainder of the century.

National defense is the primary and single most important duty of the government. Without a strong defense, our nation's independence and survival, and the civil and economic liberties that stem from it, are in question. One of our most important Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, stated that

"It had been said that respectability in the eyes of foreign nations was not the object at which we aimed; that the proper object of republican Government was domestic tranquility and happiness. This was an ideal distinction. No Government could give us tranquility and happiness at home, which did not possess sufficient stability and strength to make us respectable abroad."

I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly, as did our ancestors. With our rise to hemispheric hegemony as a result of the Spanish-American War and global hegemony as a result of World War II, the U.S. has had its dominance challenged many times, most recently by the Soviet Union. However, after its fall the U.S. became complacent and our politicians became obsessed with dividing up the "peace dividend" at the expense of our military might. With the increasing strength of radical Islam and its continued attacks upon the West, the rapid rise of China following the reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping, and the growth of regional blocs attempting to resist U.S. influence, our hegemony may now be in question.

Many measures, some radical, must be taken to ensure that our hegemony is never called into question again. They should be based upon the following principles:

- Technologically, our military must always be at least two generations more advanced than that of our nearest peer competitor. Many say that we should spend our money elsewhere, since we are already one generation ahead of everybody and that, as a result, nobody can touch us on the technological front. This is a false notion, because if money and research is held back for too long, our competitors will have caught up to us and instead of us being one-step ahead in the game, we'll be evenly matched. Once that happens, it becomes a constant struggle to keep up and the enemy will have many more chances to get ahead, at which point we fall behind. Once that happens, it is near impossible to catch back up, short of a miracle happening, and the odds will begin to stack against us. We must never allow ourselves to get into this situation. In the words of Robert Heinlein, "the most expensive thing in the world is a second-best military establishment; good, but not good enough to win."

- Rapid global mobility must be the conceptual basis of all future military developments and logistical models. In order to have this, we need much greater strategic and operational airlift capabilities. Future military developments must also utilize lighter materials to minimize reliance upon sealift. For technology that is simply too heavy for airlift and requires sealift for transport, more forward operating locations and supply facilities must be distributed over the world so that such material may be stored there, thus minimizing the amount of precious time required to deploy it. Strategic chokepoints must also be heavily protected to ensure that they remain open to sea traffic.

- A large and technologically advanced Navy is the key to global hegemony in this increasingly interdependent world. Our Navy must have complete dominance in every ocean, bar none.

- Space dominance is the key to the future and the sooner we deploy space-based weapons, the more secure our hold on it will be. This includes a comprehensive missile defense system capable of defeating ballistic missiles from launch-phase to terminal, and offensive weapons platforms to defeat enemy satellites and ultra-rapid space-to-ground first-strike capabilities with conventional weapons.

- Full spectrum dominance is the great unifier; we must maintain the capability to defeat any enemy, of any persuasion, utilizing every method of warfare, on any and all battlefields.

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Drug Policy

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Economics

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Education

It is my belief that the American primary school system has failed our country and our families. In practically every measured indicator, the performance of our primary schools are ranked near the bottom in comparison to the systems of other modern industrial states. I believe the system is like this due to a multitude of reasons, such as:

• Overcentralization: in the 1920s, there were over 120,000 school districts; today, there are fewer than 15,000, providing services to over twice the population we had then. Centralization minimizes the competitive forces essential for natural increases in quality to occur.

• Negative union influence: the NEA/AFT use their phenomenal power to oppose practically every attempt at educational reform, regardless of the welfare of their students or this country. Instead, they consistently advocate increasing educational spending in complete disregard of data that shows continued educational decline even as spending is increased (for example, look at the district of Washington, DC: at over $13,000 spent per student, it ranks as the most well funded in America, yet it ranks the lowest in measures of academic performance).

• Egalitarianism: it's ridiculous to expect equal results from all individuals with complete disregard of that individual's mental abilities. Yet, that is exactly the goal of the "No Child Left Behind" program. Unable to equalize the results, schools report false numbers and teach the tests, whose standards are continuously lowered on a yearly basis so that government bureaucrats can proclaim their "success." As a result, students are taught less and less and the gifted are left behind while attention is directed to those who have reached the extent of their ability.

I believe that the solution to these problems, and a myriad of others, is to increase competition via the implementation of a nation-wide program of school privatization to create a public-private partnership. The system would work by:

1. Privatizing a large swath of the public school system on a national level, selling individual schools to private companies and creating a certification system to minimize fraud in the private sector
2. Creating a voucher system, under the control of the Department of Education, in which each student is issued a voucher to be used at the school of their choice, public or private, in any location. A formula will be developed to ascertain how much each voucher should be worth, and will be tied to inflation
3. The vouchers will be paid for via a national sales tax; local, state, and federal school funding will be eliminated, their revenues returned, and taxes reduced
4. Private-sector entities will receive tax deductions for identifying and assisting in the education of students with high potential
5. For public-schools, students should not be limited to attending only one school chosen by their local or state government; rather, students should be allowed to attend any public school, with no restrictions on choice
6. Eliminate politically correct textbooks from the curriculum and end the mentality that our school system is first and foremost a social engineering program. Redefine the school system's purpose to something more in line with the development of well-rounded, energetic, ambitious, and patriotic citizens
7. Finally, abolish "No Child Left Behind" and all attempts at creating a truly egalitarianism system; students should be treated solely upon their individual abilities, of which each individual is different from another

Tertiary issues:

• Sex education: generally, I believe the role of the schools is not to teach about human sexual relations, but the right and left have made it quite an obsession: the right believes that sex education does not belong in schools and, if it does, it should focus solely on abstinence education; the left believes that sex education does belong in schools and should teach about practically everything, except abstinence. Since this is such a ridiculous and minor issue in comparison to the grand scheme of things, I take a position firmly in the center: sex education does have a role in our schools and should focus on emphasizing the importance of abstinence, while also teaching about STDs and the various contraceptive methods available if abstinence is to be ignored. It is unrealistic to think that abstinence is the solve-all solution, because it cannot be proven that all students will practice it and won't take risks; we should do what we can to help minimize the risks that they take.

• Evolution vs. Creationism / ID: this is just an absurd debate. Evolution is a fact and Creationism / Intelligent Design belongs in the social sciences. There really is no debating this.

Energy

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Environment

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Foreign Policy

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Guns & Firearms Policy

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Health Care

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Homeland Security

When the Department of Homeland Security was first created in 2003, it was hailed by both left and right as the Great Unifier and the solution to the conflict and lack of dialogue between a myriad of governmental agencies. Originally opposed by the administration after the great terrorist attacks in September 2001, when it was originally proposed by Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman, it was finally created after the adminstration decided that the tasks at hand were far greater than those the much smaller Office of Homeland Security could handle. However, on both left and right were also its critics, some who said it was not far-reaching enough while others stated that it would do nothing but add another layer of bureaucracy and centralization to an already overbureaucratic and overcentralized system. Both were right on some points and both were wrong on others.

The true effectiveness of the Department has yet to be determined, for it has not been around long enough to accurately gauge it. It is true that since its inception there has not been a major terrorist attack on our soil. It is also true that it failed to successfully respond to the natural disasters that were hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In some areas of security, the Department has been a force for reform; in other areas, reform has stagnated. One thing is for sure: institutional rivalries, which the Department was meant to ameliorate, continue to this day. It is its success in minimizing these rivalries, cutting bureaucracy, and increasing the responsiveness of the agencies to security and natural disasters that will gauge if the department has been successful. Until the Department has existed for a long enough period of time to do that, I will remain neutral on this issue.

Some improvements to the agency that I do advocate:

1. Double funding currently allocated to the U.S. Coast Guard, an underappreciated organization that has been underfunded for decades
2. Establish an Office for the Protection of the Constitution, like that which exists in Germany, to monitor fifth-columnists in extreme-left, extreme-right, religious extremist, and environmental extremist groups, that threaten the integrity of the union, and provide data to the Department of Justice for prosecutorial purposes
3. Establish rules that clearly outline the roles and responsibilities of the agencies under its supervision to minimize bureaucratic overlap and more evenly distribute responsibilities according to capability
4. Eliminate, or combine, agencies or programs that are unnecessary or unproductive

Immigration

With as many as 12 million illegal immigrants currently residing within America coupled with increasing levels of crime and violence related to drug and human trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border, to say that the American immigration and border control system is broken would be an understatement. Every year, millions of illegal immigrants are captured along the U.S.-Mexico border, yet for every illegal captured there is one who was not. These illegal immigrants are not only Mexican and central American peoples who are seeking a better life for themselves, but many are also anti-American saboteurs, spies, and terrorists from openly hostile states and organizations in all regions of the world.

With this rapidly increasing influx of alien peoples have arisen ethnic and racialist lobbying and rights organizations who promote the interests of these peoples while ignoring the interests of this nation. Coupled with strong business lobbies, these groups have begun reshaping our country along lines not necessarily in the interests of America. Their increasing power means that more and more, power-hungry politicians and political parties will further align themselves with these groups in order to further their hold on power.

This is a dire time in American history. The country is becoming balkanized, the availability of illegal narcotics is becoming more common, and threats to national security are as likely from within as from without. This crisis must be dealt with. Here is what I propose:

1. The border to Mexico should be sealed, a wall built, and the National Guard deployed to permanent border control checkpoints until relieved by the Border Patrol after it has been augmented with additional resources and manpower. Trade should be conducted via an efficient system of entry control points.
2. Increase border patrol funding by 50% and double the number of border patrol agents.
3. Reform immigration laws so that legal immigrants must come from a culture that allows for maximum ease of assimilation and maximum benefit for the nation. The race, ethnicity, and religion of the would-be immigrant should be taken into consideration in order to prevent the growth of racialist movements, maintain national unity, and minimize ethnic and racial discord; an exception to this would be immigrants with high-IQs, who can generally be expected to avoid this. For these individuals, I am willing to completely wave the racial and ethnic status of that individual if they meet the rest of the following criteria.
4. Legal immigrants should have their IQ tested and taken into consideration along with their educational experience.
5. Refugee policy should be reformed. I see no reason why a Croatian, who knows three languages and is working on her Ph.D., can’t immigrate, but an Egyptian, who thinks the US should be turned to dust, can.
6. The would-be immigrant should have their political beliefs questioned, and those with beliefs not congruent with the U.S. and the West should not be allowed entry.
7. Almost 25% of those in jail right now are illegal immigrants; they should be immediately deported and repatriated to their own country.
8. Reform the laws to eliminate chain migration; if an entire family wants to immigrate, then there should be a family policy in place that allows for the application of both families and individuals.
9. No amnesty for illegal immigrants. If workers are desperately needed, then there should be a guest worker program like there was mid-century where they come here to work for a few months out of the year and spend the rest of the year in their home country. We don’t need a permanent, low-IQ, illegal immigrant underclass.
10. Illegal immigrants currently in the United States should have the option of either leaving the U.S. (forcibly, if necessary) or participating, via application, in a guest worker program that allows them to live and work in the U.S. for a certain number of years before having to reapply. If they desire to become citizens of the U.S., they must go through the proper channels like every other immigrant who wants to be a citizen. If they have paid money into the Social Security system, they should be eligible for S.S. benefits for however many years they paid in.
11. All immigrants who are applying for citizenship and/or residence status must participate in a grace period in the U.S. (say, five years) to prove their willingness to be good citizens and/or residents and to participate in programs designed to assimilate them into society. Criminal activity will result in immediate deportation and will render the applicant inelegible for citizenship and/or residence status. Any guest workers who participate in criminal activity will be immediately deported and their guest worker status will be permanently revoked.
12. Reform our trade laws to reflect the need for cheaper labor and to avoid the formation of a permanent low-wage underclass. Importation of labor is the problem; free-trade is the solution.
13. To further eliminate racial or ethnic discord, and promote national unity, federal laws should be passed eliminating all affirmative action programs and quotas (for race, ethnicity, gender, height, weight, appearance, religion, etc., but not national origin) in all aspects of the public sector. Any schools receiving government funding must adhere to these laws, or funding will be eliminated. Eliminate private workplace discrimination laws; private employers should have total control over selection and hiring.
14. Adopt English as the national language and require proficiency for citizenship.
15. Eliminate birthright citizenship for the children of non-citizens by amending the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

What to do about the Canadian border, you ask? Here is what I propose:

1. A system of ID cards should be jointly developed by the U.S. and Canadian governments where citizens of either country can swipe their cards at entry control points along the border prior to entry to prove their citizenship status via a joint U.S.-Canadian citizen database.
2. The U.S. and Canadian governments should work together to harmonize immigration and refugee laws so that theirs is congruent to ours. This will be to the benefit of Canada, however if their government is too left-leaning to adopt similar rules, then it may be necessary to take identical steps towards Canada as outlined above for Mexico.

Social Security

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Trade

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