Triad 2018

2018 Triad

In three stories I hope to persuade the American people that they can vote against the two-party system and to show why they should use the power of their vote to retire and replace the two-party system. The two-party system is toxic. American society is becoming toxic because of the deception and selfish materialism embodied in the two-party system, and because the two-party system is itself phony, a false institution that accomplishes the opposite of democracy. It protects the power of a super-wealthy minority who are the nobility in American society. They rule by lying, successfully, and by pretending to offer political choices when they offer only the same pattern of endless class war between hierarchical materialism (also known as "capitalism") and real democracy which is defined by majority rule.

Story #1: Toxic Society: America is a Drug-Promoting Society

The freedom to self-medicate is a cornerstone of American culture. I have heard that there are only two nations that allow pharmaceutical companies to purchase advertising directed to consumers, and one of those nations is the U.S.A. America was hooked on self-medication early in its history. During the colonial period con-artists rode from town to town on circus wagons offering everyone who would listen cures for everything from worms to impotence to flatulence and liver disease. Historical records show that many of the medicinal formulas of that period contained ingredients that are controlled or banned today: including cocaine, heroin, and turpentine. Many also contained the most common medicine of all, alcohol, as well as nothing special at all, just something that tasted bitter and made the customer feel like they were being suitably punished for overeating or boosting their tolerance for their depressing lives. The unregulated sales of promising remedies, based on either centuries old herbal remedies, or half-assed recipes made up of common household chemicals, continued through the nineteenth century. Many promised improvement for a variety of unrelated ailments. One bottle might claim to contain an all-in-one cure for a cold, kidney stones, feminine disorders or indigestion. The rise of "a medicine for every problem" began after World War II, along with the burst in chemical technology and imitation materials for everything (silk, leather, butter, flavors, rubber, wood, etc. etc.) During the 1960s we started to discover "unintended consequences" of our chemical wonders, especially plastics and the poisons for the "American agricultural miracle." I think of the American agricultural miracle as the American cosmic disaster. The U.S.A. constantly published statistics (and still does) proudly proclaiming that we only need 10% of the working population to be "farmers" who produce all our food, then 5%, then 3%, never acknowledging the missing statistics for all the workers who drilled for the oil, refined the diesel fuel, mined the iron and made the steel and assembled the combines and made the rubber tires for the trucks, and who made the trucks and manufactured the trucks and built the supermarkets, all of which was really the industrial agricultural system that replaced the previous system where everyone who grew or delivered food was a real farmer. During the 1970s, when I explored the vocation of "farming," I discovered that a farmer is a machine operator.

Getting back to our self-medicated society, we have consistently acted as though we all have the right to take whatever medicine we want, and if the doctor won't prescribe it for us, even when we ask, well then we can get it on the street. Anyone who knows this business, the world of drug abuse and drug addiction, knows that the abuse of prescription drugs is about the same, or possibly greater, than the volume of those drugs that we call a "controlled substance." We all believe that if we get sick, it is only logical, and right, that we can take a medicine that makes us "feel better." That certainly seems both fair and legal, ethical and rational when we are coping with physical diseases. It gets more complicated when we are talking about feeling sad, or tired, or depressed, or nervous, or anxious. Taking a chemical cure for "feeling bad" is not really recommended, unless one's anxiety or depression causes one to be unable to function normally. Many or most addicts will defend their actions with the foolish argument that they are not hurting anyone else --- when they take heroin, cocaine, or morphine or any of the street drugs that get colorful names like "crack" "ice" or "crystal." The same is true for those who take something to help them sleep, or calm them down, or enable them to escape uncontrollable feelings of grief or rage. "It's my life, has nothing to do with you or anyone else." This extreme self-isolation is contrived and wrong, of course. Every individual who becomes slave to an addictive substance diminishes their value to society, and eventually becomes a burden to society if they cannot stop their addictive behavior. Those who know the business (of drug and alcohol addiction and treatment) know the tremendous loss in productivity and real human happiness. When accountants make the effort to "monetize" these kinds of losses, to compute the monetary price we pay for alcohol and drug addiction, most people are floored. The price we pay for this individual "freedom to self-destruct" is many billions of dollars, lost time, lost creativity, enormous resources dedicated to treatment that could be available for more constructive purposes -- if we did not defend the infantile stupidity that a citizen has a right to commit suicide slowly as a way of exercising their right to liberty and happiness. It's kind of like saying they have a right to "death, liberty, and happiness." If we really do want to support an individual's right to slow suicide, we need to consider who should pay for it. Or, maybe instead of enabling substance addiction we would prefer to discourage it.

Solution #1: Pursue Practicality, not Morality or Sympathy

Let's begin by asking what are the offensive behaviors and what might be the behaviors that rise to the criminal level. Also, what is the phenomenon of drug addiction? What causes it? Why do people, especially poor people, get involved in the illegal drug trade?

The offensive behaviors, in a short list, are:

A) Producing illegal addictive drugs (controlled substance);

B) Promoting and selling illegal addictive drugs;

C) Giving away illegal addictive drugs;

D) Stealing, selling, or giving away addictive prescription drugs, without being a licensed pharmacist;

E) Buying an illegal, addictive drug;

F) Possessing an illegal, addictive drug;

G) Using an illegal, addictive drug (possession).

The chargeable criminal behaviors are:

A) Possession of a controlled substance;

B) Manufacture of a controlled substance or medication without a license.

Let's look at the important questions and what happens when we approach these questions with the intent to correct or punish a moral offense or when we feel sorry, sympathetic, toward drug addicts.

What is the phenomenon of drug addiction?

Answer: The American tradition of "self-medication."

Why do people, especially poor people, get involved in the illegal drug trade?

Answer: Drug-making and selling is a thriving underground economy. People who are squeezed out of the mainstream economy are vulnerable to any under-the-table employment or any underground economy that provides them with spendable income. They are being resourceful while also breaking the law. Their desire to have money (the American Dream) is greater than their fear of the law. This successful underground economy is driven by demand, demand from rich, poor, male, female, and every ethnic group in America.

The most promising way to reduce drug addiction to the minimum is to abandon the endless dysfunctional conflict between treating the illegal use of drugs as a crime and also as a disease. We also must address the inescapable reality that illegal drug use is an underground economy. The logical solution to these problems is to treat the entire illegal drug system as the result of an American tradition: self-medication.

We should treat all of the problems that arise from acts of self-medication as a single problem, acts that include both prescription drugs and non-prescription controlled substances. By including as part of this same single problem the illegal economy of producing, buying and selling drugs outside the regulations of licensed physicians and pharmacists, we can develop a coherent policy and effective programs directed entirely toward physical and mental health of the populace rather than an endless conflict between drug-economy criminals and the institutions of law enforcement. The most insidious destructive result of the "war on drugs" and the persistent conflict between the disease model and the criminal model is that drug enforcement operates as though it is a program to punish the poor while drug abuse by the wealthy or financially secure is regarded as a common experience for celebrities of all kinds who tell the same story over and over again of descending into drug abuse and then recovering by way of either religion or family or both. Our culture has created an emotional worship service around the myth of successful people who turn to drugs -- which IS self-medication -- to relieve emotional or physical pain, and then are compelled to engage in a difficult and dramatic road to "permanent remission." It is all very moving, very dangerous, very destructive, and astronomically expensive if you count the losses in both productive time and the money taken from the legal economy and channeled to a criminal underground. Treating this problem as a kind of combat between good police and bad drug dealers clearly does not solve the problem. The "drug war" model is not driven by a military enemy. The entire system is driven by the traditional and widespread practice of self-medication, which was with us during colonial times and came to America from the European culture. Self-medication is something that people do and have been doing for centuries, including before the Europeans used their sailing ships to explore the world and claimed that they own it. So then, what we need to do is examine the phenomenon of self-medication, and evaluate when it is either harmful, or illegal, or both, and set out a plan of public and governmental responses to minimize the harm and minimize the costs. We need to recognize that a great deal of self-medication occurs in our society that does not harm the individual or the society and does not sustain an illegal or underground economy. Therefore, we need to sort out the forms of self-medication that are tolerable and those that are not. This process will immediately show that using prison as a punishment or cure for drug abuse is totally ineffective. There is no scientific evidence that drug abusers or dealers placed in prisons learn a better way of life. Programs of conviction and incarceration need to be discarded and replaced with more effective methods -- for most forms of self-medication. Still, prison may be an appropriate consequence for those who insist that they will make their living in an underground economy that preys on the vulnerability of the simple, the gullible and people in pain.

Any approaches that help to reduce the harm caused by the underground drug economy might also help to address other underground economies, such as the illegal firearms economy. As a matter of national economic policy we need to review all of our economic policies and institutions and plan a transformation to an inclusive economy that includes every citizen who wishes to participate in the paired economic activities of contributing productively (giving) and appropriate consumption (taking or buying). An essential new practice may be to provide for individuals to be able to safely end their participation in an illegal or subversive economy and join the legal economy. We should make this possible with minimal punitive consequences for past participation in an illegal economy and no judicial "deal" or requirement that the individual coming into the legal economy testify against other persons. This type of testimony for leniency is a despicable and destructive practice in the first place. Such testimony should not be trusted under normal circumstances because it is the testimony of a person who has participated in criminal behavior for their own benefit, and their testimony in exchange for a benefit is tainted and not reliable. Our government often says it will not negotiate with terrorists, so then why does the government negotiate with criminals?

What is the flaw in treating drug abuse as a failure in morality? The problem that arises when we treat drug abuse as a moral failure is that we judge the individual and condemn them for being immoral or for being deficient in faith or religion. This is a judgment that falls outside of the civil and criminal law. People "in the business" such as police and addiction therapists will tell us that there are a few common experiences in the backgrounds of drug addicts, for example: 1) shame arising from early childhood trauma or abuse; 2) shame arising from permanent damage from physical injuries; 3) shame from emotional pain from losses of family or friends; 4) shame from a family history of poverty; 5) frustration from racial, ethnic or religious prejudice; 6) relief from physical or emotional pain by prescribed drugs.

Therefore, we can see that the background causes of drug abuse are not a moral failure but the difficulty some people have coping with physical and emotional pain. They do what our culture supports, they self-medicate.

What is the flaw in responding to drug abuse with sympathy? It feels natural, sensitive and considerate to respond to a person in pain with sympathy. But, the problem that arises and helps the drug abuse to continue is that the reliance on the addictive substance to relieve one's pain is extremely destructive and causes extreme and permanent losses to us, society. People "in the business" such as police and addiction therapists will tell us that our "sympathy" is known by another name that plays a major role in the world of substance abuse (including alcoholism), known as "enabling." When we show or give voice to our sympathy for a substance addict, even when we reveal our "feeling sorry for them" by way of subtle, non-verbal communications, we are suggesting to them that we understand their "reasons" for substance abuse and it is okay for them to use a chemical substance to make themselves feel better -- EVEN THOUGH IT IS ILLEGAL AND EXTREMELY DESTRUCTIVE OVER TIME. Enabling behaviors amount to our saying your drug abuse is understandable and even acceptable because you cannot help yourself. … But, we hope you will find faith in a higher purpose or maybe you will stop destroying yourself and your family for the benefit of someone you love. When you become acquainted with real, advanced drug addicts, you realize that they are losing their capacity to think, to work, and to love. The end result of drug addiction is NOT a religious awakening, it is mental and physical debilitation, and finally death. Drug abuse is not glamorous or cool. Some artists and musicians as well as many other professionals do function well for a period, and they may even be creative for a time, but there is no evidence whatsoever that by using addictive drugs you make yourself into a more creative artist or professional. By using addictive drugs you make yourself into a self-destructive, selfish, hostile, anti-social burden on society.

So, what happens when we turn to the concept of practicality? What do we want? What can we do to be practical about drug abuse? We need to recognize the origin of the problem is the accepted social custom of self-medication. We need to compose and write a hierarchy of self-medicating drugs and practices and sort out those that are tolerable because their damaging social and economic losses are minimal, or none. We need to transform our laws against possession to laws against self-destructive behavior, which society and the government has a right to do because the losses that result from substance addiction are economic losses and social losses. We lose the contribution that a healthy person makes to society, and we lose the companionship and membership of a citizen, neighbor, friend and relative. We have a right to make it a violation of the law for an individual to remove themselves from work and society by poisoning themselves even if the poison works slowly over time. If we apply this principle of practicality, drug sellers would be prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license, and drug addicts would be placed on probation (not imprisoned). The conditions of probation would discourage continued substance abuse and reward a return to taking care of one's physical and mental health. We would also make use of laws and programs to discourage participation in the underground drug economy in exchange for participation in the above-ground mainstream economy. That means people have to be hired, given work to do, and paid. All this simply to get practical results instead of pleasuring ourselves with morality and sympathy.

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Story #2: Toxic History: Dysfunctional Politics Based Upon Class War

The Two-Party System is an endless battle only between two factions within a single tribe of rich American nobility. This problem has been named by many, most notably Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders. Intelligent citizens point the way to success for us, such as those who warned us in the 1960s that we needed to develop a policy for population control. The primary cause of pollution is people, and if we do not control our population, we cannot control pollution. Nature is resilient, but not infinitely resilient. All natural systems have limited re-charge times, the time required by natural processes to remove or neutralize toxic chemicals put into the environment by human activities. Back then in the 1960s we had considered "Zero Population Growth" but it was fleeting. The threat embodied in overpopulation was described in The Population Bomb by Paul and Anne Ehrlich (1968). Population control was rejected by the two-party nobility because it required self-discipline and it seemed to oppose their sacred right to take a profit and our human freedom to be self-destructive if we want to. We still want the right of self-medication and self-destruction described in Story #1. The materialist side of the class war actually promotes a destructive population policy, which is "all conceptions must be brought to term." This is the opposite of population control; this is the policy that says any child conceived must be born, and to use any form of contraception is morally wrong. This is an irrational religious viewpoint, but it is successfully sold by the Republican Party to gullible citizens. The persistent core strategy of the Republican Party is to deceive gullible citizens by pretending that personal moral issues, issues not really subject to legislative authority in a democracy, are the political issues upon which they should base their votes. The Republican Party is destroying American democracy by making the illegitimate claim that personal moral dilemmas, such as unplanned conceptions and brain-dead elders are the subject matter of political debate. But the true subject matter of political debate in a real democracy is equality, minimizing of class divisions, social and economic justice. This was the subject matter last addressed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who the rich labelled as a "traitor to his class." Roosevelt proposed a Bill of Economic Rights, but that has been hidden in a closet and they don't want us to re-discover that extremely democratic and "socialist" idea.

My own biography reveals the illness in American politics that is embodied in the destructive patterns of the Two-Party system. My personal story is a story of observing American politics and seeing it for what it is: manipulation of the majority by an entrenched minority. The Two-Party System is so destructive and corrupt it has become the worst form of oppressive government, a government by for-profit corporations who have elevated monetary profit to the level of the God to be worshipped in the religion of Materialist Hierarchy, promoting a social system that could only lead logically to the division of society into a ruling class and a slave class. This is the cosmic tragedy we must see coming and replace with real democracy before it's too late.

When I was twelve years old I became a "paper boy" delivering the Bridgeport Post to both middle class and upper class homes (in Brooklawn Park, around the golf course). I read the political news every day. I saw and heard John F. Kennedy speak on television at the Democratic National Convention of 1956. Soon after I read Senator Kennedy's book, Profiles in Courage. Clearly, these experiences nurtured and sustained a natural tendency to what some people call "idealism" during my adolescent years. That does not mean I was blind. My idealism was challenged and I actually laughed, when I read that President Eisenhower said he did not know that an American pilot was flying a U-2 spy plane over Russia. I had also learned later that the famous Kennedy family started with the father, Joseph Kennedy, who had a profile in bootlegging. I grew up exposed to a lot of reality, in my home, workplaces, and community. I like to say of myself that I am a realist, which I have heard defined as "One who hopes for the best and prepares for the worst." Many years later, in my adult life, after much more experience working for government and observing the political world, I formulated what I call The Medeiros Principle: "No matter how bad I think things are, they are always worse." My work experience as an adult included Revenue Officer for the IRS, junior high teacher, auto accident claims adjuster, self-employment doing repairs and landscaping. mental health worker, radiation safety technician recruiter, child support enforcement in Massachusetts, and social worker for twenty-five years for the State of Vermont. My mother had told me that the Republicans are the party of the rich and the Democrats are the party of the working people. History has not disproved that viewpoint. But I have great respect for true conservatives. In my own personal life I have had positive acquaintances with rich people who believed sincerely that the more fortunate have an obligation to help the less fortunate. The rich can help either directly through donations to charitable organizations, or indirectly through support for public and private education. They also help by contributing to every tax-supported program that effectively provides real opportunities to those who start their lives with disadvantages. The rich are not always selfish, but the selfish are often rich.

Class War as an Argument Over Arithmetic

The selfish rich pursue permanent class war against their employees by constantly claiming that working people, or unemployed workers, are lazy and ask too much for the cost of their labor. In our own time they have gone to great lengths to suppress or destroy labor unions. They have made, successfully, the ridiculous claim that they create jobs. The true service they provide to society, if any, is not that they create jobs but that they create customers. The workers, being the great majority, are the customers who use their spendable income to purchase their needs and desires, and that is the effective demand that drives the economy. The endless class war prosecuted by the rich against the workers and the poor can be summarized as an unresolved debate about the measure and the source of added value. The investor and capitalist claims that the process of production is like the simplest process of manufacturing, or craft, that we can remember from our past, such as the making of stone arrowheads. Originally, an individual finds the proper stone to chip and fashion into an arrowhead, and then uses that crafted point to make the arrow, hunt, and obtain meat to eat and share. Then, one day an "entrepreneur" decides to use some of his wealth to "invest" in making arrowheads for sale. He finds a source person from whom to purchase the proper stone (cost of materials). Then he finds a craftsperson to chip and craft the arrowheads (cost of labor). He pays for the materials (A) and for the labor (B), and then he sells the arrowheads for the price (C) which is greater than the sum of A and B. Thus, the excess of the selling price (C) over (A+B) is his profit (D), which he earned and deserves because of his amazing skill in business administration. The class war is a disagreement over the value added by the labor of the craftsperson. The capitalist says that the value added is the cost of his labor B. But SOME economic philosophers, and Karl Marx, and the anarchists, and Sacco and Vanzetti and the United Electrical Workers and the United Auto Workers and most every labor union say that the value added by the laborer is the TOTAL SALE PRICE WHICH IS THE TOTAL VALUE (C) OF THE ARROWHEAD ON THE OPEN MARKET ONLY AFTER THE LABOR OF the worker is completed. Therefore, a portion of the value created by the laborer becomes a profit (D) for the "entrepreneur" because the entrepreneur possesses a canny aptitude for exploiting the labor of others. Like the third servant said in the parable of the noble who lends out his money in the form of talents (Matthew 25: 14-30): "I know that thou art a stern man; thou reapest where thou hast not sowed and gatherest where thou hast not winnowed; …" We see that even Jesus noted the behavior of the capitalist entrepreneur, whether they be an inventor or engineer or investor, to take a profit from the value added to raw materials by labor. This is the core of the class war. The capitalist constantly uses every means, legal or unethical and sometimes illegal, to depress the market cost of labor (B), and increase the profit margin (D), while claiming to be the benevolent creator of jobs. On the other side, the workers and the poor constantly argue, to the point of hoarse exhaustion, that they are the customers who pay for everything, all of the products and services and taxes for public capital and interest for private capital, and they are the source of the market value of all commercial goods and services other than raw materials. The laborer provides the labor value (B) and the profit margin (D) that results in the gross domestic product market value (C) of all that is sold on the open market. And it is effective customer demand that drives the economy, not the content of government rules and regulations. This battle over added value is the reality behind the veil of ridiculous politics and all of its lies, deceptions, manipulations and the destructive acts of insecure and guilty men desperate to justify themselves and their possessions. Justice is ultimately a matter of proportion or arithmetic.

Solution #2: Revolution by Vote

We need to replace the class war and entertainment by celebrity rulers with the higher goal of maintaining a real democracy with majority rule. But we must do this through a Revolution by Vote, because revolution by violent resistance is not practical. It cannot succeed. The result of violent resistance would be cosmic disaster. A renewal of the Civil War in America would dwarf all previous wars and set civilization back thousands of years. A revival of the American Civil War would turn the two factions of the Two-Party System into mindless monsters intent on absolute destruction of anyone who disagrees with their views.

We need to transform our election process from manipulation of the voters by private and personal moral issues (not the business of our elected legislators) to serious discussion of the real political and economic issues. Our first step must be reform of our elections systems so that we can actually obtain accurate vote counts and elections by a meaningful majority willing and able to rule. We do not have a meaningful majority when the winner of an elective office gets 50.01% of the vote, but this is what happens because of the fatal flaws of the two-party system. We need to retire the two-party system and replace it with a multi-party system using vote donation, or vote sharing, and party coalitions between a major party and a minor party, or parties. To begin, consider and contemplate the Four Lethal Flaws of the Two-Party System:

The Four Lethal Flaws of the Two Party System

There are FOUR LETHAL FLAWS IN THE dysfunctional two-party system. To continue to rely on the two-party illness to result in a democratic election would be a political tragedy of cosmic scope. The two-party system is destroying democracy in America because:

1) (Reverse democracy) It causes the reverse of implementing the will of the people. When voters vote for a minor-party progressive candidate, those votes benefit conservative candidates. When voters vote for a minor-party conservative candidate, those votes benefit progressive candidates. Votes for any minor third party places the election of the President into the hands of the stale Congress, which keeps the subversive two-party partnership in control instead of the will of the people being in control.

2) (Forced polarity) The two-party pathology causes both candidates and the media to conduct a fake discussion of the issues by formulating every issue as a "yes or no" or "for or against" problem, which is an oversimplification of real political and economic problems and "dumbing down" of the electorate and public debate. The two-party pathology has led to liars, manipulators and hucksters arousing the emotions of the people with FALSE ISSUES of religious doctrines and moral philosophy WHICH ARE PERSONAL AND FAMILY ISSUES AND NOT THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT AND WHICH DO NOT FALL WITHIN THE AUTHORITY OF ELECTED OFFICIALS. Personal and family decisions are private and that privacy is protected by the Constitution, not subject to regulation by the Congress. The two-party pathology poisons political and economic debate rather than having public debate serve as a healthy and effective path toward democratic decision-making.

3) (Election can be easily fixed) It is most vulnerable to anti-democratic interests and manipulative techniques, such as gerrymandering (vote capturing) election districts and acts of voter suppression, precisely because the outcome of an election with only two political parties can be fixed or controlled by discarding or adding only a handful of votes in a single district. In other words, the two-party system promotes election fraud by election officials.

4) (Vulnerable to control by money) The rich believe that they can control the outcome of elections by contributing to the campaign finances of a candidate they prefer, and have the effect, in practice, of hiring a person to run for office so that if elected they can then promote the specific selfish interests of a handful of business entities instead of representing their constituents. In other words, the two-party system promotes an effective anti-democratic process instead of a democratic process.

Conclusion: The two-party tyranny obstructs majority rule, the first principle of democracy, and promotes minority rule by an American nobility. The larger decisions of society are far too important to be entrusted to experts and must be rendered by the wisdom of the people. That is democracy: majority rule with essential protection of minority factions by a constitutional commitment to essential civil rights. An election system that moves either left or right as the voters so move is a democratic system.

The second step is to use the election process to vote against the two-party system and for real democracy, which requires a multi-party system that compels competing political parties to share votes and share power after an election. Such a system would result in majorities of 60% and higher following the counting of ballots for all parties and candidates. This result would have two healthy effects:

1) Force the successful candidates and parties to compromise and work together to perform their duties to govern and spend much less time campaigning, manipulating and lying to the populace;

2) Increase confidence in our government and trust that it really is majority rule.

To think about what it means to vote against the two-party system and for real democracy, take a look at the Seven Principles of the Real Democracy Party, or all six documents in the Quick List or Quick Directory.

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Story #3: What Was the Purpose of the Second Amendment?

Journalists, historians, media opinionates, even lawyers, have all remained silent and complicit while the entire country has misconstrued the true meaning of the Second Amendment. It is an item of "common knowledge" in America that the Second Amendment was written to protect the right of an individual to own firearms, ANY firearms a citizen wishes to own. This was not the true purpose of the amendment and it does not prohibit the federal government from regulating the possession of firearms by the populace. The strong and broad legitimate interest that the federal government has in protection of the public health and safety logically allows the government to regulate any dangerous artifact. Possession of an automobile and driving an automobile is highly regulated precisely because autos kill people, by accident. Guns not only kill people by accident; they are used to kill people by deliberate plan and clear intent. Those with journalistic influence and influence as "experts" on constitutional law should have corrected this public misunderstanding long ago, but the truth is the first casualty of war, including political war; especially in political war.

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Story #3: What Was the Purpose of the Second Amendment?

America is cursed with a persistent error that may be difficult to correct: the common acceptance of a mistaken interpretation of the Second Amendment. When the Constitution was ratified by the states in 1787, no one in North America questioned the right of a citizen to possess a firearm, which in most cases would have been a rifle. The commonly known purpose of the rifle was to defend one's home against attacks from members of the First Nations; to hunt and obtain meat; to protect one's home from thieves or vandals; and possibly to discourage rude behavior on the part of British soldiers who might take one's livestock or camping space on one's homestead. There was no sound reason, arising either from colonial history or British law, for any legal claim that possession of a firearm was a privilege that required permission or license from the colonial government. The American Constitution does not include any provision that implies that the right to own a firearm was unclear. The Second Amendment has been wrongly interpreted to either establish or affirm the right of an individual citizen to own a firearm, and some fuzzy-minded citizens have gone so far as to claim that the Second Amendment establishes their right to use firearms to communicate displeasure with the performance of the government, also known as "rebellion," "revolution," or "insurgence." That concept is totally ridiculous. European philosophy supported a moral obligation to resist tyranny, including the use of violent force, but there was never a concept that the government, meaning a king, was obligated to protect the freedom of his domestic enemies to arm themselves and organize a rebellion as though it were a county fair. There is a moral right to rebel against tyranny, or against the worst abuses of government power, but no one would seriously argue that the government has an obligation to make rebellion convenient for the rebels. All those who have allowed and supported this false interpretation of the Second Amendment, including historians, news reporters, and lawyers, need to apologize and correct themselves so that we can move forward to a rational enforcement of the Second Amendment as well as the Ninth and Tenth. The first step toward such a correction is to remember that in 1787 a firearm was a one-shot rifle made locally by a blacksmith or gunsmith and could not be repaired with parts from another rifle.

Solution #3: What the Second Amendment Really Means

The purpose of the Second Amendment to our United States Constitution WAS NOT to establish the right of an individual to own a gun. Historical study of the Constitutional Convention and the purpose of the Second Amendment shows any reasonable person that what the Second Amendment says is that the States retain their right and power to maintain a militia (same as an army) for their own defense. AND THEREFORE, the new federal government will not claim the power to prohibit the citizens of the States from owning their own firearms. In 1787, when the Constitution was approved, firearms were made by a gunsmith, a blacksmith specialty, and were not manufactured in factories to be purchased by a government in large quantities. The practice of manufacturing rifles with interchangeable parts did not begin until after the Constitution was approved, in 1798. In 1787, if you wanted to appoint or enlist a soldier, he had to bring his own gun with him. Having a militia of armed citizens in a state or town or county was a custom in Europe that was transferred to the American Colonies, and the states would not have approved the new Constitution if it said or implied that only the federal government could legally raise an army for defense. This concern was based on European history, remembered by the colonists, where European kings sometimes claimed the exclusive right to raise an army from citizen volunteers. Therefore, what the Second Amendment really says is "The States retain the right and power to raise an army, or militia, of citizen volunteers." That Second Amendment DOES NOT create or establish the right of a citizen to own a gun. In 1787, based on American colonial history since 1620, the right to own a gun was as unquestioned as the right of a citizen to own a dog or a cow. There was no need to affirm the right of a citizen to own a gun for personal and family security; there was a need to affirm the right to own a gun in order for a male citizen to meet his obligation to serve in the volunteer state or county militia. This was the "muster" they were called to once or twice a year to march in an orderly manner and practice acting like an army on the town green, with their rifles.

Let's look at the 2nd, 4th, and 9th and 10th Amendments:

Amendment 2

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the

right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Use your internet encyclopedia: The first rifles manufactured with interchangeable parts came with the help of Eli Whitney, in 1798, eleven years after approval of the Constitution in 1787. THEREFORE, in 1787 it was understood that in order for the States to have their own militia, citizen volunteers would have to show up for active duty WITH THEIR OWN RIFLE, which only they could maintain and repair and which may have operated with individual quirks only they knew from practice with that rifle.

Therefore, this is what the Second Amendment really means:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, (a state not dominated by an oppressive king or tyrant) the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. (This does not say that the people will or shall have a right to bear arms, but affirms that the right of the people to bear arms, which they already have, shall not be diminished or denied. The Second Amendment does not create or establish the right to bear arms, which the Americans already assumed, but affirms that the new federal government does not have the power to prohibit the possession of firearms by citizens of the member states. Keep in mind that we are talking about firearms technology of 1787, when every firearm discharged one shot and required half a minute or more to prepare the next shot. AND, taken together these two phrases mean that when you, an individual citizen, possess a pistol or a rifle, you are available to serve in the local or state militia to defend your state, county or town, as well as defend the new United States of America. By both law and history, the militia referred to in the Second Amendment is NOT like the modern "National Guard" and that militia is under the command and control of the state, not the federal government.

HOWEVER, the Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution affirm the right of an American citizen to own a gun. Consistent with the law, history and technology of the times (1787) the Fourth Amendment affirms the right of state citizens to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, …" Federal and Supreme Court history affirm that the federal government has both the power and the duty to protect the public health and safety, as do the state governments. This means that in many areas of public life the government has a "legitimate interest" in exercising the power to make and enforce regulations that are intended to, and are reasonably expected to, protect the public health or safety. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments, cited below, affirm that since there is no provision in the federal constitution for the federal government to prohibit individual citizens from possession of firearms, then that right to possess firearms automatically is (9) "not denied or disparaged" and is (10) "reserved to … the people."

Amendment 4

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and

effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and

no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or

affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the

persons or things to be seized.

Amendment 9

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed

to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment 10

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor

prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to

the people.

Addressing the Problem of Firearms Violence

The Most Logical Way to Enforce the Second Amendment

The proper way to enforce the Second Amendment in our modern times and technological conditions is for the federal government to establish a designation of two types or categories of firearms: 1. personal or household protection; 2. combat weaponry. Given what the constitutional law says, a citizen can freely own a single shot rifle or handgun for the purpose of personal or household protection. Even a firearm that rapidly reloads for a second shot would belong to the type 1 group of firearms, but not what we call an "automatic weapon" or "machine gun." The states could require safety education or a licensing procedure if they wish, similar to the requirements for training and licensing to drive a motor vehicle on the public highways. The key to addressing crimes committed with firearms and enforcing the Second Amendment is for the each state to make whatever laws or regulations they deem necessary to establish that a special certification and permit or license, and REGISTRATION is required. Therein, by state law and consistent with the Second Amendment, a citizen who possesses a type 2 firearm, combat weaponry, that citizen is an appointed member of the state militia who is trained and obligated to appear with those firearms and ammunition, when called by the state government, being prepared to engage in combat exercises or actual defense against hostile forces. This does not mean you become a volunteer in the state militia by buying a combat weapon. It means you apply to the state authorities to become a militia volunteer, and the state authorities decide whether you meet the qualifications, physical, mental and moral, to serve in that capacity. Then you are registered as a militia volunteer and can legally possess a combat weapon. There is no other sound reason, according to any common law or constitutional law, for a citizen who is not on active duty in the armed forces to possess any type of combat weaponry. If an individual or group wants to assert or affirm their philosophical right to rebel against tyrannical federal government, they certainly can do that, but the government is not expected to provide you with the freedom to assemble your insurgent arsenal. You have to steal it or obtain it illegally. If you really believe you need to defend yourself from the police power of the government, the means to do that is to form a criminal or subversive insurgent organization. That means an illegal organization, not a political rally. Just for the record, I believe that is an entirely impractical plan. Forget it. You need to vote. Votes are more effective than guns.