The Law, Itself! - Part I

Hey America! What you're about to view is a blog that I've written, about America's Deadly Sins. This is the preamble to the worst of them, and I'll lay them out to you one letter at a time.

First, however, I'd like to start with my favorite subject, the Law; American Law, itself. As a student of law (I took pre-law in order to be a paralegal, which I later shucked for the better idea of becoming a politician, in the very near future), the law has become one of my favorite subjects (coughs...then sputters a little). I didn't want to overdo it however, since I believe, personally, that our law is lacking some essential nutrients that we need in our daily diets.

Let's start with our current grand-daddy, the paper of all papers - yes, I'd like to examine what we talk about pretty regularly, The Constitution of the United States.

Here we have a paper written in a small, poorly lit room, by a few guys who wanted to take the land they "discovered" (years before this, of course) away from some passive Indian fellas they met, because England was just too damned small, in 1790, some 235+ years ago...and you know? The king sucked, the way they run things over there...that sucked too. It should be said that, up to that time, America was broke, the money they had been printing was worthless, the army was being deserted, and the money they had borrowed up to this point from international sources was due to be paid...and we defaulted on our loans (sound familiar???). So they pounded down a few pints of ale, adjusted their wigs, and proceeded to score out for us the way things were, and the way they should be instead. Then, when they were finished, they handed the pen over to the most overbearing and self-conscience one of the bunch, John Hancock to sign it first.

By the way, the language you've read over and over again? We borrowed it mostly from England, the Iroquois Indians (I'm surprised these guys even gave us the time of day) and, my favorite, LATIN...the dead language of the ages. 

By the way, I've always wanted to know...how can a language be dead if it's being used? Never did understand that one...

So anyway, George, Ben and the boys got together, ordered pizza and brew, then slammed it out. Let's just essentially cover the basics, shall we?

First of all, let it be known, that the country we hated so much, England, was the main influence to our new paper.  Ideas like their judicial system became the backbone to the way the law would work.  Things said, like "Innocent until proven Guilty?"  A wonderful set of words; I'm still waiting to see that in operation, as yet.  If there were any truth to that being the way of things, house and citizen's arrest would be a lot bigger than they are.

Let's start with the preamble.  America?  This paragraph represents us at our best moment...our finest hour, our best day, and from what I understand, it won paragraph of the year.  In this writer's opinion, this is about the only thing that shouldn't ever change about the Constitution.  This is constitutional grace at its best.  Don't go changin'....As I might just bring up later though, this is when we chose to start bullshitting the U.S. Populace, and misrepresented things a wee.  In particular the phrase "All men are created equal", as they took their breaks, and asked their servant slaves to bring them a snack.

Not un-like the weather in my home state of Iowa, where we have a nice day one day, and a blizzard to follow it up, well, we move on to Article one.  This is the article that defines congress, representatives, how many each state needs to have, their qualifications, their limits of power and terms in office.  Article two addresses our President, his qualifications, his term, and his power.  Please note:  Nowhere in the constitution does it say this man or woman (the President) has to be wealthy, old, spoon-fed, well-schooled, or perfect.  The one thing I love is that it says that the president shall preserve, defend and protect the Constitution.  He/She takes an oath everytime he/she takes office, that he/she is not allowed to change what it says, the way I interpret it.  How well did we stick to that?

So, from what it says, then, anytime a President is in office, and approves a modification or an Amendment to the Constitution (or employs the "Executive Order"), he/she would be breaking their oath, I would think.  I also like that they aren't able to raise their compensation while in office...but on the other hand, why aren't they allowed to lower it?  That doesn't make any sense, does it?

Article 3 blah-de-blahs about our judicial system and how it works, pretty much all stuff we learned in Poli-sci a million years ago.  Funny thing though, you ask most people how our system works, and what the hierarchy is?  They couldn't rattle it off to save their lives.  Another thing I love about our Constitution and the law that it defines, is that most people do NOT understand a word of it, unless they're involved in the legal field in some way...and even then I wonder.  Trust me when I say that this will most certainly be the focal point of many future blogs, since I have studied the law myself.

Article four rattles on concerning the relationship of the fed to the states, and produces such standards as "the full faith and credit" act (Bet most of your family has no idea what that is), and the "priveleges and immunities" clause (and I GUARANTEE most of your family doesn't know what THAT is).

Now we come to Article 5, which allows the Constitution to be Amended.  In other words, you can change the Constitution.  What?  Wait.  Ok, no...huh?  Now just a minute.  The Constitution is to be protected...defended...and preserved...but if we wanna change what it says, that's OK.  If we don't like what the first guys had to say, it's no problem.  We can just smooth it or tweak it, as long as we have a majority vote.  I'm sorry, but this to me is anti-preservation.  Black and white, we just change what we don't agree with.  But in this fashion, we just do it with more subversion and finesse.  Nice.  I'm not going to get into this right now, because it would take more brain power than I wish to expend at this time.  We'll come back to it, I swear.

TO BE CONTINUED