The German Reichstag Fire of 1933 and 9/11: Some Comparisons. A Revisit, Part II

Column No. 98 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - February 22, 2006

Last week we reviewed briefly the history of the early days of the Nazi Period in Germany and how Hitler et al used an event known as the Reichstag Fire to enable the passage of legislation know as the Enabling Act.  What it enabled was the establishment of the Hitlerite dictatorship.

What are the possible parallel in the US?  How about the following?  In 2000, the Republican Religious Right and their industrial partners such as Big Oil and the military-industrial complex, succeeded in getting a President in place.  This was very important for them, for if Gore had won, he might, just might have been there for eight years and he would not have been as easy a target as Clinton. On things like energy policy and the environment he might, just might, have gotten things done.  So, they avoided that horrible prospect (horrible for Big Oil, at least), BUT:

A)  They knew that their man didn't really win, and further, was a minority President (a fact the media have completely ignored). (Interesting: the Nazis never got more than 39% of the vote in any open election in pre-Nazi Germany.)

B)  Their guy is a total incompetent when it comes to running the national government.

C) There is a recession underway.

D) They have lost total control of the Congress through the defection of Sen. Jeffords.  Since that happened, none of their programs, from energy/environmental policy to more tax-cuts for the wealthy and the large corporations, were going through.

E) They had been able to fend off the implementation of a moderate Democratic agenda during the Clinton years (and even such a moderate agenda is thoroughly inimitable to the achievement of their goals) because of the never-ending War on Clinton.  But the country liked his program and his politics, and there was no guarantee that the next Democratic President would be so uniquely attackable, because of his/her personal foibles, as was Clinton.

What to do?  Meet their needs, of course.  At what cost?  At whatever cost, just as long the whole thing is kept secret.  The needs to be met included the following:

A) Replacing a weak chief executive with a strong one, either literally or functionally.

B) Finding an excuse for the recession, so that it doesn't get blamed on this Bush and the Republicans, as was the last one.

C)  By-passing or having a compliant Congress on important measures (since they couldn't possibly win votes on stuff like invading Afghanistan simply to secure a route for a petroleum pipeline from the Caspian to the Arabian Sea through Pakistan that Big Oil wanted to build, or securing major, retroactive tax cuts for the large corporations, or trashing the environment to increase corporate profits).

D) Being able to ignore the judiciary (which, despite their efforts since the Reagan years, still had some judges who know what the Constitution is).

E) Eliminating Constitutional rights by Presidential decree, but even more important, establishing that the President could commit such revolutionary act by decrees (often secret ones).

F)  Giving the President the possibility of presiding over a "permanent war" against terrorism.

But, the Right-Wing-Republican/religious-fundamentalist cabal being postulated here couldn't implement that agenda with a finger snap.  Just as Hitler could not have gotten anything like the Enabling Act through the Reichstag with the Communists and Socialists in place, so the cabal had no chance as things stood to achieve their principal goals. In fact at the time of the 9/11 horror the political tide was beginning to turn against them.

How nice would it be in terms both of politics and policy to have an excuse to get their program going in such a way that could withstand criticism from most people and most countries around the world too.  For just one example, being able to invade Afghanistan, establish a military presence in Central Asia, and bring Pakistan back into the fold of the "acceptable" nations (so that after the shooting stops, the pipeline could be built).  How else could they establish a permanent military presence in the Central Asian Republics?

And then, if the same event that could open up the possibility of beginning the destruction of Constitutional democracy at home, and to top it all off, enable them to sneak through their right-wing domestic agenda under the cover of "fighting terrorism" (a ploy that Paul Krugman of the New York Times has eloquently written about more than once).  What better than a grand "terrorist" event, like the destruction of the WTC?  There was this terrorist organization based in Afghanistan called “Al Qaeda” led by a shadowy figure named Osama bin Laden (funded during the Soviet Occupation days by the CIA).  They had already carried out several relatively small-scale attacks on US targets abroad over the years, but the Clinton Administration had foiled two major ones: a 1998 plot to blow up 11 airliners over the Atlantic at the same time and a “Millennium Bomb Plot.”  But these guys are still hanging around. Major elements of the US counter-intelligence establishment warns the incoming Bush Administration that these guys are really dangerous.  During the spring and summer of 2001 substantial intelligence “noise” indicates that they are going to try something big again, as indicated by the famous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing that gets pretty specific about the threat.

Let us put aside for the moment the possibility that the Georgites were either actively or passively involved in 9/11 (see my May 12, 2005 TPJ column “Possible Explanations for Bush-Behavior On and Around 9/11").  What were the Georgite-9/11 parallels to Hitler on the scene ignoring the fact of the capture of van der Lubbe and immediately demanding evidence of a non-existent KPD Reichstag Fire plot?  Information that has come out since the time of the 9-11 Tragedy, especially since the publication of Richard Clarke’s and (former Sec. of the Treasury) Paul O’Neill’s books, the Georgites very quickly began to use 9/11 in ways that are eerily similar to how the Nazis used the Reichstag Fire.  As Richard Clarke told us, once in the White House Situation Room, Bush immediately demanded evidence of direct Iraqi involvement in 9/11.  O’Neill told us that Bush had been obsessed with Iraq from the time he took office.  Yes indeed, there was the feint towards Afghanistan, and al Qaeda really did carry out the 9/11 bombing while the KPD had nothing to do with the Reichstag Fire.  The parallels are surely not exact, but the fact is that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11.

Richard Perle and the neo-con clique had first hatched the plan for an invasion of Iraq in the mid-90s.  Despite the fact that their leadership from Paul Wolfowitz on down (or up, depending upon one’s perspective) occupied major positions of power in the Regime, in the summer of 2001, those invasion plans were no closer to implementation than it had been when Bush as elected. What happened to those plans post-9/11 we know all too well.

As for parallels on the civil liberties front, as noted, for months even before Hitler became Chancellor the Nazis and their Right-Wing allies had been itching to go after the KPD and to a lesser extent the SPD and eliminate them from the domestic political scene. On Feb. 27, 1933, those plans were no closer to fruition than they had been when Hitler took power on Jan. 30, 1933.  But by March 24, 1933, they were fully in place.  And so we come to the matter of the “USA Patriot Act.”  It is about 340 pages long, filled with dense legal language.  As noted numerous times in this space, it provides for major changes in many aspects the US criminal justice system, especially in the way it gives the President the power to suspend any individual’s Constitutional Rights on his own authority, simply by declaring someone an “enemy combatant” or a “material witness” in the War Against Terrorism, U.S. citizen or not.  At least when Hitler wanted to get the Weimar Constitution amended in order to eliminate similar civil liberties protections, he went through the formality of the amendment process (although, as noted, he did rig the Reichstag membership and quorum rules to assure himself in advance of the two-thirds majority required to amend the Constitution.  Since atomic weapons were only a tiny gleam in the eyes of a few nuclear physicists at the time, the term “Nuclear Option” was not used to describe his bending of parliamentary rules.)

The Patriot Act was introduced into Congress within two weeks of the 9/11 Tragedy.  It was brought to a vote before few if any members had time to much more than glance at it.  Due to its length and complexity, it is virtually impossible that it was actually written between 9/11 and when it was introduced.  That means of course that it was written before the latter date.  And that means that the Georgites, who knew that there was no way of getting such an Act through Congress in the absence of a 9/11 disaster, were at the least waiting, if not prepared, for one to happen.

We know what else has followed in terms of Georgite violations of the Constitution: abrogation of international treaties (the Geneva Conventions) on the President’s authority, the authorization of torture in violation of US law as well, the massive domestic spying program that has nothing to do with “fighting terrorism,” the use of warrantless searches to “fight terrorism” as a prelude to the use of warrantless law enforcement for any purpose whatsoever.  Interpreting the Commander-in-Chief clause in a way that no other President has come close to doing, this “Original Intentionist” Administration has set up a “Unitary Executive” which under the President could declare virtually any occurrence he didn’t like “an act of terrorism,” or “aiding and abetting terrorism” and then invoke his “inherent powers as Commander in Chief” to do anything he wanted to those individuals involved, up to and including indefinite detention and torture. The Georgites may well be on their way to attacking Iran, as a “preventive measure,” without going to Congress for an authorizing resolution much less a formal declaration of war as required by the Constitution.  In process in the United States is a bloodless coup d'etat in slow motion to establish a Presidential dictatorship.

The Reichstag Fire led directly to the Nazi dictatorship and all of its horrible outcomes for the World and Germany itself.  9/11 lead directly to the Iraq Invasion abroad and the USA Patriot Act and the vetting of the “inherent powers” theory at home.  Now the Georgites are contemplating invading Iran, something that, given the deplorable state of US conventional forces brought on by the War on Iraq, might lead the US, in concert with its right-wing allies in Israel, to use nuclear weapons.  So you think that the outcome of the Second World War was bad?  We know a lot about the Reichstag Fire and what that apparently random event meant to the history of the world.  One wonders if, after the possible long-range outcome of 9/11 and how it has been used by the Georgites, if there will be anyone around to record the history.

THE GERMAN REICHSTAG FIRE OF 1933 AND 9/11: SOME COMPARISONS. A REVISIT, PART I

Column No. 97 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - February 16, 2006

The original text for this two-part series was written between November, 2001 and May, 2004.  As the Georgite theocratic-fascist assault on US Constitutional Democracy continues unabated, using “the war on terrorism” as its primary raison d’etre, I thought that it would be useful to re-visit this subject.

For those readers who may not be au courant with the early history of the Nazi takeover of Germany, let me lay out the bare facts of the period.  Following the end of World War I, the first republican form of government was established for Germany.  Its capital was in the provincial city of Weimar.  Thus it came to be known as the “Weimar Republic.”  Entering the 1930s, its President was the World War I hero Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg.  It never had a fully stable government.  With increasing unrest and severe economic difficulties resulting from the Great Depression, as part of a deal with the non-Nazi Right-Wing political parties, on January 30, 1933 Hindenburg appointed the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler as Chancellor (the equivalent of Prime Minister).  Although a central element of the Nazi Party line was that the Constitution was a useless piece of paper standing in the way of progress for the German people (sound familiar?), as part of the deal Hitler agreed to abide by it.

A month into his term, things were not going so well for Hitler.  He had already made his first roundups, of known Communists and left-wing labor leaders.  But, the Depression was still on, he still had Pres. Hindenburg to deal with (and Hindenburg did not trust him), the army was on the fence (in fact, many of the Old Prussians could not stand the "Little Corporal," an enlisted man and an Austrian to boot), and there was still a functioning Reichstag (parliament), without the Communist elected deputies, but with enough Socialists and other Nazi-opponents to deny him the two-thirds majority he would need to amend the Constitution.  Then something dramatic happens.

On February 27, the German Parliament building in Berlin also called the Reichstag, burns down.  Most historians now agree that the fire was set by a Dutch former Communist turned anarchist acting entirely alone, one Marinus van der Lubbe.  (The Reichstag conveniently happened to be decorated with highly flammable furniture, drapes, and wall-coverings.  Apparently, a few matches did the trick.)  Despite being reliably informed about van der Lubbe’s role, within hours, Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels, et al, had proclaimed the fire to be the result of a German Communist Party (KPD) plot. (There being no equivalent of the White House Situation Room in those days, with security being provided by the SA and the SS, Hitler, unlike Bush, went directly to the site.)   That the KPD knew nothing of it and that the “incriminating documents” speedily produced by the Nazis were later proved to be forgeries meant nothing at the time.

The Nazis quickly created a national hysteria over the “threat of the Communists and Socialists (SPD),” lumped together as “the Marxists,” to the “peace and tranquility of the German nation,” to the “security of the German volk.”  (The fact was that one of the reasons that Hitler came to power in the first place was that often in the pre-Nazi period the KPD and the SPD were more at each other’s throats than they were together defending the Republic against the Nazi threat.  Stalin bore a major responsibility for the KPD’s posture at the time.) The Nazis rapidly shut down all opposition press. They did this usually by simply sending in one of the Nazi Party’s private armies, the SA (“Sturmabteilung,” also known as the “Brownshirts”) to destroy the facilities and beat up the staff.  Thus within a matter of days they had gained full control of the German media of the time.

At Hitler’s request when he became Chancellor a national election in Germany had already been scheduled to take place on the 7th of March.  This turned out to be just about a week after the Reichstag fire occurred. Those who believed at the time that the Nazis were the real incendiaries had good grounds to think so. For in the final run-up to those elections, the Nazis exploited the Fire for all it was worth, including unleashing an intensified reign of terror, especially against Communists, Socialists, and left-wing labor leaders, carried out by the SA and the SS (“Schutz Staffel,” at that time Hitler’s private bodyguard, also known as the “Blackshirts”) under the guise of 'defending the state against terrorism'. It is hardly surprising that in such a state of hysteria, the Nazis achieved their largest vote total ever.  Nevertheless, it was still only 43.9% of the total.  In no democratic election were the Nazis ever to achieve even a simple majority (sound familiar?)  The subsequent “total support” of the Nazis by the German people as a whole as perceived by the outside world was achieved as much through continuing terror continually unleashed against any real or perceived opponents as it was by true love of Hitler and his way.

To deal with “the Marxist threat,” on Feb 28, with Pres. Hindenburg’s approval, all of the civil liberties protections of the post-World War I Weimar Republic Constitution were suspended.  Following the election, on March 24, 1933, a Reichstag from which all the elected Communist deputies had been purged along with a number of the Socialist deputies, and in which many of the Centrist Deputies were totally intimidated by uniformed SA goons standing around the chamber (shades of the scene outside the room in which the Miami Dade election board was about to start a recount in 2000 when Bush goons, lead by none other than John Bolton, began banging on the glass wall surrounding the room and screaming threats). It passed a Constitutional Amendment giving virtual dictatorial power to Hitler and his cabinet for a four-year period.  It was called the Enabling Act. In practice, that turned out to mean Hitler became the Dictator of Germany, with no Constitutional or judicial limitations of any kind on his power.  There would be no legislative limitations either, since the Nazis had made sure that they controlled it as well.  It is fascinating to note that the sticklers for the “law” that they were, the Nazis, in what passed for the “Reichstag,” dutifully renewed the Act every four years of the Hitlerite period.

Now, while the Nazis apparently had nothing to do with setting the Reichstag Fire, within hours of its occurrence they were able to come up with this plan to use its occurrence to achieve previously designed political and Constitutional ends. (Hitler had actually hatched an idea for something like the Enabling Act back in the 1920s.)  The Nazis, the other German Right-Wing parties, and their financial backers, major elements of the German power elite, had every reason to want to go after their principal political opponents, the Communists (KPD) and the Socialists (SPD), using all available means.  However, the civil liberties provisions of the Weimar Constitution stood in their way.  Beginning the previous November, even before Hitler took power, proposals had been made in the Reichstag by the ruling Right-Wing coalition to legislate the suspension of the Weimar Constitution’s provisions for protecting civil liberties.  But there was no way that such a plan could command the two-thirds majority needed in the Reichstag for its passage. What an opportunity was presented to Hitler and the Nazi Party by the Fire.

Sound familiar?  Does history repeat itself, at least in broad outlines?  We shall take a look at 9/11 and how the Georgites have used it next week.

A COMMENT ON THE ‘DEMOCRATIC ALCHEMY,’ APPEARING IN THE AMERICAN PROSPECT

Column No. 96 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - February 9, 2006

TPJ’s publisher, Steve Gheen, kindly asked me to comment on an article by Greg Sargent that appeared in The American Prospect (http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10814, greg_sargent@newyorkmag.com). I am running my response as my column for this week.

Mr. Sargent’s article .raises critical “where do we go from here?” questions as we head into the 2006 Congressional elections.  Mr. Sargent points out that an early Democratic Party take on the “Abramoff Scandal” as it is being called for short (it is much longer than both Abramoff’s coat and his negative coat-tails in fact) is that the Party should focus on Republican corruption and how to deal with it.  Mr. Sargent says: “A few polls suggest this early strategy is yielding short-term results. But it nonetheless begs a big question: Can Dems really expect this argument to translate into the lasting gains they’re hoping for? Or should they be trying to formulate a strategy that goes beyond merely tarring the GOP as the corrupt party and looks for ways of weaving the mushrooming scandal into larger arguments about the Republican Party’s most conspicuous domestic failings?”

My answers to both of these questions above are “no” and a qualified “yes.”  I agree with, as Mr. Sargent wrote, “[s]ome Dems, including ones charged with taking back Congress, [who] say they think Dems should begin making the case more aggressively that GOP corruption is part and parcel of a larger alliance between the Republican Party and major corporations in certain sectors, particularly in energy and health care -- an alliance, the argument continues, which shafts ordinary working- and middle-class Americans.”

However, I think that the thinking has to go far beyond even that issue.  The Dems have to get beyond simply looking at what particular issues they might win with and should be running with.  I think that it has to begin with a focus on what continuing dominance of what I call the “Georgites” in national policy and governmental administration means to the country and its future.  Then it needs to develop the Democratic alternatives, and why they the country desperately needs them as replacements.

This is indeed a different approach to winning elections.  It begins with “why should we win?” and then proceeds to “what can we win with?” rather dealing with the first as a sideline if at all and focusing entirely on the second as both of the above responses do.  If one does that, a rather different strategy emerges.  What have the Georgites done to our country?  Well, most readers of The Political Junkies know the answer to that question very well, and the full list would use up all the rest of the space we have available and more.  Furthermore, Steve Gheen and Mr. Carmichael and myself have detailed the harms over and over again in our pages (as have many others on many other pages).

What are the most important ones?  I would agree that under the Republicans political corruption has been carried to its highest level since the regimes of two previous Republicans, Warren G. Harding and Ulysses S. Grant, perhaps even outdoing those two worthies.  But this harm pales in comparison with others.  As regular readers of TPJ know, from our statement of purpose to our frequent articles on the subject, the prime goal must be to defeat the Georgites in their increasingly ferocious drive to overturn US Constitutional Democracy and replace it with what some observers call a “Unitary Executive.” Others more correctly identify it as open theocratic fascist dictatorship.  It was so refreshing to see Al Gore take on this issue in his Martin Luther King Day speech that was reprinted in this pace on January 19, 2006.  This is absolutely issue No. 1 in my view.  If we lose this battle, we can forget about the specifics of “energy and health care,” so beloved as (loss) leaders by the avatars of the DLC quoted in the Sargent article.Next is the War on Iraq.  Following that is the intentional destruction of government, following the dictates of Grover “Shrink it to Size of a Bathtub and then drown it in the Bathtub” Norquist, except when it comes to personal belief, morality, and adult sexual mores, of course.  Following that is tax and corporate regulatory policy, as discussed in the Sargent article.  Then one would get to specifics, like energy, environment, education, health care, infrastructure development, and so on and so forth.

This is all on the substance/policy side.  To win, that is to defeat Georgitism, the Democrats will also have to develop a whole new series of political tactics, beginning with an understanding of what “always attack, never defend” really means and how to do it, over and over again.  I dealt with the tactical issues at length in a series of columns written during the Kerry Campaign (most of which can be found through the links list every week at the end of my columns), will not revisit them here, and will get back to them again on TPJ at some time in the future.

On November 25, 2005 I published in this space my proposed “Ten Commitments” for the Democratic Party.  I republish them here.  My primary list for the most part eschews specific legislative proposals.  Rather, for the most part it looks at principles.  With apologies to the wonderful Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun for the title of my list (http://www.tikkun.org/rabbi_lerner/ten_commitments), I put forward my proposed Draft “Ten Commitments.”

Henceforth, the Democratic Party will be committed to:

I.  A full, planned withdrawal from all military activity in Iraq, including the construction and maintenance of bases, by a date certain, accompanied by a reactivation of the Israel/Palestine peace process along the lines of the proposed Geneva Accords, further accompanied by a return to the multi-lateral foreign policy that worked so well for our country from the time we entered the Second World War until the advent of Georgitism, and a return to abiding by the UN Charter, which forbids “pre-emptive war” of the Georgite type.  (A specific plan for achieving that withdrawal can be found in my column of Dec. 15, 2005.)

II. Making the protection and promotion of Constitutional Democracy, in accordance with the plain language of the Constitution including the Preamble, the center of the Party’s approach to governing.  A return to the Constitutional System of checks and balances and the requirement that the President fully abide by the Constitution is essential. The Preamble to the Constitution states: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

III. A vision of government that is defined by the Preamble, which understands that big problems require big solutions, that when necessary for the common economic good, government needs to be big, that the Norquist Doctrine of Bathtub Government needs to be flushed down the toilet. This vision specifically rejects Clintonian (past and future) “incrementalism.” On the other hand, in accord with the prescriptions of the Constitution, when it comes to such matters as belief as to when life begins, freedom of expression, and adult personal behavior, government needs to be small.  This is the exact opposite of the Republican, anti-Constitutional view, which wants government to be overwhelmingly big when it comes to said matters of personal belief, rights, liberties, and freedom, and overwhelmingly small when dealing with the economy.

IV. A return to totally free and fair elections, and a full-scale assault on the Republican strategy of Grand Theft Elections.  (See: the recent GAO analysis, at http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20051021122225-53143.pdf, the Report of the Carter-Baker election reform commission, http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/a/203832.htm, and Mark Crispin Miller’s new book, Fooled Again.)

V. A Pledge of honesty, integrity, openness, and a return to the traditional arms-length relationship between government and the private sector for all elected and politically-appointed government officials.  A specific pledge to which all Democratic candidates for elected office and Democratic nominees for political appointments will be asked to subscribe will be developed.

VI. The broad and forward projection of the most important Values that define a civil society: pluralism in matters of religion in accordance with the First Amendment; tolerance of difference; the promotion of compassion and sharing the burden, leaving behind the Doctrine of Every Man for Himself and the Devil Take the Hindmost; the full promotion of human rights at home and abroad; the understanding that healthy sex is healthy and unhealthy sex is not and that for adults sex is a private matter; and the end to the promotion of the criminalization of personal belief in matters of morality and adult sexual identity and behavior.

VII. A taxation policy designed to support Commitment III, with the sharing of the burden in accordance with ability to pay.

VIII. Regulation of the market for goods and services designed to insure that it is both free and fair.

IX. The development of an Energy Policy that will deal with the potentially disastrous and very real problem of global warming, as well as ensuring that ample energy will be available to support modern human life after the petroleum runs out.

X. The establishment of nomination and hiring standards for political appointees designed to ensure competence in government.  A specific list of standards will be developed.

This is where I think the Democratic Party has to go.  My only possible change now would be to, in light of the Alito nomination and the Gore speech, flip I and II.  If one begins with principles, one can then go to develop an election campaign strategy designed to win with them.  If one tries to pick out “what issues can we win with?” first without examining and establishing principles, one almost assures losing.  Neither our country, nor indeed the world, nor indeed in my view the human species as we know it, could afford that.

__________

Addendum: Since the above column was written, Dr. Jonas posted the following note on the same subject on http://planetmove.blogspot.com/, Feb. 6, 2006.

Karl Rove has announced that the Republicans will be running on two issues in November: national defense/security and "values."  The Collaborationist-DLC Dems., like Hillary Clinton and Sen. Evan Bayh, are falling all over themselves countering with the "we can do the Georgite national security and values agendas even better than the Georgites have, so elect us" line.  Well, Real Democrats should be following another line altogether, and that is the attack line.

For openers, on national defense/security, it would go something like this:

The Georgites let 9/11 happen despite the specific warnings of the 8/5/01 Presidential Daily Briefing paper.

They have not caught Osama and al Qaeda still is functioning.

They either lied us into the War on Iraq or completely mis-handled the intelligence.

They have depleted and weakened our armed services fighting the wrong war in the wrong place.

They have created terrorists, not reduced their ranks.

They have turned the world against us.

They have done virtually nothing to strengthen homeland security in the homeland, aside from illegally and unconstitutionally spying on American citizens who have nothing to do with foreign terrorism.

They have demonstrated that they are totally incompetent when it comes to handling natural disasters, much less man-made ones that could have even worse aftermaths.

They have depleted the national treasury.

The policies needed to reverse these un-natural disasters are obvious and they will form the core of the Democratic agenda on national defense and security.

As for the "values" issue, briefly here, what are the Georgite Republican values?  Homophobia; misogyny; forcing people to believe in one way about religious matters, theirs, through the use of the criminal law; every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost; greed is good and should be aided and abetted by government; bribery and corruption, and stealing as much as you can (in Iraq).  They are certainly not honesty, integrity, openness, caring for others, working together, fairness, religious pluralism and tolerance of difference of belief, racial tolerance and understanding/celebration of difference of persons, and devotion to the Constitution as its meaning and function are set forth in the Preamble.  The latter will form the core of the Democratic agenda on values.

VENGEANCE IS MINE, SAITH THE LORD

Column No.  95 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - February 2, 2006

As Judge Gheen pointed out in TPJ of  January 22, 2006, on Jan. 20 (“Rove Lays Out Road Map for Republicans in Fall Elections,” Adam Nagourney, The New York Times, 1/21/06) “Karl Rove. . . gave nervous Republicans here a preview on Friday of the party's strategy to maintain its dominance in the fall elections, offering a searing attack on Democrats for their positions on terrorism, the administration's eavesdropping program and President Bush's effort to shape the federal judiciary. . . .In [his] speech. . . . Mr. Rove criticized Democrats for their opposition to tax cuts and for what he called "mean-spirited" attacks on Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., Mr. Bush's Supreme Court nominee. And he left little doubt that in 2006 - as in both nationwide elections since the Sept. 11 attacks - he was intent on making national security the pre-eminent issue. .... [He] criticized Democrats for what he described as their ‘cut and run’ policy on Iraq, for blocking a renewal of the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act and for challenging the legality of the administration's use of wiretaps without warrants. . . ‘The United States faces a ruthless enemy,’ Mr. Rove said, ‘and we need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment America finds itself in. President Bush and the Republican Party do. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Democrats. Let me be as clear as I can be. President Bush believes if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why,’ he said, referring to the wiretapping program. ‘Some important Democrats clearly disagree.’ "

And so, Uncle Karl, mixing truth and fiction as he so expertly has done over the years, has set forth the Republican agenda for the fall elections, just as he set it for the previous three national elections in which he has been directly involved (losing two in the true vote counts of course, but winning on paper where it counts for taking control of the government nevertheless).  One thing you can say for modern Republicans (whether they are “liberals” [sic] or not) is that they pretty much follow the Rovian agenda.  Another is that Rove, who studied at the feet of Lee “Willie Horton” Atwater, knows that whoever controls the agenda wins the election.

As long ago as 1992 in my book The New Americanism: How the Democratic Party Can Win the Presidency I have felt that this is indeed one very important political lesson that the Democrats could profitably learn from the Republicans.  They have yet to do so, as Sen. Kerry so disastrously demonstrated in 2004.  Feeling that my continuing to say that would continue to have as much impact (none) as doing so has had to date, I decided to consult a Higher Authority.  After all, if doing so is good enough for Pat Robertson, Mayor Nagin, and George Bush (see my TPJ column “The Real Meaning of the ‘Faith-Based Presidency’, Part II”), it is good enough for me, I reasoned.  (As to which “one true God” any of us is communicating with, mine, of course, is Him [or Her, as the case may be], not any of theirs.)  And so I gave God a ring.

He (and there was a male voice at the other of the line when I called) was not in a particularly good mood. “What is going on down there?” I was asked.  “Things are really getting out of hand. I am truly wroth.  In fact, to quote myself ‘Vengeance is mine.’ In case you haven’t heard,” the voice intoned, “that is one of the most famous sayings from the Bible, you know, from Hebrews 10:30. I will repeat the quote for you, for it has such a nice ring to it: ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ You have got this idiot President running around, taking my name in vain, wreaking all kinds of havoc.  And the political opposition (for lack of a better term) doesn’t seem to have a clue about how to deal with him and his cronies.  They better shape up soon or who knows what I will do.  Actually, I do know what I will do, and I also know what they had better do.  To begin with, they had better get ahold of the agenda, and they can use my name in so doing if they wish to.”

I gave this conversation and what followed in it a good deal of thought.  In the balance of my column today I share with you my summary of what God told me.

Of the many dismayed observers of the havoc being wreaked by the Georgites, the highest ranked is probably God. And He/She has taken a very dim view of it. For God has taken special pride in the creation, by a remarkable group of products of one of His/Her greatest achievements, the Enlightenment, of the US Constitution. It was the Enlightenment which ensconced the kind of mental process, the Use of Reason, which God had intended to eventually be achieved by humanity. But now God is mightily displeased. For in the United States both the use of Reason, eventually produced by the intellect that God worked so mightily to provide for in His creation, and the Constitution, are under serious attack.

As we know, God does not intervene directly in human affairs, but, from time to time, rather through various personages. God is wrath about what has happened in the nation that has been governed by that brilliant product of the highest level of thinking that his highest creation has yet achieved, but is about to be deprived of it. God is wrath about the threatened abandonment of the Rule of Law, the Rule that God values so highly that it is the centerpiece of His/Her Covenant with the Israelites. And God is wrath about the current political currents in the United States which so go against the values which are at the center of His/Her thinking about humans, the first one being that God loves all of his/her children.

God is wrath that a leading political party in the United States has put at the center of its program hatred of one particularly type of human based on sexuality.

God is wrath that a leading political party in the United States has put at the center of its program hatred of one particularly type of human based on skin color.

God is wrath that a leading political party in the United States has put at the center of its program hatred of women of child-bearing age and hatred of all people who believe that life begins at a time other the moment of conception (a matter that God him/herself has never been clear upon).

God is wrath that the American people as a whole have let this particular political party in the United States gain such a position of dominance, with no real opposition from the other major political party, that both the Constitution and the Rule of Law are at risk.

God is wrath that the American people as a whole have let this particular political party in the United States gain such a position of dominance that policies concerning the whole matter of environmental balance, so necessary for the preservation of God's highest creation, the human species, and all of the other species as well, has been put at risk.

God is wrath that the American people as a whole have allowed such un-God-like people as those known as the "Christian Right," people who preach hate and bigotry, violence and the use of force on the people's thinking, to gain such an unprecedented position of power in the country.

God is wrath that the American people as a whole do not seem to be close to realizing the reality of the above reality.

And so, God is about to wreak vengeance upon the United States. For God feels that the only way now to wake up the people of the United States and their political representatives who should know better, before it is too late, is to visit upon this country a modern version of the Seven Plagues. And this time, no one will receive a bye. Yes, through George Bush, and his minions known as the Georgites, the following will occur, that is unless the people, and especially their political leadership who should know better, wake up in time.

The First Plague: Out-and-out fascism.

The Second Plague: The next Great Depression.

The Third Plague: At the same time, spiraling inflation.

The Fourth Plague: The continued degradation of those major urban centers which, like New Orleans before the flood, were centers of Democratic political strength, but which through lack of investment were sinking ever further in the mire.

The Fifth Plague: The occurrence of shortages of fuel and power, of ever-increasing severity, on a regular basis.

The Sixth Plague: The occurrence on a regular basis of ever-worsening environmental catastrophes such as the Great New Orleans Flood of 2005.

The Seventh Plague: If nothing is done while there is still time, and God does say that there is, the occurrence of the Second Civil War, one that will make the first one look like a school picnic (to not coin a phrase).

Now God moves in mysterious ways and thus will not reveal His/Her timetable for all of this. But God does tell us to mark His/Her word. If nothing is done soon, the Plagues will arrive. The final outcome of their occurrence, were they to occur, not even God knows.

___________

Authors’ Note:  This column is based in part on a “Short Shot” of mine that appeared on Monday, September 12, 2005 on The Moving Planet Blog (UK) http://planetmove.blogspot.com.

GEORGE BUSH AND THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL INTENT

Column No. 94 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH -  January 26, 2006

The Alito nomination is before the Senate.  It is likely that he will be confirmed, but most interesting will be finding out whether the Senate Democrats have enough of an awareness of what is really going on in this country under Georgite rule to mount a filibuster attempt, even if were to fail.  Last week I wrote about “Original Intent” according to Scalia.  I pointed out that he does have a peculiar interpretation of the term.  I also wrote about something of what the plain language of the Constitution tells us in reality about the original intent of the founders.  That understanding is rather different from that of Scalia, and of Alito in fact.  Since George Bush has touted the Scalito twins as “Original Intentionists” I thought that it would be useful this week to look at what Bush himself means when he says “original intent.”

To help in that understanding I begin this column with, once again, my short definition of fascism:

“Fascism is a politico-economic system in which there is: total executive branch control of both the legislative and administrative powers of government; no independent judiciary; no Constitution that embodies the Rule of Law standing above the people who run the government; no inherent personal rights or liberties; a single national ideology that first demonizes and then criminalizes all political, religious, and ideological opposition to it; and total corporate determination of economic, fiscal, and regulatory policy.”   (If you would like to see my longer definitions, please refer to my columns of May 27, 2004 “On Fascism -- And The Georgites,” of Jan 27, 2005 “Comparing George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler”, and of February 10, 2005, “The Georgite Version of ‘Freedom and Democracy’.”)

George Bush claims that he is an “Original Intentionist.” He tells us that Justice Scalia, who as noted, also claims to be an Original Intentionist,  is his model Justice, and that his judicial appointments are also going to be of Original Intentionists or, to use an alternate term for the classification “Strict Constructionists.”  Scalia, of course, already has told us that Strict Construction and Original Intent mean that the Constitution is over-laid by something called “Natural Law,” handed down by “God.”  That there is no such wording remotely referring to such a matter in the Constitution itself would seem to be a mere detail of, dare I say it, interpretation, for Scalia.  In this light, it is interesting to see just what George Bush and the Georgites mean by “Original Intent” and “Strict Construction.”

For example, the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution reads:

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.

According to Bush the Strict Construction of this language means that the President on his own authority can conduct warrantless searches if he deems it necessary to preserve something he calls “national security.”

The Constitution (see last week’s column), using declaratory language, rests the power to declare war in the Congress.  According to Bush the strict construction of this language means that when, absent a forma Congressional declaration, he puts the US into a war in the vernacular sense of the term which he uses, that means that war has been declared in the Constitutional sense as well.

The Original Intent of the Constitutional Commander-in-Chief clause is not clear, except that it refers to the Army, the Navy, and “the militia.”  In a document that is supposed by the Right not to be open to interpretation, it is a highly interpretable article.  However, it has never been interpreted as Bush is interpreting it.  What happened to Truman when he tried to take over the nation’s steel mills in time of war to prevent a strike is instructive.  His move was disallowed by the Supreme Court, and just about every major politician thought that that was a fine decision.  Here is the famous quote from Justice Robert Jackson on that one:

His command power is not such an absolute as might be implied from that office in a militaristic system but is subject to limitations consistent with a constitutional Republic whose law and policy-making branch is a representative Congress. The purpose of lodging dual titles in one man was to insure that the civilian would control the military, not to enable the military to subordinate the presidential office. No penance would ever expiate the sin against free government of holding that a President can escape control of executive powers by law through assuming his military role.

But for the Bush version of “Strict Constructionism,” never mind. Actually, if one were to literally follow the Constitutional language, Bush would not be Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force because it is not specifically mentioned, and certainly the National Security Agency isn’t.  But according to Bush, the Original Intent of the Commander-in-Chief clause is that he can do anything he likes, on both the legislative and judicial (see Guantanamo, Padilla, Abu Ghraib, and etc.) sides, as long as he states that the nation is at war and under the threat of “terrorism.”

I have dealt frequently in this space with The Patriot Act and how it over-rides not only the Fourth, but also the Fifth (due process) and Sixth (jury trial rights in criminal cases).  I guess that the power to do such over-rides, actually first taken by the Congress before it handed it to the Executive Branch, comes under the Bush definition of “Original Intent” and “Strict Construction” as well.

“Vice-President” Cheney's original objection to the supposed torture prohibition legislation that was eventually passed by Congress was on the grounds, not that torture is a good thing to have in one’s quiver (although he may well believe that; we don’t know), but prohibiting its use by the President would interfere with Presidential power to what he wants to do “in time of war” (whether in the vernacular or the Constitutional sense).  The “Signing Statement” (which the Georgites claim allows the President to over-ride legislation he doesn’t like) deal plays right into this one.  I’ve looked at the Constitution in detail, but I can find nothing that says that legislative authority is shared between the legislative and executive branches, or any reference to “Presidential Signing Statements” at all, whether they would have legal standing or not.  Another score for the Bush meaning of “Original Intent.”

As for Scalito, Bush picked him for more than one reason (and as I have said elsewhere it is becoming quite clear that the Miers nomination was a classic bait and switch move to mobilize the Christian Right base behind Alito).  And here is a prime one (Progress Report, Jan. 3, 2006, “SUPREME COURT: Alito's Imbalancing Act”):

FOR -- UNCHECKED PRESIDENTIAL POWER: While working in the Reagan Justice Department, Alito wrote in 1984 that "the attorney general should have absolute immunity for warrantless wiretapping." Separately, Alito also helped establish a new practice of issuing presidential bill-signing statements that served to "tip the balance of power between Congress and the White House a little more in favor of the executive branch." The Palm Beach Post recently opined that Alito has shown "a desire to give government the kind of power most conservatives abhor." In arguing for presidential signing statements, Alito said, "Since the president's approval is just as important as that of the House or Senate, it seems to follow that the president's understanding of the bill should be just as important as that of Congress." And so now we know as well what Alito means by “Original Intent” and “Strict Construction.”

Finally, as my good friend Jack Dalton said recently:

“Was it not George W. Bush who stated 5 years ago, ‘…this would be much easier if this were a dictatorship, as long as I was the dictator?’  Was it not George W. Bush who was quoted recently [as] stating, ‘The Constitution is just a goddamn piece of paper?’ (Jack's Straight-Speak 1-2-06, http://jack-dalton.blogspot.com/).”

But hey, you can’t blame George.  It’s in his genes.  His Dad was quoted as saying something similar about dictatorship when he was President.  His grandfather, Prescott Bush, stopped his financial dealings with Nazi Germany in February, 1942 only when FDR threatened to prosecute him under the Trading with the Enemy Act. (Hitler had declared war on the US on December 8, 1941 --- yes, Hitler, as surprised by Pearl Harbor as we were, reluctantly declared war on us under a treaty obligation he had to Japan, President Roosevelt did not first declare war on him.)  And a maternal great-grandfather, George Herbert Walker, began financing Hitler and the German Nazi Party in 1924.  With this background, it is only natural that George W. Bush’s interpretation of the terms “Original Intent” and “Strict Constructionism” mean that the Constitution, yes indeed, does provide for a Presidential dictatorship, just as long as one George Bush or another is the dictator.

LET’S HEAR IT FOR ORIGINAL INTENT (VERSION 2)

Column No. 93 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - January 19, 2006

Note to the reader:  Last September 8 TPJ ran the original version of this column.  A revised version was published in Inquirer, the monthly publication of  the Long Island (NY) Secular Humanists, in the November issue (see page 5) (and is used here with their kind permission).  With the Alito hearings upon us and with the Georgite mission of Constitutional destruction now out in the open through the revelation of the extra-judicial domestic spying apparati, I thought that it would be useful and of interest to run it again in this space.

The Republican Religious Right (RRR) in the United States likes to tell us that Constitutional jurisprudence as conducted by the nation’s courts has been all wrong since the time the Supreme Court started coming around to the support of the New Deal in 1938.  This jurisprudence has, they tell us, been dominated by “activist,” “liberal” judges who just “impose their own views on the law, in violation of everything good and sound.”  What is needed in applying the Constitution to the law, policy, and policy-making, according to the RRR, is a return to what they call the “Doctrine of Original Intent.”  This Doctrine can be defined as taking the Constitution literally, as assuming that its words have a plain meaning and that they should be followed in applying it to both the law and the structure and functions of government that it describes and defines.

The RRR holds up Justice Antonin Scalia as their primary avatar of this Doctrine.  In the July and August issues of Inquirer, its’ Editor/Publisher Mr. Gerry Dantone considered Scalia’s position on the primacy of “God” and organized religion in public life and what its relationship to the law should be.  Proceeding from that foundation, it is useful to examine further how Scalia himself views the Constitution, and indeed how he applies the Doctrine of Original Intent to it.  As Mr. Dantone showed, Scalia holds that “God” and organized religion should be at the center of public life, of government, and of Constitutional interpretation.  Examining his many speeches, writings, and Supreme Court opinions on various aspects of this subject, it will come as a surprise to many observers that it is clear from his own words that in fact that Scalia himself does not follow the Doctrine of Original Intent.

In relation to the Constitution and its interpretation the most important indicator of Scalia’s non-adherence to the Doctrine is his oft-state belief in something he calls “Natural Law,” standing above the Constitution.  For Scalia (as documented in the Dantone articles referred to above) “Natural Law” means “God’s Law.”  For a further example, consider the following words of the Justice, as quoted by Sean Wilentz ("From Justice Scalia: A Chilling Vision of Religion's Authority in America," New York Times (republished in Truthout), July 8, 2003).  Wilentz wrote: “Beginning with a quote from St. Paul as his thoughts are represented in the New Testament, Scalia had this to say about the subject (2002):  ‘For there is no power but of God [St. Paul is said to have said]; the powers that be are ordained of God. . . The Lord repaid -- did justice -- through his minister, the state . . . [This was the consensus] of Christian or religious thought regarding the powers of the state… That consensus has been upset, I think, by the emergence of democracy . . .”

In practice, thus Scalia goes against his own words, for nowhere in the Constitution are any such thoughts or principles to be found, either in its plain language or in any conceivable interpretation of it. He has told us on numerous occasions, the above being but one example, that there no “inalienable rights of man,” for the Framers the basis of Constitutional Law.  According to Scalia there are only rights that are granted by God.  Since God does not often speak to us directly, in practice that means any individual rights are only those granted by God’s representatives on Earth, in accordance with what they think God’s wishes are (that is unless He or She speaks to such representatives, like Scalia or George Bush perhaps, in private).  "Natural Law," the “law(s) of God,” are thus whatever Church authority, such as Scalia’s apparent favorite, the Pope, happens to tell us they are.  In reality, this, that is “Natural Law,” standing above the Constitution, is nothing more or less than the rule of man, not law.  Again, although I may have missed it, I cannot find anything like Scalia’s jurisprudence anywhere in the Constitution. Nor, by the way, can I find the word “God.”

I happen to believe that, following its own literal meaning, the Doctrine of Original Intent is precisely what the Framers had in mind.  Contrary to Scalia, and Clarence Thomas, and the newly minted appellate Judge Janice Rogers Brown who believes that regulation of the economy is a worse institution than human slavery, I am actually a firm believer in following the plain language of the Constitution.  That text tells me indeed what the Original Intent of the Framers was, and I think that it should be followed.  Surprised?  Well, folks, if you read the Constitution clearly, it clearly says “here are some specifics, some definites,” while in other places it clearly says, by being ambiguous, “interpret me please.”  There is no evidence that the Framers were dunces, did not know how to use the English language, and thus were not being purposeful in how they used it.  As theocratic Georgite fascism comes barreling down the track, it’s all we’ve got to defend ourselves with.  Following are some examples of the application of the Doctrine.

Let’s begin with the Preamble, that almost always forgotten, ignored, suppressed part of the Constitution which tells us in plain language what the role of government is, according to the Framers:  “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  That’s a pretty broad, positive, set of tasks is it not?  A major characteristic is ambiguity, begging for interpretation one might say, is it not?  And if it doesn’t beg for interpretation, then precisely how one would precisely interpret it?  The Original Intent here is quite obvious: “Interpret me --- and apply me --- please.”

On the other hand we next come to Article I. In Section 1 it says: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”  It doesn’t say, as the Georgites would have it, “some legislative powers are vested in the Congress, and the rest in the Executive, subject to the whim of the latter.”  Yes, the Original Intent is obvious here too.  Sections 2-7 of Article I are mainly about matters of organization, voting, and discipline for the legislative branch, and then we get to the famous Article I, Section 8.  It says, in part: “The Congress shall have power to… regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes…” The term “regulate commerce” is nowhere defined.  Again ambiguous, no?  It, like the Preamble, begs for interpretation.  The RRR would have you think that the Constitution puts strict limits on how the Congress may interpret and apply that clause.  Again, I have looked hard for it, but I just cannot find any such language.  Again, the Original Intent is obvious here; “interpret me, please.”  On the other hand, the Constitution is pretty specific about one power of the Congress: “To declare war.”  That one doesn’t seem to be open to interpretation, does it?  Original intent strikes the RRR again.

Then there is Article I, Section 9, which says in part: “The privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”  That seems pretty specific too.  Habeas Corpus, according to Original Intent, is to be suspended only in times of rebellion or invasion, and only the Congress may suspend.  The President, for example, cannot do it on his/her own authority, nor can Congress authorize its abolition except under those two specific circumstances, certainly nothing as vague as some “war against terror.”  The Original Intent is again pretty obvious here, is it not?

Going on to Article II, Section 2 says that “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.”  Again, vague.  Nowhere to be found is a definition of “Commander-in-Chief.”  It could mean “General-in-Chief,” as the Georgites would have us believe.  But it could just as easily mean that final military authority is simply to be subject to civilian rule, a logical interpretation based upon the historical experience and knowledge of English history of the Framers.  Nevertheless, interpretation is invited (although according to the Doctrine of Original Intent, since the words “Air Force” do not appear in it, the President has no authority over that branch of the armed forces).  Yes, under the Constitution Bush, in contradistinction to every previous occupant of the White House other than Lyndon Johnson who personally picked out bombing targets in Vietnam, could be what he thinks he is, General-in-Chief.

Article III, Section 1 states that the “judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”  While there is a list of powers of the Supreme Court, nowhere to be found in Article III is any description of the power of Judicial Review over the actions of the other two branches of the government.  In the early 19th century, Chief Justice John Marshall and his colleagues invented the concept, using some fairly complex legal reasoning and logic to arrive at it.  They thus interpreted the Constitution, for nowhere in it is there any plain language or other evidence “original intent” to provide for judicial review. Over the course of two decades, the Marshal construction was accepted by the rest of the polity. (Jefferson was strongly opposed to the idea but even he eventually went along with it.)  But it is nowhere to be found in anything approaching explicit language in the Constitution.  Therefore, we can hardly say that granting that power to the Court was part of the Original Intent of the Framers.  If Scalia were to be consistent, he would have to advocate doing away altogether with the Supreme Court as the arbiter of the Constitutionality of acts of both the Executive and the Legislative Branches.  But I don’t think that anyone has ever accused Scalia of being consistent.  After all, consistency is just the hobgoblin of small minds, isn’t it?

Moving right along, Article V is quite specific about which body can amend the Constitution.  It is not the Executive Branch.  Article VI is quite specific that “all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land” (see former White House Counsel and now Attorney General Gonzales and the “quaint” Geneva Conventions, by a provision of the Constitution itself, part of it).  The Original Intent is clear once again.  I’m sure that if you have lasted this far you get my drift.

Turning to the Bill of Rights, the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments are pretty explicit about the guarantees of the rights with which they are concerned.  For example, the Fourth provides protection against unreasonable search and seizure, the Fifth guarantees the protection of due process of law, and the Sixth guarantees jury trial in criminal cases.  All happen to have been over-ridden by the Patriot Act, which Scalia has voted to uphold.  Finally, there is the Ninth Amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”  My, my, my, how vague, how broad, how interpretable.  No wonder that the authoritarian Judge Bork (you remember him), he who was, and is, supposed to be such an avatar of the Doctrine of Original Intent, described the Ninth as an “inkblot on the Constitution.”  It is such an inconvenience for the RRR.  After all, this Amendment is wide open to interpretation. For example, it could even be interpreted to mean that there is something called the Right to Privacy.

One must then come to the following conclusion.  Yes, the framers did intend that their document and its meaning be followed in our country down through history, as written.  Given the presence of ambiguous language in certain places, it is clear that part of that intention was to provide within it the means for dealing with changing times and circumstances.  Thus one must conclude that if they had been asked “do you believe in the Doctrine of Original Intent?” they would have replied pretty much in unison as follows:

“Oh yes we do.  That is why we made certain clauses as specific as we did, especially those clauses guaranteeing personal freedom and limiting governmental powers in relation to it, as well as those clauses dealing with governmental actions concerning life and death, such as war and making treaties.  That is why also we made other clauses vague and open to interpretation, especially those dealing with commerce and industry and economic affairs.  For those are areas in which government must have flexibility to deal with changes in human abilities to deal with the physical means of life.  That times and needs change too is why we created the Ninth Amendment, in reference to personal rights and liberties. Finally we were intentionally broad, very broad, with the Preamble.  There is so much good that government can do, and we want to make sure that ours focuses on it.”

And so, my friends, as the RRR takes over the Supreme Court and Bush runs roughshod over the Constitution, let’s hear it for the Doctrine of Original Intent, as it was originally intended, reading the plain language written by the Framers themselves.