rConstitution.us
latest boundaries about
Contract to Secure Rights
Life, liberty, and property can be made far-more secure in the long run with seven straightforward actions, on moneys, emergency powers, generics, abortion, immigration, criminalization, and Ukraine.
James Anthony
October 7, 2022
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has now introduced the House Republicans’ [1] “Commitment to America [2].”
Under themes of the economy, safety, freedom, and accountability, the McCarthy offers a now-truncated list of marketing copy and promised actions [3].
The Republicans would keep violating the separation of powers [4], using unenumerated powers [5], and delegating legislative power [6]. There’s no mention of repeals [7] or impeachments [8].
This is not the agenda we need. We need legislators to triage every statute, identify every one that the legislators interpret as violating the separation of powers or the enumerated powers, and summarily repeal the whole statute [7].
If these Republicans won’t, then what key actions can we still call on them to take? Let’s consider first principles.
Governments operate by exercising power [9]. The foremost power is to enact laws. Compromising on laws in the short run would be abrogating power, leaving voters unrepresented. What’s needed is to instead take the actions in the short run that will work the best in the long run [10].
This means:
Good principles are good politics. The Republican Party started by raising slavery as an issue, and at first not winning control. Maintaining this principled stand for freedom [12] soon made it the majority party [13].
Governments are instituted to secure rights [14]. The foremost are the rights to life, to liberty, and to secure property. These must be the priorities in choosing principled actions.
Here are seven national-legislative actions that are of the highest urgency and offer the highest long-term freedom:
1. Repeal Legal Tender Laws.
Repeal legal tender laws [15], so people are free to contract with others using private moneys [16], including equity-based moneys [17] and gold.
Grabs of monetary powers increase the government’s power to fight wars, which deprive persons of life and also deprive persons of liberty.
Granting banks the privilege to loan without holding 100% reserves [18] creates funds to massively increase government spending, which deprives persons of liberty and property. This money creation produces price inflation [19] that deprives persons of property. The fractional reserves create cycles of booms and busts [20], and added instabilities [21], that further deprive persons of property.
The only monetary power delegated to the national government is the power to coin money [22]. The national government does not have constitutional power to restrict others from producing moneys.
2. Make Emergency Powers Explicitly Illegal.
Make delegation of emergency powers explicitly illegal, by national statute, in all jurisdictions.
Emergency powers in practice guarantee that in crises, coercive centralized restrictions get imposed [23]. These restrictions have deprived persons of life. These restrictions deprive persons of liberty and of the free use of their property, preventing people from using all their local knowledge to work out optimal actions [24].
3. Make Generics Explicitly Unrestricted.
Make every medicine that has been in use and has had a safe profile explicitly be not within the FDA’s power to restrict.
For a century, every pandemic has been caused by a respiratory virus [25]. Generic antivirals have accumulated considerable, safe profiles in very-large-scale use, and are incredibly inexpensive. Restricting people from using these products deprives persons of life [26]. Taking novel other policy approaches has deprived persons of life, liberty, and property [27].
Antivirals aren’t the only vital generics. Every generic is vital to some person’s life, liberty, or property.
4. Make Explicit that Life Begins at Fertilization.
Define post-fertilization life explicitly as life that is protected by law. If a state or local government person refuses to prosecute cases of abortion, then step in and prosecute, starting with the government person, under the state criminal statutes that outlaw the taking of life.
Life begins at fertilization. The Fifth Amendment outlaws undue deprivation of life by anyone [28].
5. Make Immigration Solely Merit-Based.
Make immigration solely merit-based, ending so-called birthright citizenship [29], chain migration, and quotas skewed against merit.
Immigration policies that accept criminals deprive persons of life, liberty, and property. Immigration policies that increase voting for big-government Progressive politicians [30], who defy the Constitution [31], also deprive persons of life, liberty, and property.
Making immigration bring in people who value freedom and who contribute to freedom is the fundamental immigration policy decision. Every other immigration policy decision simply helps execute this fundamental decision.
6. Repeal the DOJ, Including the FBI.
Repeal the national statutes that unconstitutionally grab powers to investigate and prosecute criminal offenses other than treason or counterfeiting.
The broader and more-remote the government jurisdiction that exercises such powers, the weaker the people’s protections against systematic deprivations of life, liberty, or property [32].
7. Repeal Ukraine Support.
Repeal the military interventions [33] and ongoing civil interventions [34] in Ukraine.
Supporting Ukraine’s government has the potential to deprive our people of life, liberty, and property on a massive scale, and already deprives our people of property on a large scale.
Even without the comprehensive triage and repeal that we need [7], the narrower priority actions above would prevent boom-bust cycles and inflation. These priority actions would prevent any more disastrous pandemic responses.
Even just having a significant minority of one major party initiate and continue pushing these priority actions would immediately show that the end is near for the current regime uncertainty, which is keeping investors rationally unsure that if they invest more, they will be able to keep their returns [35]. Soon, investors would decide that to keep from being left behind by competitors, they would need to act now, and their private investments would bring prosperity.
Straightforward, wise actions by even some Republicans will increase freedom and create great good. Or, Republicans will strike our people with a curse.
References
James Anthony is the author of The Constitution Needs a Good Party and rConstitution Papers, publishes rConstitution.us, and has written in The Federalist, American Thinker, American Greatness, Mises Institute, and Foundation for Economic Education. Mr. Anthony is an experienced chemical engineer with a master’s in mechanical engineering.
Commenting