GIVEN THE CONSTRAINTS OF CONSCIENCE: A CALL FOR MORE CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA Some principles definitions and distinctions to guide reunion "The history of the US Constitution is marked by betrayal, not only fidelity." - George Kateb TABLE OF CONTENTS IN PREFACE PART I: APPROACHING AND UNDERSTANDING THE PRECEPTS OF CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY - DIFFICULT TIMES WANT FOR SIMPLE SOLUTIONS. - THE NEED FOR FAITH IN DEMOCRACY. - BEYOND PARTISAN POLITICS AND OPINION. - THE NEED FOR WISDOM - THE PREAMBLE OF THE U. S. CONSTITUTION 1. WE THE PEOPLE, 2. IN ORDER TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION 3. ESTABLISH JUSTICE 4. ENSURE DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY 5. PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE 6. PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE 7. SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY 8. FOR OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY - THESE VALUES WORK TOGETHER. - THESE VALUES WORK AS A FOIL - ON CONSCIENCE. - ON FREEDOM - DISTINGUISHING MORALITY FROM ETHICS - ON MORALITY WITHOUT ETHICS - ON ETHICS WITHOUT MORALITY - THEIR LIFE, ONCE UNDERSTOOD, TOGETHER - ON BALANCING INTERESTS - LEST PREJUDICE BREED CONTEMPT - IN SUMMARY - ON DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC PART 2: ON DOMESTIC POLICY ON DISSENT - MAKING DISSENT MORE INTELLIGIBLE - THE DANGERS OF LIBERALISM SECTION A: REASONING FROM THE INTERESTS OF PROFIT - DEFINING PROFIT - CONCERN FOR THE ECONOMY REPLACES CONCERN FOR OUR WELFARE - ECONOMIC THEORIES DISPUTE THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF GOVERNMENT - BY SUCH REASONING, AGITATION BECOMES PREFERABLE TO TRANQUILITY - HOW INCENTIVES CAN REDUCE TO THREATS - MORE ON THE THREATS TO JUSTICE AND TO LIBERTY - ON "FREE ENTERPRISE" - ON IDEA OF THE "FREE MARKET" - WHEN COMPETITION WORKS TO CONSOLIDATE THE MARKET - GOVERNMENT FAVOR FURTHER DISTORTS THE "FREE MARKET" - WHERE PRIVATE INTERESTS BREAK FROM THE PUBLIC INTEREST - IN THIS LIGHT, PRIVATIZATION - IN THIS LIGHT, LOBBYING SECTION B: ON OPPORTUNITY - THE CALL TO CONSCIENCE - ON HAPPINESS, ITS PURSUIT NAIVE TO CONSCIENCE - CONSEQUENCES OF OUR FORSAKING JUSTICE - MISREPRESENTING AMERICAN INTERESTS - DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN PROFIT AND SERVICE - THE UNCONSCIENTIOUS REGARD FOR WEALTH - THE FALSE ASSURANCES OF WEALTH - CLEARLY, CONCERN FOR PROFIT MUST NOT OUTSTRIP CONCERN FOR THE GENERAL WELFARE - ALERT VERSUS ALARM - ON THE COURAGE TO EMBRACE OUR TRUE DIVERSITY - TO SUMMARIZE PART 3: ON FOREIGN POLICY THE PRECEPTS OF OUR CONSTITUTION APPLIED TO FOREIGN POLICY SECTION A: THE PRIORITY OF OUR COMMON DEFENSE - HOW THE INTERESTS OF PROFIT MIGHT TURN GOVERNMENT FROM OUR DEFENSE - AS INDUSTRIES REACH TURNS INTERNATIONAL, GOVERNMENT STRAYS MORE CLEARLY FROM DEFENSE - HOW UNETHICAL FOREIGN POLICY IS DEMORALIZING - CLEAR EVIDENCE OF UNCONSTITUTIONAL PRIORITIES - WHERE THE RISKS ATTACHED TO PROFIT ARE UNACCEPTABLE - WE HAVE NOT YET ADDRESSED THE ROOTS OF OUR NEGLIGENCE SECTION B: THE PRIORITY OF THE GENERAL WELFARE - AGAIN - MISREPRESENTING AMERICAN INTERESTS - IRRATIONALIZING DISSENT - THE DANGER OF NON-NEGOTIABLE FOREIGN POLICY - A MOST DISTURBING IMPLICATION - THE SECRET "INTERESTS OF NATIONAL SECURITY" SECTION C: THE PRIORITIES OF JUSTICE AND LIBERTY - THE PRINCIPLE BEHIND GENEVA CONVENTIONS - SOLDIER'S RIGHTS, LIKE CIVIL RIGHTS, ARE HUMAN RIGHTS - THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF RESPECTING HUMAN RIGHTS - WHERE AMERICA LOST THE WAR ON TERROR - A PATTERN EMERGES SECTION D: ON TERRORISM - STEPPING PAST NAME CALLING AND ITS INHERENT DISREGARD - ADMITTING THEIR DESPERATION - THE NEED TO NEGOTIATE - THE NEED TO PROMOTE TRANQUILITY SECTION E: IN PRINCIPLE - HOW POWER CORRUPTS - BAD IDEAS, NOT PEOPLE, ARE THE ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY - BEWARE THE SELF-SERVING LOGIC OF CYNICISM - AT LAST THE SITUATION IS CLEAR - THE CALL TO CONSCIENCE - THE NECESSITY OF PRECEPTS THAT RESPECT US - UNCONSTITUTIONAL FOREIGN POLICY HAS BEEN DEMORALIZING - BEYOND OUR DEMORALIZATION, OUR DE-ETHICIZATION - OUR FEAR IS CONDITIONED - CONSTITUTIONAL FOREIGN POLICY WILL PROTECT US - IN SUMMARY - IN AFTERTHOUGHT: ON THE REASONABILITY OF MADNESS PART 4: TOWARD OUR MORE PERFECT UNION ON OUR SHAKEN CONFIDENCE - WITH POWER COMES RESPONSIBILITY - ON SHORTENING THE LEASH - WHEN AMERICA PUTS ITS HEART IN IT - POVERTY IS NOT THE ENEMY - A NEW AND FAIR TAXATION - SOME OTHER IMMANENT CONCERNS - ON PATRIOTISM - MORE ON REPRESENTATIVE AND FAIR ELECTIONS - UNTIL IT BREAKS, YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO FIX IT - ON EDUCATION - DEFENDING THE REAL AMERICA - UNITED WE STAND - LET US STAY VIGILANT PART 5: TOWARD THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY INTELLIGENCE MEANS CHOOSING - INTELLIGENCE MEANS READING BETWEEN THE LINES - DISTINGUISHING TECHNOLOGY FROM SCIENCE - DISTINGUISHING FAITH FROM BELIEF - AT THE HEART OF CONSCIENCE - THE UNIQUE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY ~~~~~~~~ IN PREFACE The future of America is not dependent simply on good policy or legislation, on good politics, nor merely on good leaders. The future of America, as it was in its very founding, is dependent on good principles, and understanding them. People may see sound-bites, sloganeering and other nut shell politicking as simplistic and even degrading, but it speaks directly to something both wholesome and essential to Democracy--this being the succinct articulation and affirmation of democratic ideals and governing principles. It has always been according to principle that we decipher right from wrong. It is principle that established America as the foremost beacon of Democracy, and principle that must guide policy now. American citizens and their representatives have been bickering policy without examining the principles underlying their dissent. Such dissent without consequent dialogue and negotiation is working to further divide people by opinion and not build either understanding or consensus. This is an attempt to address the threats to Americans, to our lives, to government and industry, that we might better recognize the sources of our distress, and stand again united by values that are meant to protect, to dignify and to ennoble us. As happens with values, once they are clear, an enormous amount of policy can be better understood. In the process of this inquiry, it became clear that some of our more popular phrases were actually misrepresenting our collective interests, and working to confuse us. Phrases like "American Interests" and even words like "Freedom." Such language lends an air of legitimacy to interests and agendas that actually undermine the interests of justice, and the general welfare. Such language serving divisive interests and working against union, actually mock Democracy. For this reason it is important to identify such words and phrases, and demonstrate how they lead us to stray from the values meant to protect and serve us. Of the popular language that works to confuse Democracy, I have sought here especially, to distinguish between morality and ethics. Using these words as synonyms has served to gloss over and obscure distinctions that are essential to a workable Democracy. Only with clear intelligence on the subject these terms obscure will we actually reach and so embrace and enable the principles meant to honor and ennoble us - the precepts of constitutional Democracy. It is my faith that honest and informed dialogue will return us to our common ground in concerns we share. That this will lead to real and enduring progress. Our Constitution will guide us well in this. It is a bold proclamation, bold those many years ago, and it is bold today - startling in it reach, in its simplicity. Let us work to realize the true obstacles of Democracy, and not let foreign nor interior animosity divide us further. Here I would beseech you, lest further division tear through the consensus on which representative government depends. Please note: In the interests of readability, I have chosen to call our system of government a Democracy and not a Democratic Republic, though the later is more precisely true. I believe that what remains essential in both systems is that the government is duly elected by the people, empowered to establish justice, and to protect and serve the citizenry. The particular implication and value of a Democratic Republic is also relevant here. A segment will address this. Before entering into the specific charges of government as articulated in the Preamble of our Constitution, let us admit some of the obstacles that come between even the well-intended and sound dialogue. PART 1: APPROACHING AND UNDERSTANDING THE PRINCIPLES OF CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY DIFFICULT TIMES WANT FOR SIMPLE SOLUTIONS In times of adversity, we all like simple solutions. We all like clear formulations and decisiveness. We don't like to have to think about it. There is a feeling of threat - critical threat. Decisions seem to need to be made quickly. Fear, anger, indignation, perhaps all these rise inside us. As pressure builds, patience is lost. People become divisive. At such times we can act so rashly, so hastily, so in the interests of expedience and not consideration that our actions are costly, inflaming animosities, and aggravating situations we sought to remedy. That our country is now at war and quite seriously divided speaks of grave concerns that weigh both on the citizenry and on leadership. It also speaks to the failures of "business as usual" to satisfyingly address our difficulties. THE NEED FOR FAITH IN DEMOCRACY Of all the threats that now face our Democracy, the greatest threat may lie in our own lack of confidence. And so to begin, I appeal to your good faith. The first step toward reunion is our willingness to imagine it. Let us hold firmly in our hearts a clear faith in reconciliation and so in a government that dignifies us. Let us not let adversity shut our minds to the possibility of union. Neither let us allow judgment to stand in the way of honest dialogue, for to distain dialogue is to distain the institution of Democracy that is meant to protect us. Not incidentally, civil liberties work to embolden dissent, that that dissent might be most honest, and so our dialogues better informed, and more fruitful. BEYOND PARTISAN POLITICS AND OPINION America is a very powerful country, and we must not run such a powerful country on mere opinion, nor on policy born out of unrecognized and unchallenged prejudice. The rights of citizens keep the government in check and honest. They also work to keep it representative. First and foremost, policy and legislation must be constitutional. Whatever majority opinion, the interests of no faction should impinge on our essential liberties. Nor should any faction win policy and legislation that disturbs the domestic tranquility, compromises our common defense, or in any way threatens our welfare. THE NEED FOR WISDOM I must confess that I recognize within myself a fear that we might lose Democracy by our indifference and neglect. Simply, it took many generations to bring mankind to the vision that is contained in our Constitution. When I hear a State Supreme Court Justice show disinterest in the issue of fair elections, I wonder what is becoming of Democracy. Or a spokesman in that office say that irregularities in vote counting are typical and so of no consequence. All America should be concerned with the fairness of elections. This is not an issue to divide us, but a Constitutional issue, one to unify us. Democracy has rules, and if we do not play by those rules, we lose the right to call ourselves a Democracy. To neglect Democracy, instead hoping to gain some imagined personal advantage is to act quite naively. Whether rich or poor, it amounts to trading the ground we stand on for a hand full of shiny beads. More specifically, it is to side with values that eventually undercut the wellbeing of our communities and place our personal and collective futures at grave risk. This said, let us turn to the historic first sentence of our Constitution, the famous Preamble. And the word "preamble" must not be understood to diminish it. What the Preamble of our Constitution presents to us is our contract with government in a nutshell. It is exquisitely well written, and most Americans, indeed people the world over, have found it quite agreeable. THE PREAMBLE OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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." (The capital letters are theirs.) So reads the Preamble of the Constitution of these United States. Here then, the express reasons for establishing our government and so also a remarkably succinct statement of its powers. For my part, and as I understand it, I hold the Constitution of these United States in highest regard. It is a remarkable document. I believe its spirit and intention is to dignify humanity. The charges of government as articulated in the Preamble confirm this. What follows here is a brief consideration of those charges. Later sections consider the implications of such values more specifically. 1 - "We the people." This, the very first phrase of the Preamble, and well chosen. "We the People." Who is "We?" Simply, the people, all the people, of course. There has been much confusion on this subject. Originally, Blacks, Indians, and women were excluded. Indeed it seems the habit in America to look to exclude some faction of the population, and so entitle elitism, but the language is clear. The Constitution was not intended to serve some people. It was conceived to serve the people, all the people of these United States. If you are yet unconvinced, consider the Preambles next phrase: 2 - "In order to form a more perfect Union." If we will work toward more perfect Union, then we must clearly work to extend the entitlements of the Constitution to all the peoples of the United States. Though neglecting the actual meaning of words may justify prejudice and less wholesome agendas, this is about more perfect Union, not division. If we would "form a more perfect Union," then eventually "We the people" must refer to absolutely everybody. Stopping short of this on any grounds, is to settle for division and prejudice. Such breaks with this clear first mandate of our Constitution. 3 - "Establish Justice" means establishing the rule of law and so punishments and a criminal justice system, but this was a New World and it called for New World Justice. Simply, Justice, if it is not democratic, is determined by authoritarian whim. While it claimed high moral ground, and so authority, in practice it was informed by prejudice, deeply corrupt, immune to the objections of the people, and in the view of the people, arbitrary, and insulting. Such justice worked to protect not a society at liberty, but the privilege of an elite. It had no real respect for humanity, and so no semblance of fairness. No. The people of America had suffered perverted Justice for generations in other countries. American Justice was to be different, was to be real justice, fair justice, the people's justice. The accused were now innocent until proven guilty. They had rights, rights to a fair trial, to a speedy trial, and to face their accuser. In the spirit of Democracy and our Constitution; in the interest of simple human decency, we must not settle for doubled standards in our Justice system, nor for across the board rules that are indifferent to human necessity and need. Justice is both an aspiration and a vigilance. Settling short of perfect justice only works to systematize abuse. Anywhere that justice settles it risks abuse. We are challenged as a nation to keep justice alive in America. Gladly, let us affirm our dedication and our faith in humanity. In that spirit, let us work to identify the failures of our criminal and civil justice systems and to rectify them. 4 - "Insure domestic tranquility" - this may seem like an unusual tenet of government. Yet with consideration, its importance becomes clear. False Justice divides community, fuels suspicion, promotes ignorance, racism, and classism. In this way it distresses the general Welfare and so disturbs domestic tranquility. Alternately, fairness in the Justice system will ease the people. Domestic tranquility, in this context, becomes a measure of the quality of Justice. Please note here that providing for the common defense works to insure domestic tranquility. Promoting the general welfare also works to insure domestic tranquility. Basically when people feel respected they are less anxious, less apprehensive and volatile. If a government fails to respect the needs and rights of citizens, in doing so they disturb the people's faith in government to represent their interests, and to protect them. The loss of faith in the conscientiousness of government fundamentally disturbs domestic tranquility. So long as government remains representative, remains vigilant to the precepts of Democracy, domestic tranquility will pervade our society, and the feeling of a more perfect Union will be most evident. Note: A government that remains dedicated to the people and genuinely concerned for their wellbeing will not feel especially threatened by them. The interests of humanity counter the interests of corruption, not government. If government feels threatened by the citizenry, perhaps it is because they are not representing them. 5 - "Provide for the common defense." This is a clear call for American government to work to protect our nation and its inhabitants. To ease even the threat of invasion is essential to union, to tranquility, and to maintaining an environment wherein Justice can prevail. But providing for the common defense has further implications. If the wellbeing, the livelihood, the tranquility of the people is threatened, government is charged to protect those people from such threats to their wellbeing. If that threat comes from bad business practices, or corrupt regulatory organizations, the government is charged to remedy such situations and to protect us. By constitutional mandate, government must work to recognize and to address all threats to the people, not just foreign animosity. This is essential, for the failure of government to be vigilant leaves us terribly vulnerable. 6 - "Promote the general Welfare." This may surprise you. General meaning "relating to a whole genus, kind class order," has over the years been understood quite divisively, always in ways that break with the value of more perfect union. Still it was intended to be embracing. Welfare, traced to Old English meaning literally to fair well, is now attached to very specific programs, and has also become debatable. Promoting the general welfare remains, despite these challenges unambiguous. In the interests of more perfect union, the general welfare is entirely collective. Where it serves the interests of division, where it serves the interests of an elite, it is simply misunderstood. Ultimately, the responsibility of government for our collective welfare, politics aside, is not a mere communist sentiment. Promoting the general and so the collective welfare is fundamentally American, fundamentally democratic, and an express responsibility of government. It follows naturally out of a concern for our common defense, and so concern for the inclusiveness and strength of our communities, of our society, and of our Nation. While this is reason enough, there is another way an entirely inclusive view of this phrase works for us. Concern for the general welfare leashes government magnificently to its purpose, lest government become the instrument of an elite and so even by accident empower our abuse. One thing is sure. Where there is unrest, there is suffering. By constitutional mandate, our government is called to give free voice to our dissent, and to redress whatever injustice may lay at the heart of outcry. (Note: Special interest lobbying, to the extent that it pulls government's ear from the concern for the broader constituency, can work tragically to sway government and our representatives from their express responsibility for our collective welfare. 7 - "Securing the Blessings of liberty for ourselves" is a clear call for government to guard our civil rights. Without this, government might be given to divisive purposes, and accomplishing division, whether racial or otherwise, sanction intimidation, and other policies of abuse. Securing our liberty works to enable and embolden our dialogues, our dissent, works to keep government informed on the issues that truly must concern them. Though our civil rights directly limits the power of government, our government has no legitimate authority but to honor them. When our government abridges civil liberties, it clearly steps beyond its designated and constitutional authority. So saying, our government is required to find constitutional remedy for all situations that confront it. To do less is to show their weak regard for constitutional mandates. To do less is to serve the interests of division, not union. The interests of expedience are no excuse. The interests of "necessity" are no excuse. Our government, when it abridges our civil liberties acts with improper authority, acts against our interests. Do not be fooled. Our government is required to find constitutional redress for all matter of challenges that face it. Failing this, they merely show their ignorance. Finally, the blessings of liberty are easily recognized in our confidence, confidence in government, confidence in our civil liberties, and so confidence in the life within us. 8 - "And our posterity." Our government is asked here to govern with consideration for the long-term consequences of its policy and legislation, to be far seeing, to govern wisely, and so to protect also our future. With this phrase our founding fathers made provision for what were at the time perhaps inconceivable threats to our liberty, threats to the breathability of our air, the drinkability of our water, the arability of our soil, but also threats to the abundance of ocean and forest life and to the natural habitat of this our humanity. The government's constitutional charge to protect the liberty of our posterity is by direct implication a charge to protect our habitat from contamination and abuse, regardless of whether that abuse is naive or conscious. To secure the blessings of liberty for future generations, we must certainly maintain a habitable environment for that liberty. There is another important implication here. Subsequent to the 9-11-01 terrorist attacks it is clear that superior weaponry, even massive intelligence, is no replacement for good relations. The continuing trouble in Iraq has pressed the point. Our future liberty does not, as we had thought, depend on massive military efforts, nor on the fleeting sympathy of dictatorships. Our future liberty, in light of such attacks and difficulty, clearly requires the peace of other nations. Government, to truly protect our liberty and our future liberty, cannot in any confidence side with policies or regimes that neglect the interests of their constituency and breed unrest and hostility, regardless of even tantalizing opportunities to "profit." At last it is clear, in the interest of our liberty, and our future liberty, the peace of nations is of ultimate priority. Note: Given a long history of policy to the contrary, this may seem a startling, even disconcerting proposition, the third section considers foreign policy more thoroughly, and will hopefully both address and ease your apprehensions. This then a brief summary of the precepts of democratic government, and the reasons we empowered it those years ago. Together they speak to the spirit of Democracy in America. They work to shape and guard a concern that is profoundly wholesome. Our President, our Legislators, our Justices are under oath to honor and to uphold them. While these charges of government are specifically American, because they are so succinct and embracing, they have become a model to Democracies the world over. It is natural that Americans are proud of them. THESE VALUES WORK TOGETHER The indignation of our founding fathers was the source of great inspiration. Their working together through indignation, in an effort to secure the blessings of liberty for an entire Nation, forged a most brilliant consensus in our Constitution. These principles are not negotiable. Nor can they stand alone. To compromise any one principle compromises the integrity of the whole, in this case the health and wellbeing of a nation. An example: A lack of justice is exactly a failure to promote the general welfare and will disturb domestic tranquility. It divides society, threatens liberty, disrupts our more perfect union, and further diverts government its express and constitutional responsibilities. Government's ability to understand and to uphold these principles is the exact measure of our wellbeing. Just as a plant needs sunlight, arable soil, water, and appropriate climate, all of these in proportion in order to flourish, our welfare depends on government balancing interests. Again, these values harbor us. They stand in no particular order. When one is threatened, they all are threatened. And the society that they would protect, the life of that society is threatened. These principles were exactly meant to guide us through times of adversity. And so meeting adversity, we are called to return to those principles that will guide government, and our nation toward more perfect union. THESE VALUES WORK AS A FOIL These values as presented in the Constitution also work as a foil. You can take proposed legislation (another responsibility of government) and know whether it is in our interests by how it satisfies these eight constitutional criteria. Legislation that benefits the few and undermines the more general welfare is both corrupt and corrupting. Such legislation disturbs domestic tranquility, creates division, and suffering and indignation. It is unwholesome, and it is also unconstitutional. Our Constitution is not intended to serve any interests that break with constitutional precepts. And so working solely in the interests of financial benefit is to misunderstand the charges of government as laid out by our morally brilliant and indignant founding fathers. Simply, our concern must be for human dignity, for human welfare, and so for justice and our ensuing tranquility. Sadly, American and government confusion and indifference over the principles meant to unite us leaves us treacherously divided, swimming in a sea of opportunism, besieged or chased by necessity. Naive to constitutional mandates, American policy is now working to compromise civil liberty, and to limit and discourage dissent. Of course such policy divides us. It also makes us increasingly vulnerable. Such humanitarian precepts are not meant to be just moralizing. Humanitarian precepts prioritize human wellbeing. And human wellbeing is now well within the reach of a society so dedicated. ON CONSCIENCE Conscience traces to the Latin, con meaning with, and scio, to know, hence science. Know comes to us through the Anglo Saxon, but in German and Icelandic, means literally to be able, hence can, I can. Knowledge, by definition, enables us. If knowledge does not enable us, it is not knowledge. Conscience being with science is also enabling. If we are not enabled, if we are giving in to the authority of others, then we are not acting with conscience. Conscience is defined as "the faculty, power, or principle within us, which decides on the rightness, wrongness, of our own actions and affections." By definition then, it is scientific. By definition also it is personal. Conscience is personal science. As science, conscience is based in clear and willing observation. Also as science, it is given to careful consideration and discernment. As science, conscience may reason to precepts. But also as science, it returns to careful observation, and by careful I do not mean cautious nor prejudicial observation, I mean careful, full of care, undaunted. This is the life of conscience. Again, it is a unique and personal process within each of us. Conscience is natural in any being with senses and intelligence. And so conscience is natural in humanity. Being conscious, and so observant, it becomes informed by humanity. Indeed conscience is ultimately the life of humanity inside each of us. From conscience the precepts that guide action are born. From conscience the principles that guide reason are born. But any precepts or principles that in arming us, steel us to continued and clear observation, and so further consideration and future hypothesis, steal us from regard for humanity, and so from conscience. A life within the constraints of personal conscience is exactly what civil liberties enable in us. Recognizing this, founding fathers found the courage to conceive our Democracy, and so a unique system of government that would enable, even encourage the life of conscience within each of us. ON FREEDOM Freedom is a word we use with great frequency. But it means completely "without physical or moral restraint." Those who call for freedom and do not in any way qualify it are, by definition, immoral, and given to behavior that is unconscientious. Still, the word freedom has a great tradition in this country. The slaves were freed from slavery. Our country won its freedom from England. Immigrants from all over the world have come to America to escape persecution, even genocide, in their own countries. Freedom then speaks directly to our breaking out or away from some oppression or misery. As such, freedom is fresh, is wonderful. But like a prisoner feeling his arms at last unbound, it says nothing of the next step. If a man continues such, "without physical or moral restraint," he will become abusive. Using the word freedom, we describe our relief. Where it describes subsequent activity, it is entirely reckless. Such freedom has finally no business in a human context. Our actions have consequences and we need to be alert to those consequences. We are not free to kill, to maim, to torture, nor to act recklessly and so endanger others. No. The interests of freedom, without consideration and restraint, are mere license to abuse. In the Constitution, our founding fathers used the word liberty - not freedom - to describe our natural entitlement and what government was established to secure for us. We need to be very clear on this. Without a distinction between freedom and liberty, civil liberty, abusive purposes are set on equal footing with more inclusive purposes. In such context, those who would be considerate will be simply run over by more reckless and impulsive decision-makers. No. The interests of mere freedom have worked to compromise ideas of justice, to deprioritize our general welfare, and to leave us individually and as a nation, more vulnerable. To think about it, the word "freedom" sounds like a gong, or a dinner bell. It's come and get it, it's first come, first serve, and if you're too late, that's your fault. In contrast, the word "liberty" has the "er" syllable, a stutter, a consideration in it. Liberty bumps into another soul and says excuse me. We will all of us have many experiences of freedom in our lives. But after the exhilaration and relief of freedom, we return to our senses. Freedom as such is transformed through awareness into liberty, civil liberty, and this is fortunate. DISTINGUISHING MORALITY FROM ETHICS Using morality and ethics as synonyms has also worked to obscure an essential difference between them. Our word Morality, from the Latin cognate mos, moris, mores, refers to ideas of what is appropriate behavior. Morals, being personal, are held with personal conviction. As such, they may be felt to be indisputable. As such morals can become morose, also from mos, moris, "of sour temper; severe, sullen, austere." Moral justice, when pressed to extreme, can take a very dim view of humanity. Ethics, in contrast, is a word taken from the Greek, and Greece had a Democracy. While Cicero coined the word mores to be the synonym for ethics, ethics in modern usage are reasoned and reasonable, the "science of duty." Ethics do not presume justice, they reason it. In this way they might seem a synonym for conscience, but conscience is by definition personal. Ethics in our modern context concern the due process of the law. They also concern democratic process, and so to the process by which government becomes informed and remains representative. Ethics are concerned with process. Using morality and ethics as synonyms, we cannot easily distinguish our individual right to imagine justice from the collective process that keeps justice reasonable. Using morality and ethics as synonyms means the interest of the individual or the collective are easily neglected. ON MORALITY WITHOUT ETHICS Moralists, being shut down to the process of dialogue, will see their enemies, not as bad ideas, but as bad people. Their policies are characterized by blame and accusation. Throughout history, moralists have divided people, and sanctioned both ethical and moral abuses. As such, moralists work to champion their assumptions based in division and entitlement. They are given to distain, and so to persecution, war, even genocide, so also to conquest and empire. Moralists who are blind or indifferent to the perversity or injustice in their assumptions, will use reason only to justify their prejudice. To moralists I would say: Isn't dismissing some people, and so straying from the interests of our most general and real welfare to presume to know better than God did creating us. Are not our senses, and so also doubt, reason and consideration also god given. Simply morality without ethical consideration is like painting your colors on a wild bull then loosing it. Such does easily more harm then good. ON ETHICS WITHOUT MORALITY Ethics without concern for morality is also entirely dangerous. Are we seeing this for the first time? While it encourages policies of fairness, when it is unprincipled, it also lacks consideration. Ethics stray on the side of blind, unchecked and heartless tolerance. Ethics then become a mere formality, toothless and unprincipled protocols. Without honest dissent and so admitting personal convictions, sentiments and opinion, without real address and dialogue, ethics, ostensibly in the interests of fairness, give malice equal footing beside the interests of consideration. In this way ethics build the pen that hold the people and the bull. And so a policy of mere considerateness, without consideration, works to leave threats to our general welfare unnamed and unchallenged. In this way ethics also fail to protect us. THEIR LIFE, ONCE UNDERSTOOD, TOGETHER Morals are born in the inner sanctum, are individual and certainly what ethics give license to. Ethics tend to be situational, demanding patience, and so they work, also in the interests of justice, to check, and to temper morality. Still they are not entirely unsympathetic. The moral "thou shalt not kill" for instance, can be reasoned from a collective sensibility or taken on faith. Alternately, the will to justice can be both considerate and held as conviction. Any precept can live in us as both gut feeling and aspiration. I do believe that a moral stance that is open to dissent and dialogue, will, with such consideration becomes more informed, and so more ethical. Similarly an ethical stance that is not mere tolerance and lip service, and so open to dialogue, will also become more informed, and so more moral. When they are static however, when they are without sympathy, are fixed, or indifferent, they lose their humanity. Simply, ethics and morality, when not premised in concern for justice, and the general welfare, will merely sanction abuse. Just as a tree to be a tree, requires both canopy and roots, we as individuals and a society must remain informed by morality and ethics. Without both we do not even begin to enter into consideration, or dialogue. Without both, our dissent is either refused or disregarded. Personal convictions must be tempered by public consideration. And public consideration must be tempered by personal conviction. Only in this way will we begin to truly dialogue. Democracy, as does justice, tranquility, our common defense, our general welfare, depends on such dialogue. Without dialogue there is no negotiating, and there is no real progress. Without dialogue we will reach utter standoffs, as we have now, and tend in international affairs to war and not diplomacy. Without dialogue the voices of the people reduce to chatter. ON BALANCING INTERESTS Again, we are not speaking here of simply championing one interest or another. We are speaking of balancing interests. American government and our justice system especially are charged with understanding this. Confusion in this regard has lead to neglect. Only by understanding the difference between ethics and morality, between freedom and liberty, only by admitting the value of conscience will we even recognize the issues that concern us. And only in this way can government even begin to meet the responsibilities of guardianship as laid out in the Preamble of our Constitution. Incidentally, while truth comes from the Sanskrit "dru" meaning fixed, the word for fixed ideas is dogma. LEST PREJUDICE BREED CONTEMPT Policy or opinion that disrespects humanity is based in contempt for humanity and will breed contempt. Take a moment please to consider this. Our assumptions about each other and ourselves, about humanity even, are potentially a grave source of limitation. If we are not willing to examine these assumptions, we are not going to be able to adjust our thinking and come to a more inclusive view. IN SUMMARY Again, I believe we all feel that our future together is threatened. Our dissent is merely over the source of that threat. If government does its job, our fears will be eased, concern for justice and fairness will unite us, concern for our welfare will unite us, and people throughout our nation will find themselves encouraged in the work that liberty proposes. Again: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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." With such simple and powerful language it is to wonder how we could ever stray. Perhaps you already have your ideas. But this is my proposition, that we have strayed from our Constitution, and that we are suffering because of it, feeling a threat in seemingly irreconcilable dissent at home, and in global instability, and now terrorism, and possible nuclear holocaust. It is my hope that a refreshed consideration of fundamentals will make our dissent and our dialogue both more relevant and more fruitful. I hope also that you will take what seems obvious in what follows as simple reassurance, and that what may seem controversial will move you beyond affront and indignation to voice your dissent and to dialogue. It seems now most important that we put blame, name-calling, and other accusations aside to come together on the issues that face us. Before continuing, a brief description of our particular form of Democracy may be relevant. ON DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC In a true Democracy, each citizen would vote directly on all subjects. Founding fathers, seeing that this in the new world would be difficult if not impossible, chose to seat the responsibility of government in the hands of a selected few. I do believe it was their hope that such persons, elected through democratic process, or appointed by those elect, would by virtue of their privilege be better able to serve the interests of the people without treachery. It is a hope that our Senators, our Congressmen, our President and our Judiciary, in a Democratic Republic, are especially qualified, especially conscientious, and so especially capable of protecting our nation from the abuses that freedom unchecked by conscience gives license to. Without vigilance to constitutional mandates, the privilege of office will easily joins the interests of the few. Doing so they may even inadvertently distain true justice, disrupt domestic tranquility, and neglect the general welfare. Without vigilance to constitutional mandates, we are loosed into a sea of opportunism. Moralists, though speaking boldly, will appeal merely to our prejudice, and ethics will be lost. No. Our government is charged and entrusted with the respect and guardianship of the citizenry. Constitutional principles work to ensure this. The Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, also work to ensure this. PART 2: THE PRECEPTS OF CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY APPLIED TO DOMESTIC POLICY The most of our preamble is concerned with domestic issues, with justice, our tranquility, our general welfare, and our liberty. Even our common defense describes our law enforcement, and federal regulatory agencies. Indeed these express concerns together give a sense of what justice in America is to be. And so in the interests of justice, tranquility, our common defense, our general welfare, and our liberty, indeed, in the interests of more perfect union, let us turn to domestic policy, and consider some policies that may stray fundamentally from constitutional precepts. First though, ON DISSENT In the interests of enabling the dialogue that will guide us through adversity, and mend our union, let us not confuse our natural proclivity for dissent for some sort of nascent form of terrorism. Dissent is essential to Democracy, and accommodating dissent essential to good government. The word dissent means to differ in opinion or sentiment. By such definition, dissent is natural. Our marriages, our families, our friendships and alliances all to be healthy must accommodate dissent. Recognizing and addressing dissent keeps a government representative. Dissent alone though is not enough. As we are seeing, mere dissent is static, unproductive. For our dissent to be productive, dialogue must ensue. In this way misunderstanding can be rectified, misinformation dispelled, and prejudice redressed. In this way we can move past differences in opinion and sentiment toward more thorough understanding. Only with sincere dialogue, and faith in dialogue, will we ever reach satisfying and meaningful consensus. MAKING DISSENT MORE INTELLIGIBLE It is my feeling that people often assume to understand each other when actually they do not. In some cases, this can be traced to the fact that they don't share an understanding of commonly used terms. For dissent to be meaningful, we must give clear voice to our differences. With that in mind, I propose a series of definitions and distinctions to clarify our terminology and so our dissent. THE DANGERS OF LIBERALISM Taking a liberal view, with may not fully appreciate dangerous conflicts of interest, nor recognize values, that when overvalued, are antagonistic to the precepts of constitutional democracy and so threaten our welfare. Specifically I am speaking of notions of profit completely divorced from accountability. I am speaking of the proposition that while government and people should be regulated, business as in "free market," and "free enterprise," should be left to regulate itself. There has been a very longstanding effort to persuade Americans that profiteering is appropriate to Democracy. That market forces would work to keep industry honest. This is proving untrue. What follows may startle you, but given the deteriorating state of the nation, we must move past alarm, past fear, past judgment and blame. Given the deteriorating state of the union, we must look very directly at the principle at stake. A great deal of the struggle for understanding and loyalty goes right to the language of Democracy, language that, when not well understood, can work to cloak divisive purposes with the air of legitimacy. Freedom is a perfect example of a popular word whose first meaning is simply without moral restraint. This is of course ridiculous. To give naive license to unqualified freedom is like signing a contract without reading it, or making up your shopping list with your favorite words instead of what you actually want or need. Let us then look very carefully at the language we are so fond of, and see what it actually describes, and so what we are contract to. DEFINING PROFIT The original sense of the word profit comes from the Latin noun profectus - progress, increase, and the verb proficio - to advance, to improve. These senses of the word are actually quite consistent with the interests of our general welfare. More recently, the word "profit" has come to refer exclusively to money and the acquisition of wealth. Money may buy essentials, but if the value is life, then money is no end in itself. People who think only about money are working in ways that do not necessarily promote the general welfare. They may be forgetting what is essential here - the requirements of human life. Again, using the word profit to describe only financial benefit turns our natural concern for progress away from the subject of the general welfare and so from real improvement. Such a reduction of meaning works to lower our standards, and our expectations. Certainly, accepting such a notion of profit makes true progress, true benefit, and so higher or more mutual aspirations seem complicated, less essential, more debatable. The other problem is in accepting such a definition for profit, we may see lots of "progress," lots of "advancement," lots of "profit" and stray from concern for our general welfare. CONCERN FOR THE ECONOMY REPLACES CONCERN FOR THE GENERAL WELFARE If we accept economic theories as presented, then it is clear to see how our concern for the general welfare might be replaced by a concern for the profitability of business. The economy is blamed when things are difficult, but how much better are they when the economy is actually doing well? And for whom? Do we see better mass transit, cleaner air, better water treatment, improved education and after school programs? Do we see real and sustainable improvements, or do we see record profits that only benefit shareholders, and not those people who merely invest their lives. No. The economy is not synonymous with the general welfare, and if government works only to promote a robust economy, they neglect the actual needs of the citizenry. It stands to reason that those concerned only with the economy would need to justify such policy as consistent with constitutional precepts. They do. ECONOMIC THEORIES DISPUTE THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF GOVERNMENT The first theory that deserves consideration is popularly termed "the trickle down theory" of economics. This theory proposes that giving money and tax breaks to the rich eventually benefits everybody (and so implicitly satisfies governments obligation to promote the general welfare). True or not, this theory states that government not directly assist the poor but instead assist industry, and leave the responsibility of providing for the general welfare to private interests. A second theory proposes that government spending on welfare and other social programs hurts productivity. People alarmed by such a statement are perhaps presuming that economic productivity and the health of the people are synonymous. As we are beginning to see, they are not. The economy has to do with money, with business profiting and people buying goods. There can be a gravely indigent population and the economy can still appear productive. Importantly, what these theories share is that they both discourage government from working directly to promote the general welfare. In fact, both theories propose that government better serves the people by spending tax money promoting industry. An enormous amount of money has gone into corporate incentive programs and into the military industries while more direct public services like public health, education, and affordable housing are increasingly debatable - and this, despite the language of our Constitution, despite government's explicit responsibility under our Constitution to promote the general welfare. Clearly, though the Constitution empowered government to promote the general welfare, Industry, wanting their independence, began work immediately to define our welfare in such a way that our wellbeing might seem synonymous with its own. While there are a number of problems that arise from false synonyms, simply, when profit is taken from communities and not returned, it does not benefit us. Indeed, such profit, however remarkable, by definition, is indifferent to humanity, its suffering, its needs. Let us look then at specific implications with allying with such interests. BY SUCH REASONING, SOME AGITATION IS PREFERABLE TO TRANQUILITY The theory that government spending on social programs hurts productivity has always sounded counter-intuitive. It's like assuming you need to whip a horse to make it run. This may be true if you are trying to get the horse to run in a direction it doesn't like. So also, if you are trying to get people to act against their better instincts, you will need to agitate, even threaten them. Government that disregards the welfare of the neediest not only breaks with their direct responsibility for promoting the general welfare, they also disrupt domestic tranquility. The implication of the economic principle supports this. Failing to meet needs absolutely directly, suggests that some domestic agitation and not tranquility is necessary for workers to be productive. Yet, to agitate and not ease the suffering of the general population is both unwholesome and unconstitutional. It also counters intelligence. Just as a healthy man has more strength, more stamina, more presence of mind, a whole society of such individuals is clearly more capable than a society of the sickly or the strained. Eased of stresses, people are also more relaxed, more discerning, and less likely to swim against the stream of conscience, regardless of the incentives or "opportunities." HOW INCENTIVES MIGHT REDUCE TO THREATS Incentive comes to us through the Latin incentivus meaning striking up or leading a melody. By such definition, incentives are quite ethical, but without moral connotation. Incentives are rated by their effectiveness. As such promises of reward are equal to threats against ones life or family. Still, just as we do not confuse violence with encouragement, let us not confuse working for under anxious conditions for absolute necessities, with working with some sense of assurance, wellbeing, and enthusiasm. Simply, food, shelter, clothing and health are critical. The denial of these poses a real and obvious threat to our welfare. If there is no assurance of our basic needs being reasonably met, then incentives become threats. This is great for dog training, but while it may create loyalty, it will also stir anxiety among a people. Incentive programs may feel no compunction about stirring our anxiety. Certainly, the worse off people feel, the more incentive they will feel, regardless of moral or ethical compunctions, to act obediently. Still, this amounts to the utter loss of liberty. Indeed, as our options shrink, we might feel as if backed to the cliff's edge, and so forced to jump or to participate completely regardless of conscience. This is certainly not the liberty founding fathers imagined for us. There must be offered some recourse, some basic assurance to all citizens, some safety net. We must be at liberty not merely to select among opportunities. We must be at liberty to stand for justice, and the principles that will keep government and industry civilized. That there is so much stress in our society is a clear indication that, despite statistics, many people are not feeling at all tranquil or reassured. The government may be pointing at liberals, they may be pointing at al-Qaida, and Iraq, may point at non-Christians, but this is to side step their true and constitutional responsibility for our protection and welfare. If we go back to its original sense, an incentive is the happy feeling (song) we bring to working. As such, the only real incentive is good morale. And good morale is serving willingly, serving gladly. If we break with the interests of justice in that servitude, if we break with conscience, our morale will suffer. MORE ON THE THREATS TO JUSTICE AND TO LIBERTY Incentives can be used to boost production, but they are also meant to boost morale. The word morale is the French equivalent of moral. Morale, as it is used these days, is considered important among troops. As such it means glad or enthusiastic obedience. To describe American civilians with bad morale is to say first that they are unhappily obedient. But beyond this, it suggests that they are acting in some way immorally. You may laugh, but follow the logic - it is most compelling. When morale is low, it is because we are working under duress, and our faith is challenged. Who do we blame? The economy, employers, neighbors, other "races," "Washington," the system, our parents, or perhaps terrorists in the Middle East? Remember we are a society at liberty, a society who's liberty is protected by government. Remember, in America we are finally one race, the race of all mankind. The subject here isn't blind and willing obedience. We cannot, in a just society, be required to break with consideration for our collective welfare. In America, when we come against injustice, or immoral authority, we have the constitutional right to dissent. Simply, in America, our obedience must be conditional, or we have no liberty whatsoever. ON "FREE ENTERPRISE" "Free Enterprise" has been the rallying cry of industry for some years. It is quick to see how the call for "free enterprise" might work to embolden dishonorable business practices. Remember, free means literally without moral restraint. Again, just as individuals are kept by laws and conscience, industry and corporations must also be kept by laws and conscience. When, in the reach for profit, industry works to threaten or distress the general population, there must be serious consequences. Remember, we are not a free society, but a society conscribed by civil liberties, and so acting within the constraints of law and conscience. In our national interest, new law must be written to thoroughly discourage industry abuses. Industry must also feel leashed to real concern for the consequences of its actions to our welfare and the environment. It is time to see that profitism, naive to citizen well being and unconstrained by conscience, is ill suited to Democracy and an otherwise more ethical society. ONE IDEA OF THE "FREE MARKET" One idea of the free market is that market forces, i.e. the intelligence of consumers, works to regulate business and keep it ethical. If consumers are undiscerning, then industries can run rampant. But also, if government sides with the interests of industry, then regulation can limit the liberty of consumers, and so the checks on industry. We as consumers can actually be forced to buy the products of industry regardless of our moral, personal, or ethical stipulations. This takes real choice away from the consumer, turns the "free market" into a forced market. Why do we still use the term? Simply because "free market" is the darling phrase of capitalist economists, who would take responsibility for their regulation out of the hands of government and ostensibly place it in our hands. Doing such may seem democratic, but such is naive. Siding with such interests, our government forgoes its responsibility to protect us. HOW MARKET FORCES WORK TO CONSOLIDATE, NOT "FREE" A MARKET Competition is the word economists use to describe a quality of healthy marketplaces. People presume that competition ensures both a higher quality of products, and fair pricing. But competition alone does not guarantee a healthy marketplace. Underlying the value of competition is the necessity of diversity, diversity of both products and suppliers. Such diversity is essential. It informs competition perhaps the same way dissent informs government. As an example, consider the media industry. If we have five media conglomerates, we may have competition, but they may be huge conglomerates, rich enough to own the means of production, powerful enough to silence opposition, and to keep new voices from reaching the market. GOVERNMENT FAVOR ALSO DISTORTS THE "FREE MARKET" Again, consider the media industry. Any favor media conglomerates secure from government legislation and so from regulatory agencies, in this case the FCC, only makes them wealthier, more protected, and increases their influence. Such legislation, by helping to consolidate ownership of media, works to further stifle Democracy, to restrict public avenues of dissent, to suppress dialogue, and to sink control of our media deeper into the hands of private interests. Clearly government siding with such particular interest groups interferes with the market. It also interferes with Democracy and democratic process, shutting itself off from the voices to which it was to be most beholden. This is just an example of how excessively powerful private interests competing for tax dollars and legislative favors actually undermine Democracy, diverting public resources from our welfare and government from the business of protecting us. But the problem of market consolidation as regards media and the subsequent loss of meaningful avenues of dissent is grave. Anytime a private interest becomes too powerful, by its very nature it subjugates our welfare. Finally, competition, far from keeping markets open or healthy, will work to consolidate the market and drive out competitors. So long as consumers can be kept distraught, undereducated, and ill informed, forces of consolidation will run entirely unchecked. Government protections and encouragements can also work to support market consolidation. Such consolidation may serve the interests of wealth and profit, but it does not serve the people and it does not serve Democracy. It is clear finally that cut-throat competition will eventually breed just one big hungry fish. No. Diversity is essential. PRIVATE INTERESTS ARE NOT PUBLIC INTEREST Private interest by definition seeks personal gain. This makes for personal progress, but certainly does not in any way speak to progress in a collective sense of the word. Defining all profit as economic, is to excuse private interests from public consideration. Bottom line economics press industries to cut production costs in order to show profit and pay shareholders. If such economics are unscrupulous, they may deeply disturb our welfare and the environment in their reach for profit. Make no mistake in this. Private interest is no synonym for public interests. Indeed, the unaccountability of private interests only makes them dangerous. Certainly, no government satisfies its obligation to promote the general welfare solely by promoting private industry or corporations. Furthermore, private industry that is too profitable by this definition necessarily stresses the greater population for it accumulates wealth that otherwise might directly infuse our communities. By inference, a government that facilitates the unqualified growth of private industry not only fails to promote our welfare, they actually disturb it. Such policy works to dim the future for all of us. IN THIS LIGHT, PRIVATIZATION The current movement to "privatize" America's public services works to place those services in jeopardy, removing them from the ethical constraints to which both individuals and government are bound. Such a policy gives industry more access to citizen tax dollars, creating opportunities for say campaign contributors to profit, but profit seeking in our public service programs is perverse. We must not allow industry, however favorable their relations with the elect, to raid public coffers. Again, private interests in their unchecked dedication to profit, diverge from concern for the community. The image is of spoiled children, overprotected and underregulated. Industry has yet no clear obligation to the general welfare, and so it blithely strays from any public responsibility. If government privatizes our public services, the public will inevitably suffer. There must be no confusion about this. Our government acts against our public interest and so our Constitution to pass off its public responsibilities to the weakly regulated private sector. IN THIS LIGHT, LOBBYING Our government is here for us, for all of us, here to ensure tranquility, to promote our general welfare, to protect us. The voices that should concern government are not just the voices of industry. The voices that should concern government are the voices of the distressed, and the voices of service and innovation. To the extent that corporate interests interfere with the real business of government, they have no business in Washington. Indeed, dressing the interests of profit in the language of democracy works to dress the wolf in sheep's clothing. It is not clear that business, given its lack of regulation, has any right whatsoever to beg the ear of government and so turn government from the interests of our collective wellbeing. Let the citizens represent their own interests. Furthermore, government, when awarding contracts should keep clear in their minds the value of diversity, respecting the real interests of the general welfare and real progress, and not the mere interests of "profit." ON OPPORTUNITY DISTINCT FROM OPPORTUNISM Opportune comes to us through the Latin opportunis literally "offering a port or harbor." Opportunity comes from opportunitas, and means "fit of convenient time or occasion; a time favorable for the purpose; a suitable time, combined with other favorable circumstances. Opportunity suggests that we are each entirely capable, that the purpose is ours, that we await only the right time, favorable circumstances. In a "profit" based society, our individual purposes are torn from us, and replaced by "profit.". Opportunity, a huge proposition, becomes in opportunities are strictly limited to "profit" and to wealth and the esteem we hold for it. Consider definition of opportunism here: Opportunism means "the practice of turning opportunities to advantage; a political attitude dispensing with a fixed and moral program, merely waiting for something to turn up to be utilized for immediate service." Notice particularly the "dispensing" with a . . . moral program. The word "opportunity" is open handed, awaits fortuity. The word opportunities works do define and so narrow the field. Again, opportunity comes from opportune, offering port or harbor and so offering haven for our humanity, real progress. Opportunities, once defined, lose flexibility and so sensitivity to our actual circumstances. Once opportunities are defined, they systematically neglect us. We may need many things, we may want for many things, but this is now incidental. We are forced to play the game, and the game is for "profit." Doing so, we are promised that our needs will be met. Such a game threatens to whittle all its players to mere opportunists. THE CALL TO CONSCIENCE Given the disparaging modern use of the word "opportunity," it is natural to feel some reservation regarding opportunities that are offered us. While reservation may be discouraged in us, may be considered a weakness, may be bullied by confidence men, it is merely the experience of conscience. I imagine the great majority of us are given to opportunism with reservation, intuitively sensing its perversion. If we deny the natural doubt in us, if we give ourselves too quickly to false assurances, we may also give ourselves glibly to the task of convincing others. There are many especially persuasive voices among us. Some of the loudest actually threaten us. Others will use reason. Still, though they exude confidence, what is their confidence based on? Do they argue from division and entitlement? Or do they argue from a faith in all mankind, and so a faith in democracy? Do they move you to love your neighbor or to hate him? These are the questions you might ask in conscience. And once given to conscience, other people can no longer answer for you. Once given to conscience, the answers are born out of your own natural and heartfelt consideration. And the continuing experience of conscience will continue to inform them. ON HAPPINESS, ITS PURSUIT NA�VE TO JUSTICE Happiness comes to us from the Old English happ, meaning luck. The dream of happiness then is the want for a lucky feeling, whatever conditions we might place on it. Some of our happiness has been long tied to the interests of personal "profit," and so based in notions of personal and not collective entitlement. The more furtively we tie our happiness to opportunistic notions of profit, the more fiercely we must also neglect the consequences of distrust and poverty that it stirs around us. Failing to see such adversity as fair challenge to our assumptions, we will move to simply protect our increasingly vulnerable "happiness." This of course inflates hostilities, and increases feelings of adversity and animosity. Continuing to act from such unexamined assumptions regarding our happiness, we will reason no recourse but violence, or total subjugation. Still, having spoken mostly of the abuse to others that such accepted policy entitles. Here let us consider the disenfranchisement that also comes along with such reasoning. There is another way such reasoning becomes unreasonable People who resort to opportunism, will sanction increasingly unethical behavior, and reduce the pursuit of happiness to the pursuit of hollow consolations. Straying from the interests of justice, they will also break with faith in humanity, and with the process of conscience. Of course people wish to live, but wishing to live in such a society, they may see no option but to compromise, join ranks, and settle for resort (opportunism) and its consolations (money and or power). The rich may take consolation in their wealth, in their influence, in raising children. The working class may take consolation in meeting basic needs and raising children. As it turns out, the diagnosed depressed are also given to their consolations - in industry drugs. But forsaking humanity, and so finally faith in humanity, we are given to consolations that do little to ease the underlying and ultimately alarming premise that informs them. Continuing our sanction of opportunism, still blind to its inherent cynicism, we will neglect, then disrespect, our poor. But the poor also, failing justice, must seek consolation. and given our failure to offer such, will take it in things we also disapprove of. Sanctioning opportunism is to forsake concern for justice. Our pursuit of happiness reduces to the pursuit of hollow consolations. CONSEQUENCES OF OUR LOSS OF FAITH IN JUSTICE Failing to admit the challenges to conscience that adversity brings us, we fail to address the real source of that adversity. Having forsaken real consideration for justice, we will see justice, if it comes at all, as something that must come from a higher power. Doing so, we can take adversity not as a challenge to conscience, to reasoning, and to faith, but as deserved. Eventually, lacking consolations, we may come to see our difficulties as a sign of our unluckiness, and reason our unworthiness. This is tragic. When a "system" works to favor abuse prone entitlements, it also victimizes people, blaming them individually for what is truly a systemic problem. This widens the gulf between people already separated and so weakened by their unconsidered faith in opportunism. Such people, unable to release their assumptions, will come to see in what might have been a learning process, a series of failures. Indeed, forsaking conscience for mere obedience, we forsake the learning process that informs conscience. People who give in to obedience, who give up regard for their own intelligence and so conscience, give up on learning also. Our mental health system may be inadvertently participating in this. Failing to recognize in mental illness the natural alarm that presses us all, failing again to fully consider the roots of such adversity, indeed denying their validity, Doctors see no recourse but in medication. A number of such citizens are popularly called disabled, but there are also a number of people considered highly functional, that are also on medication. This may be to the great profit of drug companies. Still, while such policy may be welcomed by both drug companies and people who seek some consolation, such policy is not treatment. However welcome the distraught may be to medication, it ultimately only weakens them, feeding their insecurity, and further separating, even alienating them from the energy that well guided might be transformed into alert, and bring them to their senses. DIRE CONSEQUENCES This has graver implications than may be evident. While opportunism may wear a cloak of justice, people, all people, are given to natural intelligence. And by intelligence I mean from the Latin again inter, between, and lego, to choose or pick, hence to choose or pick between. While some choices are perhaps more obvious, say between a good fruit and a rotten one, others are more abstract, by which I mean essential. Any veil placed over a bad choice will eventually wear thin. Finally, policy, based in prejudice, that neglects the real welfare of the people, and the interests of justice, if it does not turn them to outrage, will turn people from hope of justice and wellbeing. In this way, people will be turned from any respect for humanity whatsoever. It may seem to some a good strategy and well within the interests of obedience and subjugation, to break people from faith in their own conscience and intelligence. But this will ultimately have dire consequences. Faith in humanity, and faith in our own intelligence, these are what truly civilize us. When people break with faith in the goodness and entitlement of our species, when people break with faith in personal conscience, when they break with faith in intelligence and their ability to choose even, they break with something very close, if not identical, to sanity. The result of a policy of subjugation, and its demands for mere obedience, however ultimately empowered, is utter madness. Finally, fear only works to quell a people until, reasoning from their own innate and natural feelings of entitlement, they will have nothing left to lose. Are we not seeing this already? Principles, and so assumptions are very, very powerful. All thinking proceeds from them. If we reason from prejudice, we will merely justify that prejudice and entitle abuse. It is therefore essential that we consider our assumptions, our prejudices, and return to principles that will sustain us. Only in this way do we break with patterns of thinking that betray us. Only in this way will we begin to conceive of, much less reason our more perfect union. MISREPRESENTING "AMERICAN INTERESTS" The term "American interests" works domestically to lump the personal needs of the American population with the corporate desire for profit and expansion. This creates a situation where the appearance of success can come without regard for the expense to the more general welfare. Industry can win some market share, and we, glad to share the glory can rattle our spoons and speak proudly of the companies we work for. But just as there is a difference between working for incentives and working for necessities, there is a difference between working as service and working to profit. A story may illustrate: I met a man who said he drove a steel truck his whole life, was it between Detroit and Washington? He said he thought about getting another job, but knew his job was necessary, that America was counting on him, so he kept it. He drove for the steel industry his whole working life on a subsistence wage and then retired. He was a man of conscience. On his behalf, I would say that his loyalty and dedication are not merely exemplary but speak to the heart of an entire workforce, the workforce, ennobled by Democracy that built this country. Certainly, not all industry is given only to profit. These also, acting in conscience, have built this country. DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE VALUES OF PROFIT AND SERVICE With the devotion of the workforce, industry prospered. But while some Americans were working under duress and with sacrifice to serve industry as if it were their country, other Americans were working to profit with little regard for such sacrifices, working without loyalty to humanity and so solely in the interests of "profit." Not seeing their own turn from the interests of justice and the general welfare, not seeing the finally hollow consolations of such policy, they actually using worker dependency and other market forces to keep wages down and win greater "profits." Put another way, industry was working to profit, even when that profit was unconscionable and came at the direct expense to the workforce, and we, naive to their admitted objectives, were encouraging them. Our workforce under the leadership of industry: this is the marriage that built this country. Still, it is not a wholesome marriage if our purposes are divided. Our workforce loyalty and encouragement has worked to fan a corporate policy of increasingly bottom line economics--a sensibility that values financial profit over the well being of the populace, a sensibility that considers the workforce expendable. Our love of "freedom" worked only to encourage them. Such a marriage, despite our fondness, has all the earmarks of an abusive relationship. Powerful executives have turned now to cheating consumers and shareholders, bankrupting retirement accounts and exporting jobs overseas. It is clear that concerns for profit have outstripped concern for the wellbeing of our communities. It is also clear that our loyalty has been crudely placed. THE NAIVE RESPECT FOR WEALTH Some of the power of wealth comes from our respect for it. Indeed, the rich, the powerful, have become our nobility. We are quick to see it as a sign of success and intelligence regardless of how such profit is won. Still, while some of our wealthy are noble, others have profited quite illegitimately. Certainly, language that works to equate progress with profit may be working to confuse us. Finally, despite language that would cloak the interests of "profit," and so all wealthy with nobility, such categorical admiration is baseless. Such impulsive and undiscerning respect. Respecting wealth, regardless of how that wealth is gained, is naive. It is also dangerous. Such habitual respect may in fact be the gravest weakness in our American spirit, and spirit evidenced in the Preamble, a spirit that in its conception was so clearly conscientious, so clearly principled. When the interests of profit turn finally from the interests of humanity, this is not only unethical, it is demoralizing. It means not only that we labor on behalf of injustice. It means that even the fruits of that labor will not benefit us. What is even more disconcerting is that the interests not of "profit," but of the wealthy might turn from our wellbeing. Let us hope that despite the rules of profit, that the winners are not so bound by cynicism that they have lost faith in humanity altogether. This is another grim effect of demoralizing policy, practices and legislation, that it demoralizes not just the overtly suffering, but our own government, and our wealthy, who might otherwise seek opportunities to help. THE FALSE ASSURANCES OF WEALTH We might imagine that having money, and big cars, big guns, big dogs, big houses even, in elite communities makes us safe, but all our wealth, intelligence and technology didn't stop the 9-11 attacks. The question is: how does it feel to have so much to lose, to keep your guard up? And will you still be gunned down by an angry freeway driver, or mowed down at a drive-through restaurant, or at work? Will you or a friend be bombed at a women's hospital that performs abortions? Will your children get shot down in their high schools? And this to say nothing about the threat of Middle Eastern terrorists. Simply, if our "profit" comes at the expense of the general welfare, this is both unethical, and demoralizing. And a society that is seduced from its concern for justice, then stirred to alarm, is of course a dangerous society. CLEARLY, CONCERN FOR "PROFIT" MUST NOT OUTSTRIP CONCERN FOR THE GENERAL WELFARE The concentration on "profit" and the acquisition of wealth has worked to divide us, to stress the workforce, and to besiege the rich. The truth is that real assurances are community based. A society that is eased of its stresses, not rushed or desperate, where even the impoverished are not mercilessly so, a society who's communities are rich with opportunities for all citizens and their families, this is a truly safer society. ALERT VERSUS ALARM Meeting adversity, moralists may stir us to alarm. Ethicists may stir us to doubt. What is actually required of us is alert, and so a full consideration of the circumstance of that adversity. Our enemies are not finally people. Our enemies are bad ideas, ideas that break with justice, with liberty, ideas that break our faith, our confidence, that seduce us our natural inclination to conscience. Meeting adversity with alert, we then give it our full attention and consideration. Meeting adversity with alert, we return to the principles of constitutional democracy meant to guide us through adversity. In faith we dialogue, we negotiate. In faith we work toward peaceful resolution. Doing so, we must not let fear overcome us. This is the true call to courage in America. Even fear, when met with faith, works for us, to bring us to full alert. If we are given to conscience, then that conscience will rise in us and bring us to real clarity and to the intelligence that such challenges require of us. This is about the courage to personal conscience, in the interests of justice and liberty. But there is another courage that is equally demanded of us. ON THE COURAGE TO FACE OUR TRUE DIVERSITY Diversity is a word that sounds inclusive. It comes to us through the Latin diversus meaning "different, differing, unalike, not the same." In the interests of diversity we can set racial and other quotas, and this may be helpful. But setting quota's is to understand diversity statistically. Using racial quotas alone, we may satisfy our requirements for diversity. But truly, the interests of diversity, well understood, are never satisfied. Settling will result in mere tokenism. And this will of course fail to represent the breadth of concerns which actually face our minorities. No. Difficult as this may sound, and though the interests of diversity have been advanced by quotas, ultimately diversity is democratic. The call for diversity is indeed a challenge to meet all dissent, and so all differences of opinion and sentiment, gladly. The call for diversity is a call to step beyond racial bias and other prejudices, is a call to engage our entire citizenry, that the real interests of our general welfare can be better known and so addressed. Not incidentally, while a call for diversity may threaten "powers that be," the word "diverse" beautifully describes a peaceful society enriched, not threatened, by dissent. IN SUMMARY With currency, a dollar is a dollar is a dollar. When a dollar gets worn out it is destroyed and a new dollar is printed. This is no model for society. Life is what's important here, life, liberty, conscience and so the pursuit of happiness, not consolation. So long as government presumes that a healthy economy satisfies its responsibilities to the general welfare, private interests will have enormous influence on policy and legislation. Private interests will also wield the power to shape morality, using peoples work dependency to distort their ethics and their conscience. Whether economists are aware of it or not, whether they deceive themselves or us, some business interests have taken great advantage of their privilege. The environment has suffered for it, and the people have suffered for it. Much fresh water is undrinkable, our shorelines poisonous to marine life. Many species of wildlife have become extinct. Many more are threatened. Our atmosphere is increasingly toxic, and our ozone layer thinned. As if that were not enough, nuclear waste has been generated, waste that will require our vigilance for many thousands of years, lest it leach out into the environment and destroy life as we now know it. This is one hell of a legacy to leave our children. Some industries, in their unbridled opportunism, have failed utterly to act conscientiously. Doing so they have strayed from the interests of justice, disturbed the tranquility, demoralized the workforce, and placed our future in jeopardy. Clearly it is time they were regulated. Beyond the law, we in a democratic society must understand the true challenges that adversity presents to us. Let us work gladly, and in good conscience to meet those challenges. Industry and corporations guided by real consideration for our collective welfare, might realize, address and solve the problems of our times, might bring health and wellbeing to all of us, might enhance, even delight our liberty. Yes. Industry and corporations acting gladly under such constraints might seek to maximize benefit, and in so doing, profit not just themselves, but an entire world. PART 3: THE PRECEPTS OF OUR CONSTITUTION APPLIED TO FORIEGN POLICY The Constitution is intended to protect and to serve us all. Our government and our military owe their existence to our Constitution. It stands to reason that they be guided by its principles. Simply, straying from constitutional precepts disturbs the good functioning of government. While this is evidence at home, it is also evidence abroad. But this is cause for alert, not cause for alarm. Recognizing the abuses which straying from constitutional precepts enable What follows is meant to be neither comprehensive nor discouraging. Our power and influence may come from technology and affluence, but our vitality comes from the language of Democracy, and from principles meant to honor humanity and steer government. Only by prioritizing constitutional values do we truly further the cause of Democracy and the humanity it would ennoble. This said, connecting constitutional precepts to foreign policy will help us to recognize and so repair abuses. In reading what follows, be aware that policy for some time has been based on a cynical assessment of human nature. Before going further then, let us consider a predicament of such reasoning. SECTION A: ON THE PRIORITY OF OUR COMMON DEFENSE While our true concern for our common defense clearly includes threats to our general welfare, more popular understanding ties it to our military and the threat of foreign nations. Certainly without protection, our Nation, our Democracy, and so our liberty, might be taken from us. It stands to reason that concern for our common defense would unite us. Still if our common defense reduces to the protection of certain private interests, then the people may still be unconsidered, unguarded, and so vulnerable. Given that the meaning of "the general welfare" is not yet fully appreciated, government may be prone to also neglect our common defense. While this is clearly arguable in regard to domestic policy, let us consider the implications of such policy overseas. HOW THE INTERESTS OF PROFIT MIGHT TURN GOVERNMENT FROM OUR DEFENSE While it is difficult to explain what happened to leave us, despite the massive expenditure on national defense, so vulnerable to attack, there is reason to believe that such a failure is neither unpredictable, nor isolated. Consider the logic. If profit is the highest priority (a reasonable proposition in a capitalist system), concern for humanity, though innate, when faced by the glamour of swelling profits, becomes incidental. That industry is dedicated to profit, and less friendly to worker's needs, this is well documented. But when government joins the cause of industry, government's collusion with profiteers actually works to endanger us. Remember, our government is charged to protect us. If they fail to do so we are left with no protection whatsoever. AS INDUSTRIES' REACH TURNS INTERNATIONAL, GOVERNMENT STRAYS MORE CLEARLY FROM DEFENSE As bad as it is that government might be strayed from concerns for Justice and our protection, it is familiar. Federal regulatory agencies like the FDA, and the EPA, show signs of corruption almost daily, with little apparent consequence. Government fumbling the information that might have protected us from terrorist attack, this is new, unprecedented. The clear problem is that government, allied to now international industries and their concerns, has attached itself to interests so intoxicated with power and its opportunities that they are more and more neglecting our wellbeing. Government, absorbed in dialogue with lobbyists and diplomacy on behalf of such industries, actually dropped the ball on our defense. It is to wonder if they did not see some "profit" to allowing an incident that might move our sentiment to war, regardless of the cost to our welfare? And did they not later choose a war, a preemptive war, did they not admittedly manufacture intelligence to support their objectives, a war in the underdeveloped and extremely oil rich country of Iraq? Continued allegiance to purposes that stray from our wellbeing, will, without even malice, destroy us. Indeed when the interests of profit are unleashed from concern for our general welfare, then, allying to its interests we will suffer. Put differently: if "profit" is the dog, then the people seem like fleas - completely incidental. Our needs will be met by utter neglect, our dissent, and so opinions and our sentiments, will only irritate it. Finally Americans and even America will be expendable in industries now international reach for profit. EVIDENCE OF UNCONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT PRIORITIES Whatever Iraq is, al-Qaida posed an obvious and immediate threat. That we had the intelligence to disrupt the 911 terrorist attacks but didn't put it together shows that defending our Nation from foreign terrorists was not a priority. There is no other explanation - and this despite the direct language of our Constitution and repeated warnings from officials of both current and previous administrations. What was the foreign policy priority if not protecting us? This is a real question, easily answered with investigation, and it deserves our most direct attention. (Note: our policy in Iraq, under the pretext of protecting us, actually stirred more terrorism.) WHERE THE RISKS ATTACHED TO PROFIT ARE UNACCEPTIBLE Profit always comes at some risk; this is accepted wisdom. Let us be wary, lest interest in profit not just agitate us and turn us from concern for our communities, let us be wary lest the interest in "profit" overseas place us all in jeopardy. Again this is about principles, about private interests and public interests, about conflicts of interest and how they threaten us and leave us vulnerable. Until we see the principles involved, we do not fully understand the nature of the threats against us. We have seen how serving the interests of "profit" may turn government from consideration for our welfare and so doing, jeopardize national security and profoundly disturb our tranquility, but WE HAVE NOT YET ADDRESSED THE ROOTS OF OUR NEGLIGENCE Failing to act on information that describes a threat to the lives of Americans, regardless of the reasons for such neglect, is deeply negligent, and I do not believe we have plumbed the depths of the negligence involved. There are few more obvious failures of government than the failure to protect us. That we spend so much of our public dollars on national defense makes such an event even more suspicious. Bluntly, confusion around priorities allows selfish purposes sure footing beside more wholesome purposes. Such confusion has allowed fundamentally unethical and inconsiderate interests to settle into the cradle of civilization, to win our confidence, and to seduce us from genuine concern for our collective welfare. Americans tend to strongly admire wealth, regardless of how it is gained. But without ethical considerations, America's hero's would amount to a bunch of thieves. Encourage such people, people who have no interest in the long or even short term consequences of their actions, people who equate good and profit, who, encouraged by wealth, seek only more wealth, who because of their wealth and separation are indifferent to the suffering of the populace, encourage such thinking, and, like parasites, they will destroy us. No authority that supercedes constitutional mandates is proper authority. No matter their professed sympathy, we cannot afford to be allied to interests ultimately indifferent to the general welfare and so the true common defense. SECTION B: THE PRIORITY OF THE GENERAL WELFARE A second implication of the Preamble applied to foreign policy is that our government in keeping with constitutional precepts, would be concerned with the welfare of citizens of every country. Such a policy, based in high regard for the citizenry, would work to stabilize those countries behind governments that see the value of remaining representative. Startling as this might sound at first, a patient consideration of this thesis should ease apprehensions. Simply, if we would live in a peaceful world, our concern for humanity and the general welfare cannot end at our borders. Given the advent of international terrorism, and the madness that is stirring in our own country, this is ever more clearly the case. There are a number of policies that betray our confusion on this subject and may work to further agitate already struggling foreign populations, and stir hostility. Consider some language that fuels confusion. MISREPRESENTING AMERICAN INTERESTS The term "American Interests" these days typically refers to corporate interests. This works to legitimate them. But our Constitution is written to protect a nation of civilians at Liberty, not corporations. We must be very careful here not confuse civilian liberty with corporate entitlement. Just as private interests must not be confused with public interest, so corporate interests should not be considered American interests, but rather the "interests of some Americans." Increasingly ruthless opportunism is no hallmark for Constitutional Democracy. That the government is comfortable with the term "American interests" as it is used these days demonstrates their continuing naiveté to the conflict of interest that overvaluing financial profit impels. Again and simply, the interests of financial profit, unconstrained, are neither ethical nor constitutional. Also and again, a government that too fondly works to champion the interests of opportunistic industries, enabling such industries to disturb the tranquility of other nations in their reach for wealth, turns from its responsibility to their general welfare, and ours. IRRATIONALIZING DISSENT It is easy to imagine an elite so smug that they dismiss challenges to their authority as groundless, and make no subsequent effort to understand the dissent or indignation that underlies objections. It is easy to imagine people given to ill informed and so finally baseless suspicions who, because of their privilege are never honestly confronted and so never get past their prejudices. If the elite are powerful, and they tend to be, they may habitually impose their views rather than invite the dissent and dialogue that would better inform their opinions. ON THE DANGERS OF NON-NEGOTIABLE FOREIGN POLICY When America adopted a policy of preemptive war in the Middle East, it favored a policy of war to a policy of diplomacy. Acting without rallying the support of other nations, and with haste and false intelligence, we also shook the trust of other nations. This is deeply unfortunate, but to see the real threat, we must consider the principles involved. To choose war over diplomacy is to seek to rule by executive order and not consent. This is authoritarian. It is anti-democratic. Who is honestly surprised when a policy of violence meets violent opposition? If we do not value diplomacy, then the tools for civilization reduce to violence and the threat of violence. Regardless of popular opinion, our military is empowered to provide for the common defense, and it is unclear to what extent this requires hostility. Certainly secrecy in foreign policy may work to entrench old views and to insulate them from the dialogue that would challenge their assumptions. This would leave such people vulnerable to both deep cynicism, and even paranoia. (And paranoia is contagious, especially where obedience is held in high regard, and conscience is weak.) Certainly also, to choose war out of expedience is arrogant, utterly disregards the unspeakable value of life that our government is so clearly charged to protect. Just as we must not forsake Democracy, dissent, and dialogue at home, we must not forsake diplomacy, and so negotiations overseas. The most amazing war machine in history doesn't change this fact. A MOST DISTURBING IMPLICATION The implications of such hard line foreign policy in the nuclear age is most disturbing. Shutting in our defense ministry, shutting off avenues for dissent and dialogue at home, shutting off diplomacy and negotiations overseas in the nuclear age may bring nuclear disaster. Is it not increasingly clear that our foreign policy is becoming paranoid. Current policy suggests that our administration may have reasoned nuclear war as the preferred solution to the threat of nuclear war. While this is perhaps an arguable position, despite the enormous profitability to certain industries, the consequences of such a policy are nothing short of catastrophic. And so, before private interests in collusion with government blithely orchestrate another war, this time dumping quadrillions of our public dollars into a few private accounts, this time creating nuclear holocaust, let us move now, immediately, to remedy the situation. THE SECRET "INTERESTS OF NATIONAL SECURITY" Secrecy is generally invoked in the interests of national security. But, clearly such secrecy has worked to insulate branches of government from the democratic process that would keep them both grounded in concern for our collective welfare, and better informed. Imagine working in a top secret government organization, with fantastically sophisticated technology. Why? Because America needs protection? Which America? With division and not perfect union, that America might easily be the interests of industry.. Of course secrecy, with such now amazing power, will be prone to paranoia anyway. Such secrecy also makes such organizations vulnerable to corruption and abuse. That our government was not especially concerned with the threat of terrorism seems evident. If some part of government under veil of secrecy, has strayed from the interests of our collective protection, it might be easy to say what interests they are protecting by simply perusing their databases. Somebody needs to find out, given that our welfare is so loosely understood, what interests they are protecting when they say "the interests of national security." SECTION C: ON THE PRIORITIES OF JUSTICE AND LIBERTY A third implication of the Constitution on foreign policy is that we, as a nation, would be concerned for the rights to justice and liberty of the citizens of all nations and all peoples of the world. This would be entirely consistent with the peace of nations, on which our own welfare is so clearly dependent. Again, the absolutely unqualified interests of "profit," especially cloaked in secrecy, can easily turn from more wholesome purposes. And again, powerful and unwholesome purposes will disturb the peace of nations and so work against our real welfare and security. SOLDIERS RIGHTS, LIKE CIVIL RIGHTS, ARE HUMAN RIGHTS If the complete suspension of human rights seems reasonable to you now, consider this: Everywhere we suspended soldier's rights as articulated in the Geneva Conventions - in Guantanamo Bay, in Afghanistan, in Iraq and so in Abu Graib - torture, humiliation, even murder ensued. These acts were abominable. They shook our credibility. They bolstered the criticisms of our enemies, they fueled anti-American sentiments around the world, and they shamed us. Let us agree on this, and see through it to the underlying principles at stake. THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF RESPECTING HUMAN RIGHTS Bluntly, a respect for humanity as reflected in the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions is essential to check the power of government. Suspending such rights gives license to those in power to abuse that power. By unleashing our military from the constraints of the Geneva Conventions, government, was it inadvertently, sanctioned torture, abuse, and murder. No policy that devalues human life is at all in our collective interest. Dehumanizing people is abusive. Policy based on inhuman precepts will inevitable lead to abuse. Tampering with the Bill of Rights creates a similar situation where government, under the veil of secrecy, is no longer required to act within the constraints of conscience, and so more easily strays from its obligation to respect and serve the citizenry. Ask yourself - why the secrecy? Such blanket secrecy may be inappropriate to Democracy, unleashing government and its employees from both public interest and accountability. WHERE AMERICA LOST THE WAR ON TERROR Consequent to the 911 disasters, rather than openly admitting the later well documented and still unrecognized failure to prioritize citizen defense, our representatives in Washington almost immediately passed an extensive document misleadingly called "The Patriot Act." Generally, this document worked to immediately suspend civil liberties, deny fair trial, and extend the covert power of government. A drastic measure, and expedient, (are these virtues?) but entirely unconstitutional. Was our government so fear stricken and confused that they let the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center shatter their already weakened faith in the principles of Democracy? Is it fear that impaired their judgment? Or do "the interests of national security" no longer feel any obligation to constitutional mandates? Such legislation, like suspending Geneva conventions, only sanctions government abuse. No. Rather than enduring the long process of our Supreme Court striking its measures one by one, our legislators must see that the Patriot Act is a terrible accident and a betrayal. In the interests of Justice, domestic tranquility, our general welfare, and our truly common defense, they must repeal it. A PATTERN EMERGES First our government de-prioritized citizen protection. Then they overrode our civil liberties without debate, and this so they could illegitimately investigate and detain American citizens, use a false fingerprint match to intimidate a retired army captain of the Muslim faith, and stop people named Ted Kennedy from boarding airplanes. It is entirely in keeping with such philosophy to disregard Geneva Conventions. Now, are they glossing over election misconduct? Is it not clear to the world how half-heartedly legislators and our executive branch seem to hold the principles of constitutional Democracy to which they are ostensibly bound? We must not let the threat of terrorism, the clear result of years of bad diplomacy, blind us to what America really stands for - the principles of constitutional Democracy. Yes, they are under strain, and we should address this, but unleashed from the true principles of constitutional Democracy, they will find no remedy. Desperate measures are so often exactly this - uninformed, unyielding, and so extreme measure to protect unflinching foreign policy objectives. People who are unable to examine their assumptions are trapped by those assumptions. They are like ogres with clubs. They may beat the ground with it, they may gesture violently, or they may start clobbering, but they will never stop to reason beyond the club. For them justice means getting their way. In this way, they may turn from the interests of diplomacy, in this way they may refuse to negotiate, We all make mistakes, but if we do not recognize our mistakes and learn from them, we will repeat those same mistakes indefinitely. And given the escalation of adversity, people failing to recognize their mistakes will be prone to worse and worse abuses. SECTION D: ON TERRORISM Terrorism may seem completely irrational and barbaric. Still, let us resist the temptation to completely irrationalize it. Our policy of war in Iraq, whatever the pretext, has increased and not diminished terrorism. Clearly, "terrorism" if it is misunderstood, may continue to proliferate. That our administration calls the war in Iraq a success shows that, though Americans may no longer be safe in any country, they continue to dismiss the threat of "terrorism." Unflinching foreign policy may be placing us more at risk. Indeed, it may be unflinching foreign policy that started all this. "Terrorists," failing to get the attention of government, are now turning to the people of the world. If this is their strategy, it is working. STEPPING PAST NAME CALLING AND ITS DISREGARD However irrational it may seem, we must not let the connotations of the word "terrorism" to justify our disregard. Nor let the phrase "War on Terror" empower our neglect. It is the interests of resolution and the Peace of nations that motivate my effort here. Toward this end, though this subject is difficult, and very emotionally charged, and though I propose to be no expert, please, at least consider what follows here. Again, and to be clear, it is my personal conviction that people may become a problem, but underlying this is the ideas that lead to action. And frankly, underlying the ideas, are principles. (If they seem unprincipled, i.e. immoral or unethical, the principle may personal entitlement, or "profit," or power, or control, or revenge for some obvious or still subconscious feeling of betrayal. Yes. If our principles are not conscious, then they may be subconscious, and principles, even within us, can conflict.) Put differently, people are each given to ideas. Under strain, those ideas may be less reasonable. The question is, with consideration can we understand the principles that might entitle such "insane" animosity? Doing so, we may find it is indeed negotiable. And so, in the interest of peace, of Justice, of our general welfare, let us work to understand this "terrorism," and the environment that breed it. ADMITTING THEIR DESPERATION First, these "terrorists" are suicidal. This shows desperation. When does desperation arise in us? When our survival seems at stake. Clearly, they are feeling deeply threatened. To call them only "terrorists" is to neglect this. In the interests of the peace of nations, let us take a moment to consider their desperation. Palestinians are fighting for their holy land, their homeland, so also the ground beneath their feet, land which other interests would now take from them after many, many centuries of their living there. Though such plight clearly deserves consideration, American interests and our government were shamefully indifferent to the inherent injustice of such a policy, and deaf to their entreaties. Instead we coined the word "terrorists," dismissing their desperate purpose and entitling neglect. The "terrorists" in Iraq are somewhat different, but they are also clearly desperate. Unlike Palestinians, they lived many years under tyranny, endured vicious subjugation, torment, and poverty. (Remember abu-Graib was infamous before Americans took over.) These Iraqis, after unimaginable years of vicious subjugation, after the horrors of our war, a war that dismisses the devastation to civilian populations and their cities as mere "collateral damage," suddenly they glimpsed the reins of horrific power finally loosed, and moved desperately to seize them? Yes, they may be ruthless, but they have lived generations now, under ruthless dictatorship. Do they also not feel terrible vulnerability? Certainly, fear tests anybody's faith. If people are not cowed by it, or calmed by prayer, desperate fear will lead them to desperate, even violent acts. Neglecting their desperation, indeed, neglecting our own, we conceive of an extremely violent policy to protect the interests of business as usual. This amounts to going for the honey, indifferent to the bees. But we're talking about people, and so the indifference to human life, both their and ours. Because of the breakdown in dialogue, it is difficult to be fully informed on their predicament. Still let us attempt at least to see things through their eyes. Again, it is my hope you will be patient with what follows. As concerns the Palestinians: how would you feel if you saw your assurances stripped from you, and were offered no recourse whatsoever? Frightened? Incensed? Furious? And if you were religious, deeply religious, that your God was testing your faith? Even demanding your zeal, and that you stand up in complete and utter faith against the infidels? What if then, when you thought you'd reached your limit, a desperate situation turned more desperate? What if you began to feel futility in ever winning a decent life or Justice. Would you not feel pressed to the absolute limits of reason, and even beyond them? Would you not, still religious, act to the absolute extreme which your religion sanctioned, and so, in Muslim, as in Christian faith, to sacrifice your life on the behalf of your god and your people? To describe people who blow themselves up only as "terrorists" shows utter indifference for the circumstances that bring them to such stunning desperation. Are they cold blooded and nonnegotiable, or are we? It is strange to see the irony here. Failing to see the enemy within us, failing to admit our arrogance, our prejudice, we will find it in another. I must believe that people naturally seek out alternatives to self-destruction. They are not finding them, and continuing a policy of non-negotiation, we are not offering. THE NEED TO NEGOTIATE What is our policy really? Securing their oil reserves, establishing a puppet government and military bases? Is the use of our military to annihilate any opposition also part of the policy? Does this not verge on genocide? And all this in the interests of progress defined as "profit?" If so, then the war in Iraq, as our administration is in the habit of repeating, is going well. We are asked to ignore the casualties. Our government openly interferes with reporting from. The suffering of Iraqi allies is also considered incidental to our mission there. Clearly, whatever hope lays with Democracy, it is irresponsible to imagine we are addressing their pressing needs with the cheap paper promise of a vote. No. To speak confidently, we neglect the state of siege in Iraq, we neglect the misery of their civilian population. We also neglect our Constitution, the precepts to which our government is ostensibly bound, precepts that place concern for the general welfare well above peculiar notions of progress. No. That our government is neglecting the basic welfare of the Iraqi population and is unwilling to negotiate indicates they are completely loosed from constitutional mandates that originally empowered them. Failing to admit and ease their desperation, the Iraqis, in the interests of their own survival, will have to turn on us. THE NEED TO PROMOTE TRANQUILITY In the interests of our general welfare, in the interests of our common defense, this is not about money and power. No. This is about humanity - humanity, and so liberty; the liberty to conscientiously? Is this not exactly the language of our Declaration of Independence, the language that propelled our revolution - "That all [mankind] are created equal" in the eyes of god and so government, equal in their right to justice, equal in their right to liberty, and so of equal right to conscience? Certainly, acting consistent to constitutional precepts, we might seek to ease their desperation, promote tranquility, and so soften their dissent. We might move immediately and as a highest priority to help rebuild their cities, their hospitals, their roads, their schools, their homes and churches even. Would this not be entirely in keeping with the true and constitutional responsibilities of government? Plainly, if we are not acting in this way, then other principles are steering policy, and they may well be right to fear us. SECTION E: IN PRINCIPLE HOW POWER CORRUPTS Power is intoxicating. Have we all not dreamed of having it? But what will curb the lust for power? Certainly, when people start blowing themselves up, something is clearly going wrong, and it is negligent to continue policy "as usual." But power is intoxicating, and people given power get easily drunk with it. The signs are clear. They feel immune to doubt, immune to objection, immune to consideration and restraint. Their confidence may reach an ultimate all time high, but this just makes them dangerous. Such confidence, based in prejudice and unchecked, amounts to smiling while speeding your truck through pedestrians on a busy sidewalk. Is the radio blasting? Do they even hear the screams? No. Blithely straying from such mandates, our government has become inured to human suffering, insipid in their purpose, and now acts seemingly without any compunction whatsoever. Our Constitution was intended not simply to empower government, it was intended to bind that government to principles that respect all people. Only by serving these precepts without prejudice does government even begin to recognize us, much less act in ways that will protect and benefit our nation. BAD IDEAS, NOT PEOPLE, ARE THE ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY Finally, there is no legitimate reason that the most powerful country in the world, acting in the true interests of humanity and the Peace of Nations, would ever need resort to war. No, and again: people are not intrinsically dangerous and civil liberties are not intrinsically dangerous. Indeed, individual conscience, empowered and encouraged by our civil liberty, is actually quite helpful. What is dangerous? Ignorance, and prejudice, and indifference, and neglect; these are dangerous. Bad ideas are dangerous. Bad ideas are the true enemies of Democracy. Authority, when it breaks with conscience, is false authority. And so also loyalty, when strays from collective concern, is misplaced. Finally, we must be loyal to conscience. And a Democracy, a true Democracy, requires not mere loyalty, nor obedience. True democracy requires our sentiment, our opinions, and so our dissent. Those who ask us to be unthinkingly loyal, unthinkingly obedient, do not speak for Democracy. ON THE SELF SERVING LOGIC OF CYNICISM To assume the worst in other people can be a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy. Assume the worst, and then arguably, when people act badly, it merely proves you right. From such a premise, you will excuse your own treachery, and when pressed, reason nothing short of punishment. Indeed, assuming the worst in other people you may eventually entitle the worst in yourself. The problem is that reasoning from a cynical assessment of human nature, you will, with power, stir adversity. Given the power that comes of amazing technology and wealth, policy built on cynical assumptions will naturally do great damage. Despite the confidence of those in power, we must be wary of such prejudice, as polices based on such prejudice will naturally stir great indignation and alarm. Let us then be very wary of breaking with the ethical constraints our Constitution lays before us, regardless of the strain upon us, the confidence of leaders, and the glamour of "drastic measures." UNETHICAL FOREIGN POLICY HAS BEEN DEMORALIZING The assumption has been, seemingly, that unethical policy was necessary to meet unethical adversaries on their ground - a desperate measure. But it has gone much further. We now categorically promote policy that is inconsistent with constitutional mandates, and justify this with a public spoken concern for National Security. Factions in our government now, seemingly, feel justified misrepresenting intelligence and generally misleading the public as to the truth of a situation and their intentions. What has become of honesty in government? I for one will not believe that our interests as a nation must necessarily diverge with other nations, for the logic of such an assumption suggests we need submit to foreign animosity or submit them to our own - a deeply cynical proposition. Where does such policy stop short of world domination? And given such reasoning, how comfortable will we ever be with allies? No. Such a dark proposition distains humanity. And where it is felt as conviction, it is also faithless. This is not a board game, and so breaking the rules is not just cheating. In the world, where human vulnerability meets the struggle for power, unethical behavior results in violence and abuse, in human miseries, suffering, and death. If our common defense requires unethical behavior, then it is working to discourage us, literally this means to take our courage from conscience, and from the precepts of Constitutional Democracy. Let us not presume then that foreign policy must be unethical. Let us not unthinkingly, unquestioningly, condone such policy. Such premises only encourage behavior that disrespects the interests of Justice and humanity, that disrespect conscience, and so demoralize us. BEYOND DEMORALIZATION, OUR DE-ETHICIZATION Please understand the difference. A demoralized people have every potential, but that potential is arbitrary. A de-ethicized people, will by definition lie, cheat, steal, and deliberately break with the tenets of true civilization and our collective interests. And so, while some may fear demoralization, our de-ethicization is worse. Unethical behavior is deliberately uncivil and deceiving. Under such circumstances, what we call Justice will amount to lip service. Any trust that's given it will be misplaced. This is a very unsettling situation and certainly counters the interests of our domestic tranquility. It also works, with treachery, against the peace of nations. OUR FEAR IS CONDITIONED Given our long-standing confusion and prejudice, it is natural that we would fear foreign policy entirely consistent with constitutional mandates. Let us address this fear directly. Remember, we are not talking about constitutional Democracy as license to the abuse of humanity anywhere, not here in America, and not abroad. We are not talking about the interests, built on however reasonable cynicism, of increasingly savage entitlements, nor about tolerance and so neglect. This is about human needs and consideration and fairness, about an ethical society, and so an ethical nation, acting ethically and in the interests of an ethical world. Certainly a powerful country sets a fine example by acting with consideration for the welfare of all nations and their citizenry, and not simply in the interests of "profit," and power. What are the precepts masked by policies of secrecy and phrases like "in the interests of National Security?" I believe it is time to address this question publicly, and to reexamine the assumptions that lead to policies of secrecy and legitimize deceit. Simply, secrecy, under the pretense of "National Security," must not work to veil government collusions with "special" interests against the real welfare and so Peace of Nations. Let us reserve judgment and not step too quickly to conclusion. Let us give opportunity for conscience to arise within ourselves. Let us give also opportunity for conscience to arise in others. Let us work to imagine a just society, at ease in its liberties, not given to abuse or duplicity. Certainly also, let us openly reexamine our objectives oversees. Such objectives will speak volumes about our assumptions regarding our humanity and the humanity our government is ostensibly so dedicated to liberate overseas. CONSTITUTIONAL FOREIGN POLICY WILL PROTECT US What is essential here? We as a Nation must learn that unconstitutional legislation, like unconstitutional foreign policy, by definition, does not protect us. The Patriot Act was unconstitutional. It works to divide us, not unify us. It utterly distorts the meaning "our common defense," and, like de-prioritizing the threat of terrorism, breaks with constitutional mandates - constitutional mandates that, well served, do and will protect us. Constitutional policy and legislation are the only legitimate interests of our government. There is always constitutional recourse. There are constitutional ways of responding to terrorist threats, and so to all threats to our welfare and the ultimate peace of nations. Our government has no legitimate recourse but to seek them. Also, just as dialogue is not based on merely ethical, nor merely moral grounds, diplomacy must not be based on limitless tolerance, nor merely on enabling some private agenda. With true regard for the welfare of nations, and exquisitely informed as to their standing, a powerful country like America is in a position to negotiate very effectively. AT LAST THE SITUATION IS CLEAR The power of private interests to subjugate the interests of humanity has finally come face to face with the consequences of allying to such principles in "terrorism" abroad and in insanity at home, and there is hope in this. It seems now clear that we cannot in concern for our common defense disregard the welfare of any human population. Neglect is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways. To have utter disregard for the suffering of foreign populations will hurt them. But such a policy effectively constrains our regard for humanity in general. Such indifference will also constrict the idea of humanity, and so humanity within us, our humanity. This is a dark proposition for it divides people and blocks reunion behind the glad notion of our entirely collective interest. THE CALL TO CONSCIENCE Conscience easily reasons this, and fortunately, it is a natural in us. Staying informed by conscience is essential. Our innate concern for Justice is born of it, and civilization depends on it. Because conscience is so driving in us, there is no strategy against humanity that will not fail. Efforts to subjugate people will once recognized, only pique our indignation, and so instinct for justice. Constitutional Democracy would seem to understand this. It is a system that provides for the civil, not malicious redress of grievances. Certainly, regardless of technological power, if we fail to respect humanity, it will fail to respect itself. And people who lose all respect are ungovernable. THE NECESSITY OF PRINCIPLES THAT RESPECT US With the amazing growth of technology in the 20th century, Power has grown exponentially. Still, such remarkable weaponry, production capability, surveillance, and communication, if they are not allied to the interests of humanity, humanity will suffer. But just as principles can steer us into the ground, they can save us, and the principles articulated in the first sentence of our Constitution are exactly this. I now wonder who dismissed it as a "preamble." Government is charged not just with protecting society, nor protecting the life of society. Our government is charged with protecting the human lives that make up our society, charged with protecting what, for lack of a better word, we call humanity. This then is about humanity, and so human life on the planet we call earth. This is about the natural rights of such life, despite powers that be, to the requirements of life and to governance that fundamentally recognizes and respects our vulnerability. Please note: Just as neglect and its ensuing futility may press people toward the madness we call terrorism, this recipe may well explain the increasing incidents of depression, stress, anxiety and irrational violence we have been seeing in our own country. IN SUMMARY We were to be the guardians of Democracy and so also of humanity by implication. Failing that, the language of Democracy works only to deceive other nations as to our intentions. Clearly, allowing "free enterprise" to plunder foreign countries, to disrupt the wellbeing and livelihood of their citizenry, and to squander our globes finite and renewable resources for the sake of "profit" is unreasonable from the precepts of constitutional Democracy. And it must not be tolerated. Unethical business practices are working to demoralize an entire world, and now to stir animosity against us. And it is a terrible thought that our American military, established by our Constitution to protect us, might become the instrument of such interests. It is essential we distinguish between public and private interests. And it is essential we distinguish also between the interests of wealth and profit and the interests of humanity. Admiring material success and the wealthy without regard for ethics has weakened community values and wellbeing, weakened our Constitution, our government, and now the security of our nation. The call for "free enterprise" has worked too long to cloak even ugly industries in the appearance of propriety. Clearly, even international industry and government concerned with effective foreign policy must work to see the wisdom behind constitutional mandates. These values speak to the moral and so ethical core of any civilization. They are here to guide us all. Industry, at last realizing the responsibilities that come with power, will most likely feel great relief in their return to conscience, and glad to the proposition of most serious moral and ethical restraints. Only by remaining vigilant to the principles of our Constitution do we actually work to benefit the world, encouraging and enabling the civil redress of grievances. So doing, we also ensure that our military's activities overseas will be most honorable. IN AFTERTHOUGHT: ON THE REASONABILITY OF "MADNESS" Trusting the power of technology, like trusting in law without mercy, or seeing the human being as mechanism and not miracle, may be working to create vast production capability and wealth, but it is also working to further separate power and authority from real concern for the populace. Policy that further separates power from accountability, that disenfranchises segments of populations, that distains dialogue and so frustrates dissent, such policy will breed futility, and futility breeds what we call "madness," breeds inexplicable violence and bloodshed. But "madness" is another word categorizes and so blocks consideration. Importantly, like terrorism, it is born out of futility and desperation. It can be very clever, but such "madness" has little or no faith in the process of conscience. As strange as it appears, it is a coping mechanism, and so can be "learned." Children being close to their parents, seeing those parents "coping," will when pressed as adults, discover they also resort to it. Government, and society, when they shut off from the concerns of humanity at large, will breed futility, and futility finding no reasonable solution will turn unreasonable. Valuing division, control, and financial profit has subverted our aspirations for justice, for liberty, and for our general welfare. Such a policy has been deeply corrupting. The logic that charges it fundamentally disregards humanity, and reduces the blessings of liberty to mere opportunism. What of the values of justice and tranquility? What of the values of liberty and our general welfare? What of the nobility of conscience, and so our right to speak openly, honestly, without the threat of persecution? Whatever happened to the dream of a humanity not pressed by adversity to act without regard for conscience? In a truly just world we would never feel obliged to bend to the unethical and immoral demands of others. In a truly just world we would never be asked to neglect conscience or humanity. Clearly power does corrupt. Encouraging unprincipled pursuits will strip our race of dignity and stir our madness. The rich may enjoy more privilege, but without ethics and morality, without concern for the general welfare, this is mere license to abuse. Let us work together to keep Democracy vital, to keep the avenues of dissent open and effective. Let us work to respect the human condition and to ease suffering wherever it is met. Only such policy, consistent with constitutional mandates, will work to ensure our liberty, and the blessings of that liberty for generations to come. On behalf of our future as a nation, on behalf of humanity and the earth, let us recognize the utterly essential wisdom contained in our Constitution and honor its precepts. PART 4: TOWARD OUR MORE PERFECT UNION Despite amazing technological progress, our confidence is deeply shake, confidence that we exuded before a world, confidence in ourselves and in our future together. The signs are plain, in the division that besieges us, in the poverty that has fallen to our streets, in our hardening indifference, in rampant and cynical opportunism. Still, let us not be driven by adversity to inattentive alarm. The adversity we are seeing now is natural. Attention and examination will show this. Indeed, the adversity we are meeting now is well within our means to relieve. WITH POWER COMES RESPONSIBILITY Technology has given us great power, but as power grows so does responsibility. A bulldozer is may be more useful than a shovel, but it is also more dangerous. And so a great country like America, with enormous wealth and power, needs to move with consideration worthy of its station. Where such power exists, neglect can be criminal, great damage ensues by simple oversight. People have said that Democracy is slow, is inefficient, for there are many voices and it takes time to reach consensus. Still it behooves and even dignifies great power to be democratic, and so to move slowly and with consideration. Let us understand this and work as a nation to affirm the principles of Democracy and its spirit in human dignity lest the failure of Democracy loose power to purposes that will devastate us. We are the eyes of the world, more than ever we must be vigilant. What we win for our vigilance to the principles of our Constitution is civilization as the world has not yet seen - a world we cannot yet even imagine. Let us face obstacles with persistence and good faith. Let us infuse even our indignation with dignity. Let us rise together, as a nation, in courage and in conscience, rise to defend our democratic legacy, our justice, our liberty, our right to personal conscience, and so the precepts of our most fortunate Constitution. This is finally not a political subject, this is a human subject. The principles of constitutional democracy, of civil liberty, our contract with government were meant to ensure that it would stay human. Women perhaps better understand our vulnerability. Men perhaps better understand our power. But without faith, faith in our humanity, and so faith in all humanity, this is no recipe for civilization. We are called then to faith, faith not merely in technology, but faith in adversity, faith in alert and observation, faith in reasoning, and in ideas and technology, and so faith in our power, so long as these don't captivate us. ON SHORTENING THE LEASH In the simple interests of justice and liberty, of domestic tranquility, our common defense, our general welfare, in the interests of progeny and so of future generations, we must move to shorten the leash on both government and industry. All policy and legislation that gives advantage to industry but distresses the population or the environment must be repealed. Very serious penalties must face industries that defraud or in other ways distress our society. In addition, corporate lobbyists must not be allowed to distract our representatives from the business of government. Our government must open its doors to the dissent of the people, must richly inform their dialogues in this way, and, in keeping with constitutional mandates, must create legislation and policy that serves us. Furthermore, the "Interests of National Security" must not be allowed to veil policies based in division and prejudice. Such policy, despite the drumming of adversity that justifies it, works against the interests of justice and liberty, and so against the interests of our more perfect union, and our true "National Interest." Furthermore, we must read between the lines, insisting on precision in our dialogues, and never allow the language of Democracy to cloak interests that betray the precepts of our Constitution and so betray us. Such language, for too long, has seduced us, moving us to ally to interests that have neglected our welfare. Only business that does not harm society or put society in harms way is ethical business, and only ethical business is appropriate to any society, much less a Democracy. Beyond this, Industry must understand that acting within ethical restraints is entirely to their profit. Our Constitution didn't establish civil liberty to endanger us. No. Let us work to harness American genius, dedication, and ingenuity in industry returned to the unflinching and tireless pursuit of excellence. Let us turn America's wealth, it's pioneering spirit, it's optimism, and it's resourcefulness into an entirely positive force and so toward building a more embracing civilization than history can yet conceive. In forwarding the cause of humanity, we benefit not just this Nation, our America. In forwarding the cause of humanity, we will work to bring about the true peace of nations, and so benefit the world. WHEN AMERICA PUTS ITS HEART IN IT America has an amazing workforce, and by workforce I mean this to include everyone. Our craftsmanship, our dedication, our ingenuity, our attention to detail and resourcefulness, even our optimism is unique and extraordinary in the world. As a result, America has pioneered everything from electricity to medicine, to manufacturing, to transportation, to computer and communication technology, and even space travel. Americans have brought new and necessary technology to the most forsaken corners of our planet. They have led the world by truly and directly addressing the wants and needs of its inhabitants. This is not I believe merely the result of strain and opportunity. Nor is it the result only of great leadership. Our ingenuity, our resourcefulness, our dedication are born directly out of the unprecedented respect founding fathers and so government finally has promised us. After so much dedication and resourcefulness for Americans to find themselves seemingly more threatened, more vulnerable, and faced with shrinking opportunities to promote their welfare, this is cause for alarm. It is also demoralizing. Still let us rise to the occasion, and so step past the alarm and its aversion, to the alert that will see us through this. Let us, allied to the interests of humanity, and so to the true spirit of our Constitution, move to recognize the true threats to our collective welfare. Government must not forget their contract with America. Neither should private interests, unconstrained by conscience and consideration, presume to speak for us, or on our behalf. This is undemocratic. POVERTY IS NOT THE ENEMY Poverty can be understood economically. But it is felt in the lack of the most basic assurances. Poverty is not in itself the enemy. But we do need to address the threats of poverty, the violence, the indignity, the oppression, and the inhumanity of poverty - the hunger, the sickness, the vulnerability of poverty, the ruthlessness of poverty without relief. As much as we must acknowledge human rights, we must acknowledge human needs (remember the difference between incentives and threats). Neglecting the interests of poverty, we neglect justice and liberty, and reduce our glorious pursuit of happiness desperate survival. This is not what founding documents imagined for us. No. And so it is in all our interests to provide the basic assurances of life to all citizens. Such policy will ease suffering and inequality, will work to better insure domestic tranquility. Such policy enables liberty that is crippled without it. Clearly, we have so longer any recourse but to admit the gravity of human suffering, and so turn with newfound understanding and confidence toward promoting the general welfare. Again, blame only turns us from the point. Our Founding Fathers worked through great turmoil and indignity to forge our Constitution, a remarkable proposition for a liberated society and for a liberating government. It is a legacy of genius and humanity, a model cut to brilliance, like a diamond. It is solid, it is true, and it remains so. But we have set it aside, in a place where it no longer shines. Let us renew our vows and so win back the confidence, the assurance, the dignity, the honor that such a vision of humanity bestows upon us. A NEW AND FAIR TAXATION I believe tax laws are an obvious example of failed justice in America. For years now, the poorer and so more struggling population has felt the weight of the tax burden fall disproportionately on their shoulders. This means that the burden for education, for maintaining our roads, even the war effort, falls disproportionately on the shoulders of the more struggling class. Indeed, so long as the tax burden is disproportionate to income, even the deficit will be more sorely felt by the poor who will see less and less benefit for their tax dollars. The rich for all their privilege must not, even inadvertently, cheat the poor. As an inequitable system of taxation is unconscionable, and an obvious indication that our government, swayed by the interests of wealth and their mathematics, has strayed from its more constitutional responsibility, let us immediately rework tax law to be fair and to be simple. Let us work not divisively, but together on this, as a symbol of our return to and our renewal in the principles of Constitutional Democracy. Such an obvious injustice, whether by intention or oversight, has long been undermining justice in this country. Please see how allying with injustice undermines our ability to even recognize, much less to address and solve the problems of our day. Allying to injustice closes our minds to more wholesome regard for our circumstances. It wounds the people, and it wounds the spirit of humanity within us. For this reason especially, it is essential that America seek to redress injustice wherever it appears. And so, just as we forged a Constitution those years ago, let us now forge a system of taxation that is entirely equitable. Done well, it will stand as a model to countries the world over. Let us do this now, let us do this first, that we might feel all America, rich and poor alike, breathe as with relief to feel a great burden of injustice and duplicity finally lifted from her shoulders. Do this, then watch America reawaken to its nobility and to its purpose. SOME OTHER IMMINENT CONCERNS First, our dependency on oil has made us deeply vulnerable, and lends us to abusive policies, even war overseas. Let us very enthusiastically work to limit our oil dependence, and to explore alternatives. Let government encourage such research in the real spirit of diversity, and not place such responsibility in the hands of oil giants that must surrender some share of the market in the interests of national security. Nuclear power also has turned out to be both very dangerous and very costly. Though our terrible oil dependency may reason advantage to nuclear power, such power, given the terrorist age, requires security that makes it untenable. Such power also produces nuclear waste that we have no way of neutralizing. We need new science, new technology. Let us work wholeheartedly and as a nation, in concert even, to discover these. This is a very short list, and you, you all may have ideas for how we might address and solve the troubles of our times, and ease the strains that have besieged humanity. What is certain is that, united in concern for our welfare, and given to such clear and collective aspiration, as individuals, communities, companies, corporations, and governments, we will find the solutions. And, as seems our nature, likely exceed all expectations. ON PATRIOTISM The word patriotism means loyalty to country. Patriotism calls up the vision of people standing nobly together, united by collective purpose, despite adversity. Patriotism in a Democracy requires we act with regard for justice and liberty, for the general welfare, for our tranquility. This is not freedom, it is civil liberty, and civil liberty requires not mere obedience, this would be slavery, however remunerated. No. civil liberty requires consideration. To act with mere obedience, and so place our trust in people and not also in our own conscience, is to misplace our loyalty. Loyalty must be to the precepts of constitutional democracy, not any one who calls themselves superior. When we place our loyalty in people and not principles, we forsake justice, forsake our hard won liberty, forsake the responsibilities inherent in such liberty, forsake the life of conscience in us, and forsake our welfare. Patriotism traces its roots to the Latin patria meaning father. Perhaps this confuses us. As children we honor and respect our fathers. But in a Democracy, when we become adults, we win our liberty. There is no turning back. To do so is to turn from justice, from liberty, and from our natural and personal intelligence. Trying to turn back we submit to the authority and so demands of others. And any human authority that welcomes our submission, even rewards it, but discourages heart felt consideration and dissent, is false authority. Our patriotism only divides us when, misunderstood, it serves divisive interests. ON THE CORPORATE FINANCE OF ELECTIONS That corporations finance of candidates for public office especially indebts our representatives to private interests. Though economic theory has long suggested that corporate and human interests coincide, this is clearly naive. The value of "profit" inevitably strays from concern for our collective welfare. And so mere obedience to the interests of "profit," works to deceive us, to stifle intelligence and dissent. No. "Profit" may facilitate progress, but it is no end in itself, for it is not sufficient. Indeed, the interests of mere "profit," unleashed from concern for our collective welfare, oppose the real work of government. Our representatives must in no way be beholden to the industries that now finance their campaigns. For to do so is to misplace their loyalty. That campaigns have gotten so expensive only works to further indenture government to the interests of "profit." Clearly our representatives cannot well serve two masters. Who will get their loyalty--their constituency or the industries that finance their campaigns - now absurdly expensive campaigns at that? Above all, in America, patriotism must refer to our loyalty to the precepts of democracy magnificently voiced in our Constitution. This is about the values that will protect us, that will enable justice and liberty, enable research and discovery, enable policy that truly benefits us, now and for generations to come. Just as the precepts of constitutional democracy unite us, so patriotism, i.e. our loyalty to these values, well understood, unites us. MORE ON FAIR ELECTIONS Fair elections are a value, fundamental to Democracy, and clearly written into the Constitution, that should unite us. Without fair elections government is no longer responsible to the people and so no longer representative. Both Republicans and Democrats, thinking constitutionally, should be very concerned with insuring the fairness of our elections. Indeed, in the spirit of all things American, they should be concerned with making our system of elections completely incorruptible and so a model for fair elections the world over. That concern for fair elections is seemingly now a divisive issue shows how vaguely some now hold even the most fundamental principles of Democracy. UNTIL IT BREAKS, YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO FIX IT Yes, America has inadvertently broken from the principles of our Constitution, principles that would guide us into a truly golden age of civilization. But this is an opportunity to see and understand our Democracy more fully, and so to recognize and redress the errors of our ways. The confusion, pettiness, and indifference to human suffering that our straying from constitutional precepts has wrought works positively to kindle indignation. With clarity and not alarm, such indignation will inform our dissent, and dissent will move government to redress our grievances and so honor their contract with the people who elect them and follow their ways. Again, and simply, let us renew our commitment to those principles that would dignify us all. For years now, Americans have worked hard, worked well for industry, have soldiered in her wars even, while industry worked to profit. It is time now for government to win itself from the interests of wealth and now wealth consolidation, and turn to the more glorious work our Constitution delegates it. It is time government and legislation, and industry to truly honor those generations of sacrifice with brilliant consideration for their welfare and the welfare of their families. It is time for government, and industry, indeed for all America to heed the call that sounded out of the dark history of oppression and privilege over two hundred years ago, a call for a new Nation, and for a new government, and on the behalf of that nation. Doing so government returns to the work of establishing justice, of insuring domestic tranquility, of providing for the common defense, of promoting the general welfare, and so of securing the blessings of liberty for each of us, for all of us, for unseen generations yet to come. A word on education: EDUCATION IS THE SINGLE MOST CIVILIZING FORCE IN THE WORLD Education is the single most powerful civilizing force in the modern world, indeed in any world. A country that is not educated, how civilized can it be? If we will uphold the value of a democratic society, we must inform that liberty. Liberty is sweet, but like children learning to walk we must learn to contain that liberty with conscience. In this way it becomes both moral and ethical. In this way it encourages and enriches our living here. Education is indispensable in this, and there is no alternative. By education I do not simply refer to the law, nor the science and technology of society. These make up the lore of society, they help us function, but they are not enough. Just as law does not replace intelligence, education is not mere indoctrination. No. Education must also teach us also how to learn, must show us that actions have consequences and that being alert to those consequences will bring us to new knowledge and understanding. History is useful here. On the one hand it contributes to the lore of society, on the other it offers opportunity for analysis and insight, as we struggle to reason the forces to which we are beholden, and to manage them. Still nothing adequately replaces the attention and consideration we give our actual circumstances. Just as we must not settle on mere and uninformed opinion, lest it breed prejudice and contempt; we must not settle for indoctrination or laws and their inhuman rigidity. Instead, let us remain guided by the dream of our happiest future, and test all propositions accordingly. So guided, education will unify society where it is divided, stabilize society where it is weak, and breed hope and opportunity where there is now despair. Education does not begin in kindergarten; neither does it end with college. It is too important. Education is the process of a lifetime. We must not become so smug or satisfied that we stagnate, for such stagnation breeds indifference and will reduce our great American pride to mere conceit. No. We must remain open to this world around us. How will we learn from our mistakes if we are not taught to look? How will we check the abuse of power if we do not recognize it? Education makes us more discerning, more conscious, more considering and considerate. It will free us from stubborn and ill-informed opinion. It will help us to recognize and to address the real threats to our wellbeing. It will lead us to ever more effective and imaginative solutions. Yes, power is dangerous, but education is the remedy. Educate Americans, all Americans, teach them not just what to think, but how to learn and not only will you liberate them, you will liberate the society as a whole, and government, and enterprise. Such a proposition is profoundly ennobling and ethical and so extremely consistent to Democracy. MORALITY AND ETHICS Ultimately, morality and ethics are not two side of a coin, and so we need not choose between them. Ultimately morality and ethics are human experiences. Breathing is the better metaphor. Morality is the interior experience of a breath. Ethics describe the space between us, the public space, that we breathe from. Alone, neither can sustain us. As breathing is, they are each vital. Together they enable a society. Together they work to inform both us and our society. Our true collective life depends on them. DEFENDING THE REAL AMERICA As Americans, we are called to stand for the principles of liberty and human dignity wherever we find them challenged, and so to stand in the conviction that concern for humanity does and will unite us. Democracy must not finally cow to forces that would undermine our Justice, our tranquility, or our liberty, not here and not abroad. No. In the precepts of our Constitution, we have inherited a gem of unmatched value. But like all things of value, it demands our vigilance. We may at times meet indignity, but we must never settle for it. Neither should we give ourselves up to those interests that would oppress or otherwise demean us. No. As Americans, let us stand boldly with conscience and intelligence for the precepts of Democracy, indeed, the precepts of humanity that founding fathers laid out so eloquently before a world. Let us work to recognize and stem the real threats to Democracy and our wellbeing, whether that threat manifests in foreign terrorists, or prejudice, or fear, or misunderstanding, or our own bad faith. UNITED WE STAND Frankly, I believe that we might easily dampen the threat of terrorist attack even within our borders if we were not divided; for we would be working together, our communities would be strong and not opposed by race or by class, nor by prejudice, by aversion, or indifference. A feeling of gladness and relief, the ease people feel when they are living in a just world, this would bind us, would be both pervasive and infectious. I believe that sadness, even animosity, is eased when you encounter a gracious people living for the common good. They share both your suffering and your relief. Indeed, just as indignation is the source of grave distress, there is nothing, I believe, more settling than the sense of wellbeing that comes from living in a truly just society. Again, if America were wholesome, we would be living together in common aspiration toward that future that includes and benefits us all, as individuals in a society, as a nation in the world. We would not be divided by fear, nor in competition for senseless wealth or to meet our most basic needs. Our division makes us less wholesome, less considerate. Our division allows ignorance, prejudice, and misinformation to endure unchallenged. Our division also makes us more vulnerable to terrorists. And so it is essential that we join together ethically and in fellowship behind the principles of mutual respect and dignity. It is only in this way that we move toward more perfect union. LET US STAY VIGILANT The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are brilliant documents, both well-written and well intended to instruct a vast nation toward more perfect union. Now in a time of terrible threats is the time to turn ever more closely toward those principles that would dignify us, those principles that through dignity will unify us. Let us embrace these documents and their genius, and so meet terrorism at its very root. Let us renew our allegiance to that language of founding documents and so to the great marriage of humanity and government. May the dream of our most happy union guide us. May such a dream inspire brilliant foreign and domestic policy and pave the road to our most shared and glorious future as a civilized nation in a civilized world. May we hold that future, not with arrogance or like a club, but with consideration, for truly it is everybody's. Ultimately, the interests of business and the workforce must not be opposed. Ultimately, the interests of the rich and the poor must not be opposed. This is about humanity. And as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so the threats that face this country face us all. Let us join together in peace to understand how such a rich country is so troubled, so shaken by violence, so divided, so demoralized, so vulnerable. Now more than ever, it is crucial to put aside smug divisiveness, false accusations, coarse politicizations and name calling to honestly address the issues that face us as a nation. Now more than ever it is important to dispel prejudice and enter into meaningful dialogue. Now more that ever it is important to affirm our good faith in the spirit of Democracy, and so in government, indeed in a whole humanity, that is dedicated to principles that respect humanity. Let us rise together to meet the challenges that face us now with the same attention, optimism and resourcefulness that we gave to our Constitution and then to industry for over two hundred years. There is tremendous opportunity in Democracy, in a government truly by and for the people, in a society that is dignified and so lives freely within the parameters of personal conscience and public, even worldly concern. Gladly, let us persevere, for just as it is according to these principles that we have faltered, so it is according to these principles that we will triumph. PART 5: TOWARD THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY INTELLIGENCE MEANS CHOOSING Intelligence comes from the Latin intelligo: inter, between, and lego to choose or pick, to read. The word "read" traces to Europe, and means to interpret, to advise. Intelligence then becomes choosing between, but it also means reading between, so reading between the lines, assessing options and so advising between them. The entirety of intelligence is, by definition, summed up in this process. Again, intelligence is about choosing. It is also about informing those choices. By definition, without good intelligence overseas, and healthy dissent at home, government cannot make intelligent choices. In the interests then of intelligent government, we must work to enliven our dialogue, and to enfranchise our population not with paper consent or disapproval forms, but with the voices of dissent that will inform government, and so make its policy and its legislation literally more intelligent. INTELLIGENCE MEANS READING BETWEEN THE LINES There is another challenge implicit in this definition, the reading between the lines challenge, and so interpretation toward a fuller assessment. All interpretation involves reasoning, and all reasoning is based on assumptions. "Reading between the lines" then is seeing things not merely on face value, but in lieu of the assumptions that support such reasoning. Our Constitution gives us some assumptions from which to reason in the precepts of constitutional democracy. Reading between the lines, in this context, means simply to consider all policy and legislation as it relates to these precepts. In continuing to read between the lines, we might, in conscience, seeing even through the precepts to the real value of humanity that is proposed by them. DISTINGUISHING TECHNOLOGY FROM SCIENCE Technology isn't science, isn't attention and observation, isn't consideration. Operating blithely from assumptions, however powerful, is not the process of conscience either. To the extent that technology is powerful, it might be called the reigning technology. As such, technology is the champion of science, using science without appreciating its process, without understanding it. Technology may satisfy our apparent needs, but doing so, it can work to counter real intelligence, and so what liberty originally intended to entitle in us. Taking technology for granted, we may bolster our confidence, but such confidence is falsely placed. Taking technology for granted, we lose consideration for the whole, the whole of humanity, the whole of the process of truly loving observation, that brings us to technology. DISTINGUISHING FAITH FROM MERE BELIEF Belief is traced to Anglo saxon, -lieve being likened to lief and leave. It means "to credit on the ground of authority, testimony, argument, or any other circumstances than personal knowledge. As such belief is given to ideas. in the same way technology is given to the knowledge taken from science, on mere authority, and without understanding. This is clearly a recipe for power and so also for empire. But it demands our obedience, requires our service, and so is disinterested in our liberty, and the real process of conscience. Belief as such fuels feelings of entitlement that turn us from real appreciation of our circumstances. Faith is in contrast to belief. It comes from the Latin fides meaning trust. We are not talking about the trust given to outward authority, nor to ideas, good or bad. We are talking about trust given to human nature, and so to the experience of humanity within us. Faith also sounds different, sounds open handed. We must have faith in something. And so let it be not the ideas themselves, but the process that brings them to us. Let us have faith in nature, our nature, and so in peace not as an end, fraught with obstacles, but as a beginning, the beginning of the world in which the extraordinary blessing of liberty can be realized, the beginning that, in faith, we choose. AT THE HEART OF CONSCIENCE We have spoken at some length about conscience, about our innate proclivity for conscience, about the value of conscience, and so the value of heartfelt dissent to an informed government and to Democracy. But there remains an assumption, unexamined, beneath all this. Let us now consider it. Again and simply, conscience means with science. But what, underlying our attention, our consideration, our reason, is conscience finally the science of? What is at its core, literally heart in Latin? What is tempered by science, and so tempered by conscience? Finally, as our faith grows, as our distrust is eased, and our fears abate, it is love, innate and natural love, at heart, at core, brought through awareness, through intelligence, to all humanity. Conscience is finally, when it is not given to adversity, to fear, or to cynicism, to domination, or to conquest, conscience is the science of love, and so the clear, even unflinching, experience of love, also innate in us. And here again, I do not mean technology. THE UNIQUE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY The "blessings of liberty" has remained mysterious for some time. What is clear in it is that the blessings of liberty are unique to each soul. Given liberty, we will discover conscience, given conscience we will discover liberty, new liberty, and still informed by conscience, the blessings of such liberty. Once arriving, we are ever at its threshold, given equally to conscience and to discovery. The challenges remain - faith in our natural senses, faith in intelligence, faith in reason and technology, faith in our own humanity, and the humanity that surrounds us. Again, it is not about one interest or another, it is about balanced interests, and so interests balanced over our concern, our core, our heart, our love of humanity, and this means all humanity. The blessings of liberty arise when we choose liberty, the liberty of conscience. And the ease they bring us will also ease the world.