Enumerated Powers

The following is from my previous blog on Yahoo!360 and lists the powers that the Founding Fathers allocated to the federal government.  Everything else was for the States and the People:

I have often cited Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution as listing the explicit duties of the Federal Government. The list is amazingly short since most functions were to be left to the States. There have been amendments that expanded the role of government (Income Tax, Votes for Women, Prohibition, etc.) but I'll leave those for a later discussion. For now, here - with some explanation - is the mentioned section:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

This grants taxing power to the Federal Government, a switch from the Articles of Confederation where such power was not granted. The "common Defense and general Welfare" refer to the remaining clauses and should not be taken as a wild card justification for government spending.

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

Yes, the Federal Government is authorized to borrow. The deficit is Constitutional.

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

The Federal government was granted authority to regulate commerce among - though not within - the States. This has been expanded by crazy judges so that a farmer growing extra corn for personal use within one State was found guilty of breaking interstate commerce laws.

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

Here we have immigration and bankruptcy, a strange combination.

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

Yes, the government can print money and decide on exchange rates. It also allows for determining how heavy is a ounce, how far is a mile, etc.

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

Here we have the clause that justifies the Secret Service.

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

This justifies government built roads for the purpose of mail. I suspect the Interstate System rests on this brief clause.

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Here we have the authority for Patents and Copyright law.

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

This allowed the Congress to establish the various circuit courts and Federal Courts.

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

The sea became the province of the Feds with the Constitution.

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

Somewhat archaic, this provides for privateers (Letters of Marque) and also sale of captured ships. Only the 'declare War' is really applicable today.

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

Military spending isn't unconstitutional? Who would have guessed?

To provide and maintain a Navy;

Yes, the Federal government is supposed to have a Navy, you crazy peaceniks.

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

I suppose this provides for creating ranks, writing the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all the other various things required for running a military.

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

Here we have the National Guard. Oddly, this seems to indicate that the Guard should only be used domestically.

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Ah, I spoke too soon on Clause 15. Here we allow wider latitude in use of the Militia (National Guard).

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;–And

This provides for the District of Columbia. This also argues against DC Statehood. The Framers didn't want the capitol in a specific state since that would create a natural favoritism to that state by all members of government. It also provides for federal property in the states for federal buildings and forts.

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

This is the catch-all clause though it is limited by the stated powers.

I'd like to point out that much of what the Federal Government now does is not listed within the limited powers above. It has far exceeded its authority, usurping power from the States and the people. The Founders wanted a 'limited' government.

The Framers wrote the Constitution so that the average person could understand it. It was not by mistake that Hammurabi's Code was posted publicly so that all could read it. The same was true of the Twelve Tables of Rome. When law gets too complicated for the people to understand, the people cease to rule and lawyers/judges take over.

The Democracy Bomb

In May/June issue of Mother Jones, Ari Berman opines that the Founders created a system that is now tearing the country apart.  His main issue is that the United States is not a true democracy and was never designed to be one.

The Senate: Throughout the article, Berman repeatedly comes back to the fact that the Senate is not an equally representative body.  That Wyoming with half a million people should have just as much say in the senate as California with nearly 40 million people is unacceptable.  However, this is exactly why the Senate exists.  If the Founders had wanted true democracy, there is no need for a bicameral legislature.  Before the Senate was crippled by the ill-considered 17th Amendment, it was intended to represent the state governments.  As Berman notes, it was the state legislature that appointed Senators and could recall them on a moment's notice.  This provided a check for the states to prevent the central government from imposing rules, regulations, and taxes that exceeded its authority.  As I noted in an earlier post, Obamacare could not have passed but for the repeal of the 17th Amendment.  Many other laws and taxes exist because the state governments no longer have a check on the Federal government.  Repealing the 17th Amendment would do wonders for shrinking the central government to a more reasonable size.

The Electoral College: Berman holds that the electoral college has allowed the candidate who did not win the popular vote to become president.  This has happened twice in fairly recent times (Bush 2000, Trump 2016).  Like many who opine against the electoral college, he misunderstands what it represents.  The Presidential election isn't one gigantic popularity vote, it is 50 separate weighted races.  California is vastly more important than Wyoming, but Wyoming isn't relegated to irrelevancy as Berman proposes to do.  A popular vote system would allow the populous states to oppress the more rural states.  In a pure popular vote system, Iowa and New Hampshire would be ignored while California, Texas, Florida, and New York would be flooded with presidential ads.  In a previous post, I gamed out a worst case scenario where the popular vote winner only wins 2 states.  The electoral college guards against this, among other disasters.

The Supreme Court: Because the court is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, it is not a representative branch.  Well, of course not.  It is meant to represent the law, not the people.  Justice is supposed to wear a blindfold, but the writer is complaining that the court isn't representative enough.  It should not matter who the plaintiff is or who the defendant is, it should only matter what the law says.  If the law is unjust, that is a matter for the legislature to fix.  The writer complains that 'originalism' is an effort to protect white power.  Ugh.  If we are going to let judges change the rules on the fly, why bother with a legislature.  It is because some courts ditched original intent that the 14th Amendment (written in 1868) approved gay marriage.  Berman wants an activist court that implements 'democratic' policies.  That's the legislature's job.

What the Founders intended was that the States had sovereignty in most things but the Federal government would handle foreign affairs and any squabbles between the States.  It was meant to be a limited government that did just a limited set of things.  In fact, James Madison was even kind enough to list those things in the Constitution as enumerated powers.  If the government was limited to the actual enumerated powers, 70% of the current government would vanish overnight.  That is how out of hand things have become.

Berman accuses the Constitution of having been designed to protect white power, but then notes that most whites were initially barred from voting on account of the property requirement.  So, it wasn't to protect white power but propertied interests.  The writer has sought to make the founding document racist with the way he describes it.  Of course, that it upheld slavery and had the 3/5ths rule demonstrates racism but those were both expunged during and after the Civil War.  With the overtly racist parts already removed more than a century and a half ago, Berman needed to insert his white power nonsense to keep the race hustle alive.

What Berman wants is something more along the lines of a parliament.  In a parliamentary system, the executive and the legislative are mixed together.  The whole system is up for grabs and rapid change based on current trends is possible.  By contrast, the Constitution was designed to retard change and require sustained super majorities to alter the law.  It took decades for the Prohibition Movement to get the 18th Amendment passed, but marijuana was made illegal by the Controlled Substance Act of 1970.  Does the Constitution say anything about marijuana?  No.  Why didn't it require an amendment to prohibit?  Because we had dumped the enumerated powers by 1970.  The government isn't limited anymore, which is the way Mother Jones prefers it.

Democracy sounds good but it is a terrible form of government.  Inevitably, the citizens discover they can vote themselves money from the treasury and the system goes bust.  The US hasn't yet gone full democracy but the voting ourselves money has gone a long way: Social Security and Medicare are the big ones.  Rather than move further down the democracy path, maybe we should retreat back to the safe harbor of a Representative Republic.  That is the system the Founders designed.

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. - Alexander Hamilton

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. - John Adams

Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death. - James Madison

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. - Alexander Tytler

Democracy is the road to socialism. - Karl Marx

Thoughts on the Simulation

For those not in the know, the simulation hypothesis is that we are nothing more than a computer simulation by a vastly more advanced civilization.  Kind of like The Sims game, only with more polygons.  Scott Adams and Elon Musk are proponents of the hypothesis.  After all, we have begun making computer simulations that have rapidly improved.  What will they be like in a hundred years?  Will it be possible to tell reality from virtual reality?  It's the Matrix.  It is inevitable that there will be many simulations as computer technology advances.  What are the odds that we are the original and will be the ones who produce countless virtual realities with NPCs who think they are real vs. we are one of the many simulations created by the originals?  Adams and Musk think it is unlikely that we are the first.

One thing I find particularly interesting about the simulation hypothesis is that Christianity has an odd compatibility with it.  God (i.e., the programmer) has indeed created the universe.  Like most programmers of such simulations, he has an avatar so he too can "play" the game: Jesus.  Ergo, Jesus really is God.  That parallel is weird.  The Holy Spirit would be the program itself, the coding that makes the world work the way it works.  Gee, that's always present.  Moreover, the program literally knows all.  The data logs of a well-designed program will show what everything has done and when.  Yeah, the programmer has a record of all the errors (i.e., sins) committed by the players.

Scott Adams holds that those who embrace the simulation hypothesis are able to influence reality.  Of course, he is all about framing, viewing things in a way that maximizes your odds of success, which might not correspond with actual reality.

Fallout (2024)

Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) is performing at a birthday party for the wealthy.  He is a noted actor famed for his Westerns who has clearly fallen on hard times.  His daughter, Janey, is with him.  When taking photos with the birthday boy, Cooper declined to do his noted 'thumbs up' pose.  The significance of the pose will not be revealed until later episodes.  The party is wrapping up when an unmistakable mushroom cloud appears over the city in the distance.  The shock wave breaks all the windows.  Cooper grabs his daughter, mounts his horse, and gallops away amid the panicked party guests.

Lucy (Ella Purnell) lives in Vault 33.  The vaults were built to protect against radiation and allow humanity to survive underground until the surface was safe again.  Lucy is eager to marry but there are no bachelors in Vault 33 that aren't cousins.  As such, she wants to arrange a trade with Vault 32.  The council, which includes her father, Overseer MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan), agree to her wishes.  Preparations for a wedding are made and representatives from Vault 32 are welcomed through the extremely sturdy gate.  After the wedding, the visitors commence to kill the residents of Vault 33!  Lucy survives the clash, but her father is carried away by the raiders; she is determined to get him back.

Maximus (Aaron Moten) is a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, a religious band of warriors who scour the land for technology.  It's kind of vague what they do.  However, they field knights who wear powered armor suits that make them immune to most small arms fire.  Maximus is selected to be the squire for Knight Titus.  The knights are dispatched to capture Dr. Wilzig, a defector.  Despite his nearly impervious armor, Titus proves to be a coward when faced with battle.  Maximus takes Titus' armor and assumes his identity.  He continues on the mission, convinced that he will be allowed to keep the armor for himself if he is successful in finding Wilzig.

The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) is dug out of a grave by a trio of bounty hunters who view him as the edge they need to capture Dr. Wilzig.  Ghouls are undead, creatures with the ability to heal from most wounds though they require an elixir to prevent them from descending into homicidal madness.  Like zombies, a bullet through the brain kills them.  The Ghoul is, of course, none other than Cooper Howard.  How he 'survived' the apocalypse to be an undead bounty hunter is not explained, but it must be a really interesting story.

The plot follows these three as they each seek the MacGuffin that will allow them to achieve their ends.  Lucy is naive and friendly, attempting to get along with all the unfortunates who have suffered on the surface while she lived an idyllic life in the vault.  Her sunny disposition is sorely tested with each new encounter.  Maximus is a man unsure of himself but generally distrustful of others.  However, he is almost immediately enamored of Lucy and eagerly plays knight in shining armor to her maiden in distress.  He brings a healthy dose of realism to her idealism in those times when they are together.  The Ghoul is a cynical misanthrope.  He has been around far too long to have any illusions about people or even to care.  He kills without compunction and uses others only if it furthers his ends.  Lucy proves to be sufficiently outside the norm that he might moderate his behavior.

The show concludes by answering many of the big questions but posing entirely new ones as a hook for the inevitable next season.  The setting reminds me a lot of the Resident: Evil franchise and the evil corporation was similar to Umbrella Corp.

As I have never played the game, I have no idea how well the series does in bringing it to life.  Overall, I very much enjoyed it and eagerly await the next season.

Good popcorn fun.  Recommended.

Murderers' Row (1966)

Matt Helm (Dean Martin) has just finished a photo shoot with Miss January and plans to relax while he awaits the next model.  To his mild surprise, he finds January in his bed.  How nice.  However, he no sooner joins her than she tries to escape the bed and the plotted assassination for which she was bait!  Is this the end of Matt Helm?  Oddly enough, this faked assassination pre-dates the same thing from You Only Live Twice (1967) in the James Bond series.  Who is stealing from whom?

The same villainous organization from The Silencers is back and have now kidnapped a scientist on the French Riviera.  The scientist has developed a ray that can incinerate a city.  To prevent interference with their plans, Ironhead (Tom Reese) was dispatched to kill top agents around the world, including Matt Helm.  Ironhead thinks he has succeeded in every case.  Using the alias of Jim Peters, Helm arrives in Cannes to locate Dr. Solaris, the missing scientist.  However, he finds that his contact has been murdered and thus he instead teams with Suzie (Ann-Margret), a seemingly ditzy hippy girl who loves to dance and wear stylish clothes.  She also happens to be Dr. Solaris' daughter and is likewise searching for him.  Julian Wall (Karl Malden) knows there is something fishy about this Jim Peters and is particularly curious when he finds the man snooping around his operation.

Ironhead is bald but part of his scalp is metal.  Helm learns after one hit that it isn't just for show.  The guy really has an iron head.  This is humorous when Helm uses a giant magnet to lift Ironhead and take him out of the fight.  Wow, this predates a near identical scene from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) where James Bond (Roger Moore) used a giant magnet on the steel-toothed Jaws (Richard Kiel).  The Bond spoof inspired the Bond franchise.  How funny.

Karl Malden makes for an odd bad guy.  Playing to the comic nature of the show, he switches accents from time to time.  James Gregory returns as ICE Chief MacDonald and Beverly Adams is back as Lovey Kravezit.  Dean Martin's son, Dean Paul Martin, has a cameo along with Desi Arnaz Jr.  The banter between father and son was clever.  As in The Silencers, a dig is made at Frank Sinatra, but it's all in good fun.

There is more campiness in this one than the last.  The freeze gun was the most obvious case of silliness but the bomb that would explode after sufficient shaking was likewise corny.  Too often, the villains had to be stupid in order for Helm to succeed.  Nonetheless, generally entertaining.

Good popcorn fun.

Good Omens (Season 2)

The Woke is Strong in this one!  Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and Crowley (David Tennant) return to London and the latest issue from Heaven.  Rather than the forthcoming apocalypse with the arrival of the anti-Christ, we have Archangel Gabriel (John Hamm) arriving naked and with a severe case of amnesia at Aziraphale's book shop.  Now, both Heaven and Hell want to get their hands on Gabriel while Aziraphale and Crowley must not only protect him but discover why he has amnesia.

As in the previous series, we are shown several incidents through history where Aziraphale and Crowley crossed paths.  One of these is the Book of Job.  It turns out that Job's wife was black.  Oddly, his three children by her prove to be a lily-white son, a mixed-race daughter, and an Iranian daughter.  What is this casting?  The makers want it to be abundantly clear that they cared not a whit about race or ethnicity during casting.  Genetics worked differently in Biblical times.  Then we have the vinyl record seller who is crushing on the coffee shop lady.  Yes, here's a relationship that will check off the mixed-race box and the lesbian love box.  Sigh.  Oh, and God's pronouns are 'they/them' for those who are curious.  In the middle of the 19th century while visiting Scotland, Crowley and Aziraphale come across grave robbers who sell bodies to the local surgeon.  Of course, the body snatchers are a pair of waifish girls.  Um, they have no other means of supporting themselves.  Really?  Digging up bodies is just the sort of work for 100 lbs. girls.

As I strongly advise against seeing this travesty, spoilers follow.  It turns out that the Archangel Gabriel had been meeting secretly with Beelzebub (Shelley Conn) to agree never to have Armageddon.  During these meetings, they fell in love.  Yep, by the end, they run off together to spend eternity on Alpha Centauri.  Crowley gets inspired by this and, at the end of the finale, kisses Aziraphale passionately and proposes that they too run off together.  Sigh.

Skip.  Do not waste time on this disaster.

The Silencers (1966)

Matt Helm (Dean Martin) works as a freelance photographer but was formerly at top agent with ICE (Intelligence & Counter Espionage).  An American scientist has gone missing and is suspected of assisting a rogue terrorist group bent one world domination.  Helm has no interest in returning to the agency and repeatedly hangs up on MacDonald (James Gregory), ICE Chief.  However, when Helm is targeted for assassination, he changes his mind.  Joining another agent, Tina (Daliah Lavi), he sets out for the American southwest to intercept the first MacGuffin.  During a performance, Sarita (Cyd Charisse) will hand off a secret tape.  This goes awry and, in the confusion, Gail Hendricks (Stella Stevens) gets the tape.  Though Gail claims to be an innocent bystander, Helm suspects she is an enemy agent.  In either case, he knows she is now targeted by the terrorists, and he sticks with her until they reveal themselves.

This is a James Bond spoof that is played mostly for laughs.  Matt Helm doesn't appear to be particularly competent but has plenty of witty comments.  He succeeds more thanks to his opponents incompetence.  His gadgets are somewhere between James Bond's spiffy Q branch gear and Maxwell Smart's shoe phone.  Helm even has a personal assistant with a name that Ian Fleming might have coined: Lovey Kravezit.

Dean Martin plays himself, an easy-going fellow who always has a drink in his hand and a woman on his arm.  Stella Stevens is a voluptuous klutz, a vapid bimbo who does slapstick humor.  The cleavage is stong in this one.  Wow.  It speaks to her talents with physical comedy that I was more often viewing her as an accident in progress rather than an obviously gorgeous woman.  Daliah Lavi plays the competent spy who clearly has a crush on Matt Helm.  She is conveniently sidelined when Stella enters the picture but returns for the third act.  She does such a great job that she was also cast in Casino Royale (1967) as a spy.  The cast of villains is plentiful, making them individually less memorable.  Victor Buono plays the chief villain, Tung-Tze.  Yes, he's supposed to be Chinese.  Awkward casting but this was the 60s.

Mostly goofy but generally entertaining.  Many of the sequences are carried on too long.  The car chase just drags on and on before it finally ends in the predictable crash.  Some of Stella Steven's comedic bits also drag - notably her repeated falling in the mud.  The villain guards all went to the Stormtrooper school of shooting.  Though the backward firing gun was fun, the whistling suit button grenades were a little too Get Smart!

Just okay.  Worthwhile for a Dean Martin fan or those who might enjoy a spoof of the spy genre.  On the other hand, fans of the Donald Hamilton novels will not recognize the character.  This is Matt Helm in name only.