http://goo.gl/6Z9sEu
This is the introductory chapter of Public Private Relationships and The New Owners of the Means of Production in which I identify my own political philosophy
There is much talk in today's American
political landscape about conservatism. This is my view.
Conservatism is Individualism
The purpose of American conservatism is to
preserve the political philosophy of the founders of the United States, as documented in The United
States Constitution, the Federalist Papers and The Declaration of
Independence. The fundamental principal of that philosophy is
individual liberty. A conservative considers policy within the
framework of the United States Constitution. A progressive regards
the Constitution as outdated and no longer suitable for today's
world. A conservative rejects policy if it is inconsistent with the
Constitution. A progressive devises ways around the Constitution and
the statutes if they pose obstacles to what the progressive wants.
The progressive prioritizes policy and finds a way to make the
Constitution fit policy- or as in the case of the Maine Legislature,
just ignores the Constitution all together as it has been said in
high circles that no one reads the Maine1
Constitution, perhaps because the Maine Constitution is absent in the
Maine educational system.
The United States Constitution was created by
men who believed in God. Most were Christian, but the founding
documents do not speak of Christianity for while the United States
Constitution is founded on a philosophy accepting the existence of
God, the United States Constitution protects and provides for
religious freedom.
Throughout metaphysical thought God is
conceived as wholeness and includes and is within everything that is.
Oriental philosophy speaks of Oneness. In the new physics that broke
into human awareness at the dawn of the twentieth century, the
scientific paradigm evolved to include numerous theories positing
non-locality (wholeness) as the hidden variable at work in the
quantum leap so inexplicable by classical physics laws of nature.2
The concept of God, or wholeness, is common to the world's religions,
but is not itself a religion. The belief in the existence of God is a
philosophical premise. One takes either the existence of God or the
non-existence of God to be self evident. Neither view can be
objectively proven for there is no perspective outside of everything
that is and it is impossible to prove a negative
In esoteric Christianity, Christ is wholeness
within individual man. The path to discovery of the Christ within the
individual is unique for each individual and so the founding
philosophy of the United States, in placing individual freedom at its
center, is resonate with Hermetic Christian philosophy and identifies
America as a Christian nation.
In placing individual freedom as central to our
governing philosophy, the United States political philosophy is built
upon a spiritual – or non-materialistic foundation.
Conservatism is Fundamentally Spiritual
In Federalist Paper #10, James Madison writes:
" The diversity in the faculties of men,
from which the rights of property originate, is not less an
insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of
these faculties is the first object of government. From the
protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property,
the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately
results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views
of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into
different interests and parties.”
In Madisonian thought, the first object of
government is the protection of the faculties of men- that which is
inherent to each individual, our own talents and skills out of which
is grown the fruit of our own labor which is the means through which
each individual acquires property. Some may argue that some inherit
wealth and that is not earned wealth, to which I say that the
circumstances into which each individual is born is God's will and
whatever one makes of those circumstances is the fruit of one's own
labor. Martin Buber wrote lucidly about the events of our own lives
being a conversation with God3,
which begins its earthly manifestation when we are born into this
world.
The Constitution of the United States of
America is a design of a process intended to protect individual
liberty to the degree that such liberty can be retained within a
larger society. It is a process inclusive of all factions and as such
every faction must negotiate and sometimes compromise with other
factions.
Contemporary Dialogue on Conservatism
There exists today a newly emergent political
faction which often calls its self “We the People”. Until all
the people of the United States are of one collective mind sharing
one collective ideology, there can be no one faction which represents
the voice of We the People. However such a condition assumes an
annihilation of individuality and as such is oppositional to the
fundamental philosophy of the United States Constitution. The United
States electoral process represents the many voices of We the People.
The fore mentioned contemporary faction, refers
to itself casually as “true conservatives” and seeks to bring
down the establishment conservative party, the Republicans, by which
they mean those who currently serve in our government as a result of
our electoral process. This faction has not formed its own political
party but seeks to win the Republican nomination despite the fact of
having spent many years attacking Republicans mercilessly and I might
add with a great deal of dis-information. Claims are repeated over
and again, that the representatives elected by the people have lied
to the people and broken their promises, but the claims are
generalized and applied with shotgun precision to everyone and anyone
who stands in the way of the newly formed political faction's agenda,
which is to rise to power themselves. If playing by the rules of
fairness, the new political faction would form their own political
party and run their own primaries but their chosen means of achieving
power is identity theft. This political faction uses as the measure
of conservatism their own political policies. Their most sacrosanct
issue is immigration policy by which antiestablishmentarians call for
the deportation of all current resident illegals.
As a member of the original Tea Party movement,
I have been a witness to the emergence of said faction on my social
media portals for many years. My first political social media friends
were those who also were members of the original Tea Party movement.
I have witnessed the transformation of the Tea Party movement into
something entirely different. For a while I became the minority
arguing against the politics that populated my social media walls but
as I added friends who sympathized with my subjective views the voice
of “We the People” transformed. In social media every subject
creates a version of what may be mistakenly taken as an objective
view of popular opinion. Quoting the physicist Niels Bohr,
“Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a
man, an animal, or a piece of apparatus, but it is no longer possible
to make predictions without reference to the observer or the means of
observation” and so the observer is inseparable from what is
observed and as such there is no objective view point. One can take a
similar view of polling, particularly when manifested in our new data
driven culture- which is to say polls are subjective interpretations
as well, although presented as “scientific” ignoring the fact
that In the new scientific paradigm heralded in at the beginning of
the twentieth century, objectivity is but an illusion.
As I set out to record the historical narrative
unraveled through six years of researching Maine economic development
statutes, the currently perceived front runner of the Republican
primaries, is Donald Trump who has turned his polling numbers into a
campaign strategy, reminding the listener on almost every speaking
occasion that candidate Trump is leading in the polls, as if
intending to exercise a subliminal mind control technique. The
antiestablishmentarians became Mr Trumps pre-fabricated political
base the instant that candidate Trump entered the race and never get
tired of telling the electorate about Mr Trumps poll numbers as if to
say we have no other choice but to accept Mr Trump as our next
president so early in the Republican primary race.
Policy vs Philosophy
It is arguable that immigration policy is the
definitive antiestablishmentarian measure of conservatism for the
reason that it is the most divisive issue among conservatives. All
conservatives agree that the order of the illegal immigration process
is to first secure the border before instituting solutions about the
problem of millions of resident illegal aliens. The foundational
difference in opinion among conservatives is about what to do about
the millions of resident illegal aliens. The antiestablishmentarian
defines conservatism in accordance with conformity to their “right”
view on the resident illegal alien issue, which is to deport all
current resident illegal aliens. Given that border security is first
accomplished, as all agree it should be, the problem of the current
resident aliens is a temporary issue of these times. In terms of
conservatism's elementary purpose, to preserve the American political
philosophy, the contemporary illegal immigration issue, given that
the border is secured, does not threaten that philosophy. Some say it
threatens the preservation of Americanism because it is said that new
immigration weighs the electorate to the left, but I do not see that
as a core issue to preserving the American political philosophy as it
is not a philosophical issue but a political one.
Antiestablishmentarians shout loudly about
upholding the rule of law and give no further consideration to the
many contingent public issues. Most of the establishment
conservatives are for a path to legal status with robust conditions
attached. The United States Constitution provides for a presidential
pardon, the purpose of a which is for the public good.
"in seasons of insurrection or rebellion
there are often critical moments when a welltimed offer of pardon to
the insurgents or rebels may restore the tranquility of the
commonwealth; and which, if suffered to pass unimproved, it may never
be possible after wards to recall."
The problem of what to do with millions of
resident illegal aliens is a similar issue. The establishment
conservatives argue that deporting all resident illegal aliens would
have a disruptive effect on many lives, not only those directly
deported. It could have a disturbing affect as well as on the
American psyche. The intention of the presidential pardon is to
balance justice and mercy, which is to say it takes into account
multifarious considerations affecting human society. A pardon of the
act of entering the United States illegally is not a grant of
citizenship. It grants only a legal status and is within the rule of
law of our Constitution.
Conservatism is a philosophy. Immigration is a
policy. In conservatism the first measure of policy is that it be
consistent with the Constitution. The Constitution does not dictate
policy, it defines a philosophy and a structure for government
concordant with constitutional philosophy. It can be that divergent
policies are each consistent with the Constitution. That is why the
antiestablishmentarian movement is wrong when if chooses immigration
policy as the measure of conservatism. The true measure of
conservatism is constitutional consistency. The solution advocated by
establishment conservatives is a path way to legal status which is
constitutionally consistent with the presidential power of pardon.
Conservatism is for Small Government
Preamble 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 phrases “common good”. “general welfare” and are similar sounding phrases that has caused much debate over how they are to be interpreted. In The United States Constitution, the adjective “common” is applied to Defense, while the adjective “general” is applied to Welfare. The phrase “common good” is not actually used, but has been used abundantly in discussions of the meaning of the phrase “general welfare” I submit that the use of the term “common good” is derivative of the conflation of the terms “common defense” and “general welfare”.
In contemporary times the term “welfare’ is associated with government assistance but at the time of the United States founding fathers, there were no government assistance programs and so the meaning must have been “for the general good- or for the general well being”
The founders of the United States Constitution wrote a great deal about the problem of fairness and factions. The solution was a system designed with internal checks against tyranny and totalitarianism. In that context the term “general” takes on the meaning of “that which is common to all factions- or individuals”. National defense is such a common good and so the term “common” has been used in the Constitution as a qualifier of Defense. All of the colonies benefited by the Union of the States in shared defense making national defense a “common welfare”,
Today the terms “common good” and “general welfare” are often times replaced with “public benefit”, a term which removes the reference to something commonly shared and replaces it with the concept of something which is “public”. “Public” is related to the terms “common” and “general” but does not require that all factions share in the benefit. A public benefit need not be a common good but a common good is always a public benefit. A common good leaves much less to interpretation than does public benefit. Public roads are a common good because one way or another everyone benefits by public roads even those that never drive on them receive mail and goods that have been delivered on a public road. Job creation by the government is declared to be a public benefit but it is a benefit for some while its cost is a burden for others.
There are many ways that one can interpret almost anything as a public benefit and likewise argue that it is a common good to the point that one could say that everything and anything that does not do the public harm is a public and common good. In the strictest sense of conservatism, the size of government should be restricted to serving the common good and let the private sector develop ways to serve the public benefit. On that note I would say that providing a net for the most unfortunate in society is a public benefit and I could even argue that it is a common good but there in lies my own interpretation. It was because there exist people at the bottom who rely on government services that the founding fathers of Maine’s corporate state declared that it is likewise appropriate for them to avail themselves to public funds and that is how it came to be that Maine is a state that provides rations entitlements for the bottom and opportunity entitlements for the top, where the gap between the haves and the have nots has been steadily increasing and the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. General welfare roles have grown along side of the expansion in corporate welfare. The middle class which is the opportunity zone for those on the bottom has been gradually withering away in Maine and the USA.
The Preamble to Maine’s Constitution is written with similar words as the United States Constitution and includes the philosophical premise of a Sovereign Ruler of the Universe possessing the quality of goodness which will aid and direct in the accomplishment of justice, tranquility, mutual defense , common welfare and liberty. The term ”general welfare” has been transposed as “common welfare” .The individual states follow the United States Constitution as the premise of state constitutions and were influenced as well by other states Constitutions. It is reasonable to speculate that at the time the Maine State Constitution was created that the term “general welfare” had been discovered to be a term with a wide range of interpretation. The term common welfare is more specific. The Maine State Constitution identifies the object of government as limited to promoting welfare which is shared commonly by all. The goodness of God is called upon as a guide in achieving the objects of government.
Preamble Maine Constitution:Objects of government. We the people of Maine, in order to establish justice, insure tranquility, provide for our mutual defense, promote our common welfare, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of liberty, acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in affording us an opportunity, so favorable to the design; and, imploring God's aid and direction in its accomplishment, do agree to form ourselves into a free and independent State, by the style and title of the State of Maine and do ordain and establish the following Constitution for the government of the same.
Conservatism is Free Enterprise
There are many standards for measuring
conservatism. The definition of conservatism that I articulate here
must include protecting a free enterprise system and clearly
distinguishing free enterprise from a centrally managed economy.
State capitalism is found in the two most influential political
systems which rose to power during the twentieth century, communism
(and by extension socialism), and fascism. The current political
development which has transformed Maine and other parts of the USA is
called in contemporary terms “public private relationships” Where
as state ownership of the means of production is communism, public
private relationships are fascism. In Benito Mussolini's vision
private business was allowed but the private sector had to serve the
purposes of the state4.
I submit that within the public private relationship, there will
always exist a power struggle between the state and the private
corporation. When in 1977 the public private relationships were
codified into Maine law with a glorifying rhetoric worthy of
Mussolini himself, the Legislature assigned a leadership role to the
private sector but as the corporate state expanded, the state
acquired it's own ownership of the means of production mainly through
the university system.
The Maine Legislature has jurisdiction over the
educational curricula in Maine and uses the educational system as a
component of its centrally managed economy serving the interests of
state capitalism. Since the early 2000's the Legislature has
entrenched a minor in Marxist and Socialist Studies which dominates
the Southern University of Maine's political science department. One
does not find fascism as a subject in the educational curricula. It
is neither taught nor talked about. It merely proliferates in
practice, unnamed and abundant. There is a taboo surrounding the
identification of fascism. Both fascism and Marxism have historically
resulted in genocidal dictatorships, but it is only fascism which one
cannot identify within contemporary political culture without being
accused of having broken a rule of politically correct conduct. Many
a person who abhors President Obama's refusal to use the words
“radical Islam” or “terrorism”, will adamantly insist that
the use of the term or symbol of fascism is socially and politically
unacceptable. How ever it is as true for fascism as it is for radical
Islam, if we cannot identify the enemy we cannot fight it. I submit
that conservatives who believe in preserving the American political
philosophy must reject the ban against identifying fascism as a
political ideology. We must understand the underpinnings of fascism
in its political structure is separate from the acts of barbarism to
which it led. Fascism did not come into being with popular acceptance
as an ideology advocating genocide and militarism, that is only how
it evolved under the Nazi’s in the twentieth century. Fascism is
growing right under our noses even as it is anti-theoretical to the
American political philosophy. In its economic manifestation fascism
is state corporatism partnering with private corporatism.
The Constitution of Maine forbids the
Legislature from chartering corporations for state purposes5
but that has been ignored as the Maine Legislature has entrenched an
ever expanding network of state corporations over the last four
decades. The states are said to be the experimental laboratories of
government. By the consent of the governed, the state of Maine should
be an experiment in the free enterprise economic system but Maine is
no longer a state governed by its Constitution and in that sense
Maine is no longer a state but has become a colony of a corporation
run by public-private relationships.
Donald Trump and Kelo vs New London
State capitalism in relationship with private
capitalism is the economic system advocated for by the
antiestablishmentarian's leading candidate, Donald Trump. By the
standards of conservatism put forth in this narrative, the
antiestablishmentarian movement is not a conservative movement in its
support of candidate Trump. State capitalism is a progressive
movement, relying on a collectivists philosophy inconsistent with
that of American individualism.
Donald Trump echoes the rhetoric used to sell
state capitalism to the people of Maine. The key selling point is job
creation by the government. It was only a few years ago that my
social network walls were filled with posts opposing the concept that
the state picks winners and losers as well as the concept that the
private sector and not the government creates jobs but in the 2016
election season those ideas have receded into history. The self
proclaimed true conservatives are all praise and adulation for
candidate Trump celebrating the idea that President Trump will run
the government like a business.
Mere similarity in rhetoric is not enough to
conclude that Trump intends to create jobs by expanding the corporate
state. It is when Donald Trump says in an interview broadcast on the
Fox News Channel's “Special Report” that eminent domain used for
private projects that “employ thousands of people” is “a
wonderful thing” that Donald Trump confirms that he is a state
capitalist and advocates a collectivist political philosophy
characteristic of a Marxist or fascist political system in which a
class of overlords designs society for everyone else. This may not
have been Marx's intent but it has consistently been the result of
attempts to implement Marxism. It is clearly the intent of fascism as
documented in The
DOCTRINE OF FASCISM,
1932 by Benito Mussolini. Once collectivism
is institutionalized, be it in a communist or fascist system, a well
to do bureaucratic class emerges, which has historically evolved into
public private relationships functioning as channels for
redistributing public wealth to private and/or state owners of the
means of production6.
In Maine it has become a system in which the taxpayer subsidizes an
upper crust of the economy.
Kelo vs New London, United States Supreme Court Decision
The form of eminent domain praised by Donald
Trump was legally established in 2005 by a decision made by the
United States Supreme Court:
Kelo
v. City of New London,
545 U.S. 469 (2005)[1] was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the
United States involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land
from one private owner to another private owner to further economic
development. In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that the general
benefits a community enjoyed from economic growth qualified private
redevelopment plans as a permissible "public use" under the
Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
6"Over
the ensuing decades, particularly in the 1990s when massive
investment poured into China, the families of CCP bureaucrats
utilized political power and links with foreign capital to transform
themselves into a new
property-owning capitalist elite. CCP-connected entrepreneurs,
executives,
outsourcing contractors,
import and export traders and professionals have emerged as the
junior partners of major transnational corporations in ruthlessly
exploiting the working class."
SUSoETTE
KELO
ET AL.
v.
CITY
OF NEW LONDON
ET AL.
Supreme
Court of Connecticut
Argued
December 2, 2002
Officially
released March 9, 2004
Opinion
NORCOTT, J.
The principal issue in this appeal is whether
the public use clauses of the federal and state Constitutions
authorize the exercise of the eminent domain power in furtherance of
a significant economic development plan that is projected to create
in excess of 1000 jobs, to increase tax and other revenues, and to
revitalize an economically distressed city, including its downtown
and waterfront areas.
The court ruled in favor of the defendants, the
City of New London and the New
London Development Corporation.Together
they comprise a public-private relationship and so this United States
Supreme Court ruling, so consequential to the United States
constitutional right to individual property ownership is a case of
that new and fluid form of government called the public private
relationship against the private individual, whose individual rights
the United States Constitution was formed to protect.
I came across two papers discussing the lack of
transparency of the public private relationship, a fluid
institutional identity that behaves in a chameleon fashion, sometimes
taking on the identity of a public entity while at other times
enjoying the privacy of a private entity. One paper is called LOOKING
FOR AN INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT by Mitchell
W Pearlman,
former director of the Connecticut Freedom of information. This paper
is not dated. The second is an
independent study on the Baltimore Development
Corporation
by Maximilan Tonro, written in December 2010.The paper by Maximilan Tonro discusses the Kelo vs New London decision and makes
particular note of the fact that the Supreme Court justices failed to
take in the distinction that the City of New London and the New
London Development Corporation are separate entities. The City of New
London is a public entity. The New London Development Corporation was
described by Justice Stevens as a “private non-profit entity”,
which Mr Tonro notes that after an initial discussion
recognizing the distinction of two separate and differently formed
entities, Justice Stevens treated both as one and the same entity
with the exception of a foot note. According to Mr Tonro,
Justice Kennedy never distinguished the two entities as having
separate legal natures or separate identities but treated both as the
City of New London. Justice O'Connor wrote the dissenting opinion in
which attention was made to the lack of accountability of the New
London Development Corporation but nonetheless throughout the opinion
continued to conflate The New London Development Corporation with the
City of New London “under the rubric of “sovereign”. Mr Tonro makes note of the fact that the Connecticut
Legislature has authorized pubic institutions to assign authority to
private institutions but since the decision in Kelo v. New London
hinges on defining a public purpose argues at length that this is
insufficient to justify that a private economic development project
serves a public purpose under the rule of law in the United States
Constitution.
The concept that a private corporation serves a
public purpose is straight from the mouth of Benito Mussolini when he
says:
The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its
conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims.
For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative.
Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within
the State. Benito Mussolini- The Doctrine of Fascism 1932
Mussolini describes fascism as allowing private
enterprise but all must serve the purposes of the state, which in
today's terms is called a public-private relationship. The United
States Supreme Court Kelo vs New London decision is based in the
collectivist political ideology of fascism and does not consider the
American Constitution principal of individual liberty, which
Mussolini railed against
If liberalism spells individualism, Fascism
spells government.
...
Fascism desires the State to be strong and
organic, based on broad foundations of popular support. The Fascist State lays claim
to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its
action felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means
of its corporative, social, and educational institutions, and all the
political, economic, and spiritual forces of the nation, organized in
their respective associations, circulate within the State.
To make the legal identity of the New London
Development Corporation even more confusing, according to a report on
the New London Development Corporation prepared for
The
American
Assembly
by Peggy Cosgrove,
The New London Development Corporation was established by the
Connecticut Legislature in 1978. That makes the New London
Development Corporation a private non-profit entity established by
the State of Connecticut and conflated with the Municipality of New
London in a United States Supreme Court decision affecting the right
to private property ownership. Three levels of governmental power
conspire against the constitutional property rights of the private
individual.
The New London Development Corporation was
established by the Connecticut Legislature in 1978 around the same
time that the Maine Legislature chartered the Maine Development
Foundation as a non-profit corporation. There exists a fundamental
difference in the state Constitutions of Connecticut and Maine. The
Connecticut Constitution does not have a provision forbidding the
Legislature from chartering corporations for state purposes as is
found in the Maine Constitution.
The report on the New London Development
Corporation prepared for The
American Assembly
by Peggy Cosgrove
ends with these words:
Don't expect to be popular or thanked. Economic
development is as much political change as it is economic change. It
will be vigorously resisted by the standing political system even
though they stand to gain economically. The shifts are perceived as
threats to the old power structure, and probably are “
Indeed public private relationships formed in the interests of
centrally managing the economy do represent a political change. In
Maine that change has been from a state responsible to the consent of
the governed as codified in the Maine State Constitution to a public
corporation working in conjunction with private interests and
ultimately serving the masters of global capitalism.
This story is about the fundamental transformation of the State of
Maine, focusing on the years commencing in 1977 when the Maine
Legislature chartered the Maine Development Foundation- a non-profit
corporation, declaring as they did so that centrally managing the
economy is an essential government function and thus initiating a
political as well as an economic change without ever asking for the
consent of the governed in a state once identifed with rugged
individualism.
1
The Maine Constitution A Reference Guide by Marshall J Tinkle,
Preface, first page, quoting Professor Edward F Dow; “Nobody, but
nobody reads the state Constitution”
2
David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order
3
Between Man and Man by Martin Buber 1947
4
THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM, BENITO MUSSOLINI (1932)
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm
5
Maine Constitution Article IV Part Third Sections 13 & 14
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