Article I: The Legislative Branch

Section 1 – The Legislature: All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

The rules for this new nation have to go about establishing certain offices, departments, and modes of operation. The first listed is the Legislative Branch—which I guess can mean the Part of the Government that Makes the Laws.

This is pretty major on several counts. Kings had executive, judicial and legislative powers—all facets of government were subject to them; Parliament also had that sort of power—although they are a legislative branch, they have sovereignty over the other branches. Parliament has ultimate power and the only thing it doesn’t have power over is future Parliament.

But this Congress is different. It is given all legislative powers, and even some modicum of judicial power (mentioned later) but it is not given ultimate sovereignty.

A question is raised though: can states make laws? Do they have legislative powers?

Well, surely, else the states would never have ratified the Constitution. The “all legislative power” here has to be contextually defined as well as exposed to the light of what’s going on with this newly created government.

In other words, this power is not something that is naturally inherent in Congress, but it is being vested (note the words “granted” and “vested”) in it by the true sovereigns of the new government: the people.

I saw this great example in one of the books I read. If we were to imagine every power that a government could have (like making laws, starting wars, arresting people, torturing citizens, housing armies in homes) and put them into a box we would have the diagram below. This is just governmental power.

What this Constitution is starting to do is draw a line in the box. On one side of the line are powers not granted to the governing body—that we put into the category of infringing on the freedom of the people—and on the other side are powers that are granted to the governing body.

The powers granted in Article 1 are “all legislative” but only as demarcated by the boundaries of its sections. Since this is dealing with the creation of a federal body by the people what we’re seeing is a division of power solely on the side of granted powers. The federal government would have specific powers, as defined by the Constitution—state government would be a separate issue (although the first Article does deal with some of those issues).

So all we’re dealing with here is a portion of the upper right hand quadrant.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

We the People of the United States…do ordain

I noted that the preamble really wasn’t the setting down of laws, rights or anything but I purposefully didn’t mention the monumental importance of the language that was used.

The States of the Americas were already labeled “united” in the Articles of Confederations—but nowhere near the way that the Constitution was using the term.

Each state functioned, essentially, as its own country. They could make their own currency. They could enforce their own state constitutions. Honestly, they could even go to war against one another (if attacked by invasion). When they became the united States, they were the individual states which, together, signed the articles to form a confederation—not a new government. In other words, they weren’t forming a new government; they were merely in union with certain purposes.

For example: if a law had to be passed, all the states had to agree to it and then they may or may not implement it in their own states. A strange predicament that. But this makes sense if it was merely a sort of non-aggression contract. This is why the Articles of Confederation even allowed Canada to be part of the united (small “U”) States if they so wished. Canada wouldn’t be giving up her sovereignty; she’d only be in union with the other States.

Imagine the situation: States, functioning independently, making different currencies, different laws that didn’t function across borders—and the horror of an angry overseas enemy constantly looming. Sure the Articles stuffed in some language about no State making a treaty with England but it’s still a shaky concept when you consider the fractured history of Europe. If anything, even though the Articles were helpful, they would ultimately be a failure resulting in a fractured landmass under the constant thread of a powerful enemy and no way to deal with all the problems without all the States agreeing to the fixes first.

Enter the Constitution.

It doesn’t speak in terms of States coming into an agreement and then forming this central government by ending the previous system and accepting all sorts of inequities; rather it speaks in terms of the people collectively decreeing something into existence which wasn’t there before. The People are the ones who are speaking and ordaining this central government and this then becomes the (capital “U”) United States.

This is interesting since the ordaining of the United States doesn’t necessitate all the States agreeing on a change in Confederation—this United States didn’t have much to do with the Confederation as it was. This was a new thing.

We see in Article 7 (which we’ll get to eventually) it doesn’t speak of enforcing this United States over all the States by merely nine States agreeing on it, rather it speaks of the United States grounded on the Constitution coming into being via ordination by nine States ratifying the thing.

In effect, in the Americas, you would have Canada (up north), The United States (made up of whatever nine states did ratify it) and then all the other States functioning as other Countries.

As states ratified the Constitution, they entered into this more perfect union of an ordained Government rather than signing a treaty of peace with this New Country. In this way, Rhode Island continued to exist as a separate entity while the United States marched on with George Washington as her President. Once Rhode Island finally ratified the constitution they didn’t form a contract with the United States, they became part of the country already known as the United States.

Therefore, the importance of this “We the People of the United States…do ordain” is monumental, even if it isn’t establishing rights or laws. There may have been attempts at democratic governments in the past, even in ancient Greece and Rome, but such attempts ended at the State level. This government, ordained by the People and for the people and ratified by the People of the States was a new thing: for good or ill, the world would watch would wonder and realize that it would never again be the same.

I looked through my box of Electronic Stuff to see what I had available hoping for some quickie fix. Here’s the three possible options that all worked.

Option 1: A super long Ethernet cable. Frankly this option is totally ugly even if it gave me awesome hardwired speed. The wire trailed across two rooms resulting in a walking hazard. Functional, but ugly.

Option 2: Convert a router to a wi-fi adapter. Taking a Linksys Wireless G router that I have in the box, I flashed the firmware with dd-wrt. This allowed me to set the router as a wireless bridge which would push an IP address through to any connected Ethernet devices. Once flashed and set up, all you have to do is plug the Ethernet cables in from the mac to the router—wi-fi enabled. But honestly, I also have an X-Box 360 in this room and I would rather have the ability to use Xbox Live on the thing so I just hooked it up to the X-Box and left it at that.

Option 3: Belkin F5D7050 USB Wireless Adapter. I had this little thing hanging around to plug into PC’s or Linux boxes which could use it in a pinch. Unfortunately there are no drivers for the Mac to support the thing. You plug it into the USB port and it doesn’t even know something is plugged in. You could try installing old Mac Drivers for other versions of the USB Adapter but they just won’t work—apparently there were that many differences in device versions.

Enter RalinkTech who designs chipsets for several USB Mini Cards and actually has chipset drivers that work with the Belkin USB device. Once installed and after a restart, the Mac recognizes the device and allows you to jump onto the SSID.

Virtually free (if you have the equipment already) to Cheap (I think the adapter runs at about twenty bucks) and the setup is a breeze.

Update: I unplugged the Adapter, used a spare ethernet cable from my wireless bridge and now my Xbox 360 and my mac both connect to the internet using the same wireless bridge router. Awesome. The USB Adapter can now be used for my linux box upstairs.

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.

Every game needs the rules for playing it and this one here is the introduction for the rule book of, and by (very important), the People of the United States of America.

In this section, we don’t see any rules—we just see the goal of playing the game (if we’re sticking with the metaphor). Basically the overarching goal is to enjoy life without killing each other.

For instance, this idea of “domestic tranquility” is all about peace between the states instead of throttling one another; this other bit about providing for the common defense hints at a pooling together of resources; and the bit about securing welfare and the blessings of liberty is essentially the happiness (in the philosophical sense) that is attributed to Liberty. But the preamble doesn’t say how, it just talks about why.

I guess some want the preamble part of constitutional rights but it really isn’t, especially in light of the philosophical terminology it employs (like welfare not being a program but a goal of peace, security and happiness). This is just laying the groundwork for what’s coming down the pike.

Lost has figured out a unique, and singular use, of that literary feature by tying it into the story line of the entire final season.

Unfortunately, some people came to the last episode awaiting another Climax with answers to all types of question (Walt’s powers, the origin of the Light, the identity of the Twins’ Foster Mother, Vincent, the Dharma Initiative’s real goal, the stopper at the bottom, why Jack didn’t change, etc.) and stopped looking at what the writers were doing. They were giving a goodbye to the characters for the characters’ and the viewers’ sake.

Questions that came up that the viewers should have known the answers to if they were looking at it as a whole instead of expecting more answers:

• Was the Island fake? No, of course not—it was all real. That plot line had its openings, climax and ending in the finale. A defender was established. A sacrifice made. It was continued to be protected because it could not not-exist.
• Did everyone die? Yes, eventually—but not immediately. That’s the point of the closing. Jack died for the Island, and for everyone, pierced on the side and looking up towards those he had rescued; those he rescued go off to live lives where they’re always grateful for his provision; and the Island continues to be protected by a new and different Warden—one who cares about people and one who did anything for his own: a better pairing could not be found.
• Was Vincent God? I think it’s more likely that he was the shade of the mother of the Twins, or, he was just an old dog.
• Does that mean they had unfulfilled lives? Not necessarily. It means that the importance of what happened on the Island was so great that they were forever tied together.

Yeah, the ending had a tinge of bitterness—they were all dead in the unified creation of a holding house before moving on to some other destination. Judeo-Christian categories are set aside as a more Graeco-Roman afterlife is reflected: the characters, affected by Lethos are on the edge of the Elysium Fields or the Hall of Heroes, but they must first remember their connection to one another before advancing to any other stage of the afterlife. It explains why Michael isn’t there (he’s stuck on the Island) and why Ben is waiting (his connection was to his ‘daughter’) and why Faraday’s mom knows and still remains.

But that’s all good for an dénouement;, it allowed not only the viewers to say goodbye, but the characters were given that loosening of the ties that held them down in life—they were all allowed to let go, and move on to the ultimate End. The fact that the writers figured out how to start introducing the goodbye while the climax was occurring just adds to the uniqueness of the show. It was a great ending, and it left just the right amount of stuff unexplained, resulting in one of the greatest series television has ever known.

Note: here’s Michael Patton thinking he didn’t get any answers. People, why do you need a better explanation than Jacob’s when finding out what the Island is?

Now, I wouldn’t have known its old life from a farm on the side of the road. The place looks downright homey—right down to the bathroom outside and the lot full to the brim with parked cars. Me being a city boy, I even expected to see a bunch of faces looking strangely at me as I walk around with my camera.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

You see, this small apple cider press brainchild of Doug Stanley, the home of a local bluegrass and country music gathering, every week on Saturday evenings. For three dollars at the door one can go in, grab a steamer (or soup or chips or iced tea—whatever they set up), take a seat, and watch some of the best local performers strum, pick, and croon out classics.

If you’re good enough you could even join the performers up front—not that I’m not good enough. I just sat down, enjoyed the warmth of the audience, kicked up my feet on a sofa, and enjoyed the evening out.

Make sure to come out early. The picking starts off at 6:00 but the parking lot is usually full by 5:30. Update: It’s located in Smithsburg, MD, right past the Water Treatment Plant on Crystal Falls Drive. Here’s the Google Maps link.

Here are some pictures and videos.

[View with PicLens]

I’m also Hispanic. Not the white looking Ricky Martin type. I’m one of the dark ones that don’t look Hispanic at all. My expression, on a regular day, has the somber visage of a person who isn’t happy—even if I’m completely content. It’s not that I have a cloud over my head; it’s just that I’m one of those ugly people.

This means I have a history of being watched. When I would shop at a fruit stand in Brooklyn, I’d have the Koreans looking at me, their eyes following me about the store. When I would shop at a Macy’s, I’d have the white assistant managers looking at me, following me about the store. When I walked into a book store, I’d have the Guyanese store owners looking at me, following me about the store. If I dared pick up a magazine I received the patented “this is not a library” mandate.

Yeah it was annoying but I dealt with it. I didn’t rob these people but they’ve had a history with dealing with problems with a certain looking character.

Any New Yorker, when being honest, would tell you that if they saw a crowd of dudes of a certain color and puffy coats, they walked more circumspectly: their senses became more aware. I don’t think this was being racist even if it was profiling. Heck, I did it with my own people; since I don’t look Hispanic I knew that I could be a target.

Want to take moral high-ground? I’ll meet you at Marcy Ave at night or at just about any stop of the G-Train.

I even profiled by sex. All men is dangerous, especially if they’re under a certain age. If it was a mixed crowd, the danger level went down. If the girls in the crowd were louder, more ganster, the danger level went back up.

This sort of thing didn’t fail me as a New Yorker, on the street. It saved me from quite a few beatings.

So what’s wrong with doing this at the national level? I’m talking about intrinsic wrongness. Is it really an evil to have as part of a profile certain characteristics of a group that has a history doing a certain thing? Even if the group is starting to transcend normal descriptive factors, is there an intrinsic evil in using that as a starting point? I’m not going to bother making this a logical argument, I’m just asking that rhetorically and presenting all of this anecdotally.

I wasn’t in the City on 9/11. I worked in Long Island by then. I, like every New Yorker, was afraid. I didn’t know what was going on. Honestly, I thought that this was it: we were going to bomb the hell out of someone in a volatile region and have a break out of another world war. Come to think of it, my kid has been alive 8 years and almost every day of his life the US has been at war, so maybe I wasn’t that far off.

But I had friends in the City, then. A friend, at a small downtown hospital, saw the plane that crashed into the tower fly low overhead. Several friends felt the tremor and the boom of the impact. A friend of mine lost her husband and she was left with two kids. Another friend of mine stood outside of the towers and saw the people leaping to their death—an image that he’ll never forget. Another friend just missed being in the towers because he was running late for work. Another friend lost every co-worker. Family joined the exodus of people that evacuated the city.

I remember the smell. New Yorkers, me included, days after the Fall of the Towers, would exit our homes or apartments and wonder what that smell was. It was this sort of iodine, chemical sort of thing with a dash of, I don’t know—but I remember it. We complained about it without mentioning what it we thought it was.

It’s not surprising then when I talk to fellow New Yorkers, in private and from both sides of the political line, that they sometimes admit that when taking the subway, they’re nervous and sometimes they look at someone, maybe someone that looks middle-eastern—someone that might even look like me even if they’re Hispanic—and get worried. What’s in that big bag, they wonder to themselves, what’s in that bag?

The guy who set off the bomb that failed in 42nd Street was a Pakistani turned Citizen last year who, based on camera footage, looked like an older white guy. The T-Shirt vendor who pointed out the smoking bomb to a mounted police officer was an immigrant, with features more obviously those that we look at nervously. Indeed, a year and a half after 9/11 my entire family, including my son then coming on two, were scanned at the airport. There he stood, weeping, because he was being scanned. I was angry but I understood. Indeed, every time I go through airport security I am “randomly” checked. It’s annoying but I understand.

We don’t know what a terrorist looks like, but we need to be watching.

United States benefits a bit from geography and her neighbors. We’re surrounded by ocean instead of rivers; we’re covered by international flight checks instead of merely regional checks; Canadians have good background checking on immigrants while Mexicans shoot them; and we thus have the comfort and security to complain. Machine guns in the airport scare us, baggage checks take too long, racial profiling is racist, stupid racist righties are making a mountain out of a molehill, stupid leftists just want to let every terrorist in; while places like Israel, India and Mexico have no problem employing tough (sometimes admittedly evil) measures to protect their people.

No, I’m not saying that might makes right. I’m saying that the government has a responsibility to be extra careful and I can’t see how stopping security from doing what people normally do—watch, be aware, notice patterns—is the right way to go about things. What’s wrong with using one’s eyes? Maybe this isn’t a popular opinion especially since I (and people who look like me) will continue getting checked at security or followed by wary eyes but that’s just the cost of security in this current world.

Also, in a sort of roundabout way, people who try to ignore 9/11 (and common sense) to gain some political mileage are really doing more damage than any form of good. You want to use this to slam the right as being racist and what will you have in it’s place? Seriously, what other options do you have to offer? Get rid of Guns? This dude had propane. So please, quit it.

Addendum: I’m not saying that we should start trampling the Constitution in the name of Security.