Sixteen years ago on March 8, 1996, my Grandpa — Rev. William B. Maier — died in Eugene, Oregon. Remarkably, my in-laws Iddo and Joyce Heinicke were able to attend my grandfather’s memorial service because they had come to Eugene from Seward, Nebraska, soon after he died to visit us while Iddo was in Oregon for Lutheran Church Extension Fund business. Iddo and Joyce had met my grandfather a couple of times during earlier visits to Eugene, and they had a certain fondness for him because both of them were the children of fathers who were career pastors in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod at the same time my grandfather was a pastor in the same Synod. We always wondered if Rev. Heinicke, Rev. Muhl, and Rev. Maier had ever met each other in seminary or at a LCMS conference of some sort.
Anyway, on very short notice, I was asked by family members to eulogize my grandfather at his memorial service. I had only a very brief time to collect my thoughts and no time at all to write anything down. My grandfather had been a very important person in my life for many years, and I had been the family person with him during his last days, so I trusted the Holy Spirit would give me meaningful words to say. I spoke the words that came to me. Afterwards, Iddo asked me if I would say something at his funeral.
It was odd for Iddo to compliment my eulogy of my grandfather in that way, but I took him at his word. To have known Iddo was to know that he spoke his truth plainly; he would have never asked me to speak of him unless he truly meant it. Now here it is that Iddo has died, that his funeral will be tomorrow, and that I will not be there to say what should be said. Certainly, others will say fine things about Iddo, and some of those fine things could easily surpass anything that I might ever say. But Iddo asked me to speak of him at his funeral, so I will make my tribute here in writing.
I am Steven A. Sylwester, and I was Iddo’s son-in-law from October 26, 1975, until the day he died, which is 36 years 5 months time. I have known his daughter Kathie since we were both five years old and lived across the street from each other. Kathie (hereafter Koe) and I were classmates from first grade through eighth grade at St. John Lutheran School in Seward. I have had a crush on Koe since fifth grade, though I never told her so until we were both 20 years old, because the fullness of time had not yet happened.
The fullness of time is a Biblical truism. It is generally thought of in relation to Bible prophecies being fulfilled, but its greater truth is an acknowledgment of God’s Plan for each of our lives. I believe all time is Biblical time, even now, for there has been no time since Creation when God was not here present; the history of the world is the history of Immanuel — “God with us.” I mention that here because to know Iddo as a child of God is to see the very Presence of God at every turn in his life, and to also see the fullness of time happening at each turn.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. John 1: 1, 10-13 NRSV
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 NIV
Iddo Charles Heinicke II, a child of God who had humbly lived a Spirit-directed life, died in the Lord at 5:00 a.m. on March 25, 2012, after a peaceful night of sleep while in hospice care in Seward, Nebraska. He had been suffering heart ailments for several years. He was 88 years 9 months old.
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.” Revelation 14: 13 NRSV
Iddo was born June 25, 1923, in Hoxie, Kansas, to Rev. Iddo C., Sr., and Elizabeth (Boehne) Heinicke. He was the third oldest of their eight children: seven boys and one girl, all of whom eventually became professional church workers in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, including three brothers who became ordained pastors. Iddo was baptized a child of God on July 1, 1923, and publicly confirmed his faith in his Lord Jesus Christ on March 21, 1937 — a faith that he held to firmly for the rest of his life.
Iddo moved to Seward in 1935 when his father became the pastor at St. John Lutheran Church, and he happily called Seward his home for the next 77 years. There was no other place of majesty and grandeur that surpassed the Nebraska landscape for him, no great city, no magnificent mountaintop, no deep forest, and no ocean beach — and he visited an abundance of such other places in his lifetime. He was the quintessential Nebraskan who would not trade “The Good Life” for anything other than God’s Heaven.
After graduating from Concordia High School in Seward in 1941, Iddo attended Concordia Teachers College in Seward for two years before enlisting in the U.S. Army at the beginning of World War Two. The Army selected him for special training and sent him to the Colorado School of Mines where he was enrolled in engineering studies until additional soldiers were needed in Europe following the D-Day Invasion. He fought as an infantryman in the European Theater, first in the 66th Infantry Division known as the Black Panther Division and then in the 42nd Infantry Division known as the Rainbow Division. He was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge and the Bronze Star. He was present at the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945, which was a very traumatic experience for him as a 21-year-old combat-hardened soldier — in fact, it was an experience so terrible and searing that he never talked about it publicly because the deep sorrows his vivid memories provoked in him at his retelling of the events of that day were too overwhelming.
Iddo was a patriot who proudly flew the American flag on a flagpole in his front yard. He actively participated in local and national Veterans organizations, including having lifetime memberships in Seward VFW Post #4755 and Seward American Legion Post #33. He dedicated his post-WWII life to doing Good by making a positive difference in his profession, in his community, and in his church.
After the war, Iddo completed his formal education by earning a degree in geology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. He must have had dreams of becoming a geologist. But he also had obligations — obligations he could not even imagine until the day came when they were his. On June 14, 1949, Iddo’s father was tragically killed in a road accident while on a trip to a family wedding. His father died nine days before what would have been his 63rd birthday and eleven days before Iddo turned 26. Iddo was the third oldest of his parents’ eight children, some of whom were still teenagers living at home at the time of their father’s death. His oldest brother Gary was a career U.S. Air Force officer stationed abroad and his second oldest brother Ed was a Lutheran pastor already in the ministry, so Iddo suddenly had the obligation to become the widow’s caretaker son for his mother and his youngest siblings. He picked up that obligation, found a career opportunity in Seward, and never spoke any regret about it in his later life.
For 25 years from 1950 to 1975, Iddo was employed at Jones National Bank and Trust in Seward. He began his banking career there as a cashier and ended it as vice-president.
Iddo was united in marriage to Joyce Muhl on June 9, 1952, in Williamsburg, Iowa — a marriage that lasted almost 60 years. Their marriage was blessed with three children: Stephanie Lee, Kathie Lynn (Koe), and David William. Iddo and Joyce had much in common: both of their fathers were Lutheran pastors who served LCMS congregations in the central Midwest, both graduated from Concordia High School, both attended Concordia Teachers College (where Joyce graduated), and both supported the work of the “Lutherans For Life” organization. Iddo and Joyce prayed together and spoke devotions together, and the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church were central to everything about their life together. Once, in Joyce’s presence, when he was finally given the podium at a banquet honoring him for a significant career accomplishment, Iddo did not glory in his own accomplishments, but instead gave public thanks and praise to Joyce for her many unheralded accomplishments as his wife and helpmate and for her surpassingly fine work as the mother of their children. Though Iddo was a man who was ever faithful and dutiful in doing the Lord’s work and was a cheerful and generous giver of his time and talents, he never thought more highly of his own hard work than he thought of the hard work of others: he valued the widow’s mite as much as he valued the rich man’s millions.
In 1957, Iddo began his long career as a professional church worker by accepting part-time duties as the treasurer of the Southern Nebraska District of the LCMS. When the Northern and Southern Districts merged in 1975, he was asked to serve the newly formed Nebraska District of the LCMS as a full-time financial officer, so he left Seward County banking to do a job that eventually became influential in the creation of the Lutheran Church Extension Fund, which can be rightly thought of as the banking arm of the Lord’s Vineyard in the LCMS.
Iddo’s mother died in Seward on February 24, 1974, at age 79. The following year, Iddo began working for the LCMS on a full-time basis.
Excerpts from: http://www.lcef.org/about_us/history_mission.cfm
The mission of Lutheran Church Extension Fund is to support the Church in fulfilling its mission of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ by being a Christ-centered servant partner of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), ensuring that funds and services are available now and in the future.
LCEF is a nonprofit religious organization; therefore, LCEF investments are not FDIC-insured bank deposit accounts.
LCEF, incorporated in 1978, is a continuation of the Synod's service to the entire LCMS. In fiscal year 2011, LCEF welcomed nearly 500 new loan customers. Congregations and schools gained funds for building, upgrading or remodeling facilities, and rostered church workers secured reasonable housing and consolidation loans. LCEF partners with more than 55,000 investors to make the funds available for these loans. Together, these partnerships have resulted in a total asset portfolio of $1.8 billion.
God has truly blessed the ministry of Church Extension and its supporters!
As a full-time church worker, Iddo’s responsibilities to the Nebraska District of the LCMS expanded to include the positions of business manager, church extension vice-president, and assistant to the president in missions, all of which coupled with his 25 years of experience as a local banker gave him seed ideas that were crucial to the help he gave in establishing the foundations of the LCEF. Iddo retired in 1988, but continued to serve as vice-president and regional coordinator of the LCEF for many more years.
In 2001, the LCEF founded Silver Eagles, a special group of past LCEF leaders who meet periodically to serve in a continuing life-long advisory capacity to the organization. Iddo was inducted as a charter member of the LCEF Silver Eagles in 2001 and attended his last yearly meeting in 2011.
It cannot be overstated: Iddo brought the friendly face-to-face handshake of Seward County banking to the LCEF. Throughout his career with the Nebraska District of the LCMS, Iddo drove to every corner and far-reach of Nebraska to first look-and-see for himself and to then personally meet with the pastors and congregations seeking financial help so that he would know the help he could provide would be well-spent. He cared deeply about his work because he knew he was doing the Lord’s work. Quite simply, he was instrumental in helping secure financial support for many fledgling churches throughout Nebraska. He found particular satisfaction in the numerous friendships he and his wife Joyce made with fellow Lutherans across Nebraska as a result of his work.
From June 1972 through November 1982, Iddo served on the Seward City Council.
From 1989 to 1998, Iddo served on the Concordia University, Nebraska, Board of Regents during a critically important transition time in the history of Concordia. What had been Concordia Teachers College became part of the Concordia University System in 1995, and then became a university in its own right in 1998. The Concordia University System was formed in 1992 by the LCMS and is now an organization of ten independent colleges and universities located across the United States that interact with each other in mutually beneficial ways while sharing some resources and services. Other significant milestones at CUNE during Iddo’s tenure as a regent include: 1) the hosting of the first annual Plum Creek Children’s Literacy Festival in 1995, an event that now draws more than 8,000 elementary and middle school student participants every year; and 2) the construction of Bulldog Stadium in 1997, a 1,400-seat stadium that hosts the athletic events of Concordia's track, football, and soccer teams, CUNE intramural sports, Seward High School football and soccer games, and community joggers.
Iddo received the Lifetime Service Award from CUNE in 1998 when he retired from the Board of Regents.
Iddo was a member of St. John Lutheran Church in Seward since 1935, and was always faithful to serve the congregation according to his talents. At different times he served the congregation as vice-chairman, secretary, treasurer, and elder, and he held positions on the stewardship committee and the finance committee. While his children were students at St. John Lutheran School in the 1960s, Iddo served on the school board. He was a longtime member of the Lutheran Layman’s League.
Iddo's favorite past-times included playing golf, doing crossword puzzles, having coffee with his friends, attending University of Nebraska football games with Joyce, and driving with Joyce to distant places to visit family members and friends.
Iddo was preceded in death by father, Iddo C., Sr.; mother, Elizabeth; brothers Rev. Edward, Gerhard, Rev. Victor; brother-in-law Robert Schmidt; sisters-in-law Nadine Heinicke, Jacquelyn Kienast.
Survivors include wife, Joyce; brothers Rev. Martin (Lovila), Theodore (Florence), and William (Pat); sister, Elizabeth Schmidt; sisters-in-law Norma Heinicke, Eleanor Heinicke, Judith Perez (Manuel); brothers-in law Reginald Muhl (Verna Jane), Don Kienast; daughters Stephanie Bean (Michael), Kathie Sylwester (Steve); son David (Jane); grandchildren Natalie Roche (Brian), Anne Gill-Bloyer (Jason), Cameron Bean, Eva Sylwester, Liesel Sylwester, Ilsa Heinicke, Eric Heinicke, Carl Heinicke, Clara Heinicke; three great-grandchildren; nieces and nephews.
It can be said about Iddo C. Heinicke II that the world lost a righteous man at his passing from mortal life to Eternity and that God's Heaven gained a saint.
Steven A. Sylwester
March 30, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Heritage Blog Rejected Comment: The Truth About Higher Education Costs Hurts Too Much
UPDATE: After it became obvious that my initial comment to the Heritage blog had been rejected, I wrote what immediately follows below. I then linked it all — this web page — in a second comment submission to the same Heritage blog article. That second comment submission was accepted for posting and became the 53rd (and last) comment for the article. I have included the second comment below after the first comment.
Steven A. Sylwester
* * *
A Google search of my name — "Steven A. Sylwester" — will reveal that I regularly make comments at the Heritage Foundation website — usually very long comments. I have been commenting there for a long time, so it is rare now that a comment of mine is rejected. In the beginning, that was not the case. Back then, I was still too much of a Democrat to give due deference to the Republican sensibility, and so I overstepped without meaning to. My challenge to myself for several years now has been to find what I call The Middle Ground, and to then stake my claim there. I am not a liberal Democrat — not at all. In fact, I now self-identify as a liberal Republican, no longer as a conservative Democrat. Yet some of my truths are ultra-liberal by most common estimations, even though I believe those truths are so grounded in conservative thinking that they are ultra-conservative if anything. Because a conservative will usually reject a liberal thought as something silly, the challenge is to overcome that bias — that prejudice — with an argument that is more conservative in its assertions and judgments than what is usual in conservative thinking. That is not to create a ruse or a masquerade on my part, but is rather to give greater clarity to the world as it actually is, for one cannot truly conserve something without first seeing that "something" plainly. Webster's Dictionary states the oldest definition of "conserve" as: to keep in a safe or sound state: PRESERVE. In my opinion, a true conservative does just that with what he/she thinks are the essential aspects of America from its founding to the present. To preserve America is to keep it safe and sound — to see the treasure and dignify it, and to share in that mutual pledge of the signers of The Declaration of Independence: "to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
The following essay is too good and too revealing of an essential truth to be forever lost in a blog moderator's trash at the Heritage Foundation. Sadly, I know from my Google Analytics that the rejection was due to a pondered thought. Somewhere in the following, I overstepped; I attempted too much to kill a sacred cow. I am sure some at the Heritage Foundation would disagree with the moderator's choice in rejecting my essay. After all, the Heritage Foundation policy concerning blog comments is this:
"Comments are subject to approval and moderation. We remind everyone that The Heritage Foundation promotes a civil society where ideas and debate flourish. Please be respectful of each other and the subjects of any criticism. While we may not always agree on policy, we should all agree that being appropriately informed is everyone's intention visiting this site. Profanity, lewdness, personal attacks, and other forms of incivility will not be tolerated. Please keep your thoughts brief and avoid ALL CAPS. While we respect your first amendment rights, we are obligated to our readers to maintain these standards. Thanks for joining the conversation."
I strongly encourage everyone to be a regular reader of the Heritage website, especially if you do not generally agree with the conservative opinion. The Middle Ground is big enough for a multitude, but it requires of everyone an open mind that does not limit its truth to the platform of any particular political party. Truth is truth is truth. Evidently, the following has a little too much of an inconvenient truth — a truth that can destroy a paradigm.
The bottom line is this: Everything is interconnected, and the two-headed dragon — the inseparable monster wreaking havoc on the American economy — is "Health Care Costs" and "Education Costs." I have found the sword that can slay the dragon, but many would prefer to keep the dragon alive, as if we are talking about "Puff, The Magic Dragon" of our long ago youth. Know this: the two-headed dragon will kill America if we do not kill it first. God help us.
Steven A. Sylwester
* * *
The article that inspired the following essay can be read at:
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/31/morning-bell-a-higher-education-revolution/
If you truly want a revolution in American higher education to make it affordable, you will have to go to places in your mind that you fear and, once there, you will have to brave new thinking — thinking that will have the power to transform you and your paradigm if you will let it. It is not necessary to give up conservatism, but it is necessary to kill a sacred cow or two so the true definition of what conservatism should be in America can finally be seen clearly and then embraced.
Understand this: higher education costs are soaring because health insurance costs are soaring because medical care costs are soaring BECAUSE medical care costs are NOT subject to free market corrections BECAUSE health insurance costs are NOT subject to free market corrections. Therefore, higher education costs are NOT subject to free market corrections. Consequently, conservatism that holds free markets to be sacrosanct MUST NOT fall prey to thinking that believes all things are kept in check and balance by free markets. Collusion exists wherever it can exist, and collusion kills the effectiveness of the self-correcting mechanism of free markets — kills it dead. In fact, so kills it that the dragon monster in the cave no longer has an enemy able to stand against it, and that monster in the American economy is the two-headed dragon "Medical Care Costs" and "Higher Education Costs."
President Obama went to the University of Michigan to give his speech, so I will use that university as my model.
I just telephoned University of Michigan Human Resources, and a helpful person there informed me that UMich has approximately 40,000 employees, including both faculty and staff, and that somewhere between 30,000 and 35, 000 of those employees receive benefits, including health insurance. Furthermore, I was told that all employees receiving health insurance receive the same health insurance at the same cost, both the lowly custodian and the top university executive administrator, and that the per employee per month cost of that health insurance is approximately $1,200.00. So, doing the math at the mid-range point of 32,500 employees with benefits, UMich spends approximately $39 million per month every month to provide its employees with health insurance. Repeat: Insurance premiums of $39 million per month!
According to Wikipedia, UMich has 41,674 students (26,208 undergraduates and 15,466 post graduates) and an academic staff of 6,238 (meaning: 5.4 staff positions for every one teaching position). Doing the math: $39 million divided by 41,674 students equals almost $936 per student per month in tuition costs to pay for health insurance for the UMich employees who have benefits. Because yearly tuition pays for nine months of instruction and health care premiums must be paid every month twelve months a year, the yearly tuition cost paid by each student to pay only for the health insurance benefit for UMich employees totals as much as $11,230.00, and that number will continue to go up at the same percentage rate that health insurance premiums go up as long as there is not a reduction in health plan coverages. Repeat: Tuition costs per student as much as $11,230.00 per year to pay for health insurance alone!
The two-headed dragon must be slain, and the free market is wholly incapable of doing that heroic deed. Conservatism MUST find its true definition and MUST do what needs to be done, which I have detailed at: here
http://steven-a-sylwester.blogspot.com/2009/12/nationalize-us-private-health-insurance.html
and for which I have argued in defense of my own proposal at: here
http://steven-a-sylwester.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-comments-to-heritage-blog-regarding.html
But more still needs to be done than just solving the health care crisis. Conservatism MUST demand that America be restored by the nation receiving fair compensation for its goods and services, meaning: here
http://steven-a-sylwester.blogspot.com/2011/12/this-deserves-macarthur-genius-award.html
Read my COMMENTARY at that last link — force yourself by any means necessary!
Finally, read my "Proposal #6: Public Education" at: here
http://steven-a-sylwester.blogspot.com/2012/01/restated-and-proposed-amendments-to-us.html
God help us.
Steven A. Sylwester
* * *
MY SECOND COMMENT SUBMISSION WHICH WAS ACCEPTED AND POSTED AS COMMENT #53 AT: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/31/morning-bell-a-higher-education-revolution/#idc-cover
Mike Brownfield,
Just so you know: http://steven-a-sylwester.blogspot.com/2012/02/he...(this web page)
I do not know if you moderate the comments for your own articles, but you should if you do not.
I submitted my comment (now at the above link) when no comments were yet posted for this article. In fact, my very reasonable hope was that my comment might be posted as the first comment. But, alas, my comment was rejected by the blog moderator. At this point, you might safely post this comment as a last comment after all the readers have already left. Good enough. Just do it.
What my comment reveals is startling. It startled me, and I am already jaded to the point where all of my illusions are long-ago shattered. I am so jaded that I am now convinced that liberalism is a sinking ship and that conservatism is the last hope for America. However, conservatism akin to an ostrich with its head buried in the sand is as doomed as any pie-in-the-sky liberalism; lies, half-truths, wild imaginations, wishful thoughts — call them what you may — but know this: anyone who does not look at the stark bare-naked problem plainly and close-up is basing his/her thinking on guesses that have been formed by biases and prejudices.
Do Not Be Stupid. That is my First Rule for myself, and it should be your First Rule, too. Think about things as if your life depended on it — as if your children's lives depended on it — as if the life of your nation depended on it. Throw out "Stupid" — eliminate it! Confront the truth of the matter, whatever that truth might be.
The truth is this: at UMich (and at every other university in America with a similar student : teacher : staff ratio), the student must pay as much as $11,230.00 in tuition costs per year to pay for health insurance for someone else, even if the student has no health insurance at all for him/herself, and that — a translated $1,200/month/employee premium — pays for an excellent full-coverage policy on a group health insurance basis. That is an outrage, yet that is the buried truth fueling the rising costs of higher education.
Mr. Brownfield, have you ever participated at the table in a labor contract negotiation from the first meeting through the last meeting? I have — twice! It is an excruciating process, and the second time through shatters every illusion you ever had, and then crushes the shards of your illusions to sand and then to dust before your eyes. Finally, after all of that and the pondering of all of that for years thereafter, the sun comes out again and you can see things clearly like you have never seen them before. That is the vantage point from which I am sharing what I know.
What I know is this: The paradigm requiring employers to fund and process group health insurance policies that are contracted with profit-driven private health insurance companies is what is destroying America's economy by destroying America's businesses and America's educational institutions. The paradigm thrives on a self-perpetuating collusion that is plain-as-day to anyone with eyes to see it, and the collusion is unavoidable and inevitable because the Health Care Loop is a closed economic system that is not vulnerable to free market corrections except at the point of total economic collapse at the national level. I am not kidding — not at all. If pragmatic conservative capitalists cannot see what I see, America is doomed to a slow death that will be catastrophic in the end.
Get This Straight: A free market economy must have free markets that are absolutely and completely vulnerable to market corrections in every respect or there is no free market economy at all. Instead, there is only the illusion of a free market economy that is in truth hiding a fertile ground on which economic cancers will inevitably sprout and grow and thrive wherever market corrections are not allowed to happen until after the economic cancer has already metastasized and economic death is certain. That is dire — and that is where we are now.
Do not fiddle around with this. Do not create false hopes around illusions that hide the truth. The problem can be solved. The problem must be solved. And conservatives must lead the way.
Steven A. Sylwester
Steven A. Sylwester
* * *
A Google search of my name — "Steven A. Sylwester" — will reveal that I regularly make comments at the Heritage Foundation website — usually very long comments. I have been commenting there for a long time, so it is rare now that a comment of mine is rejected. In the beginning, that was not the case. Back then, I was still too much of a Democrat to give due deference to the Republican sensibility, and so I overstepped without meaning to. My challenge to myself for several years now has been to find what I call The Middle Ground, and to then stake my claim there. I am not a liberal Democrat — not at all. In fact, I now self-identify as a liberal Republican, no longer as a conservative Democrat. Yet some of my truths are ultra-liberal by most common estimations, even though I believe those truths are so grounded in conservative thinking that they are ultra-conservative if anything. Because a conservative will usually reject a liberal thought as something silly, the challenge is to overcome that bias — that prejudice — with an argument that is more conservative in its assertions and judgments than what is usual in conservative thinking. That is not to create a ruse or a masquerade on my part, but is rather to give greater clarity to the world as it actually is, for one cannot truly conserve something without first seeing that "something" plainly. Webster's Dictionary states the oldest definition of "conserve" as: to keep in a safe or sound state: PRESERVE. In my opinion, a true conservative does just that with what he/she thinks are the essential aspects of America from its founding to the present. To preserve America is to keep it safe and sound — to see the treasure and dignify it, and to share in that mutual pledge of the signers of The Declaration of Independence: "to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
The following essay is too good and too revealing of an essential truth to be forever lost in a blog moderator's trash at the Heritage Foundation. Sadly, I know from my Google Analytics that the rejection was due to a pondered thought. Somewhere in the following, I overstepped; I attempted too much to kill a sacred cow. I am sure some at the Heritage Foundation would disagree with the moderator's choice in rejecting my essay. After all, the Heritage Foundation policy concerning blog comments is this:
"Comments are subject to approval and moderation. We remind everyone that The Heritage Foundation promotes a civil society where ideas and debate flourish. Please be respectful of each other and the subjects of any criticism. While we may not always agree on policy, we should all agree that being appropriately informed is everyone's intention visiting this site. Profanity, lewdness, personal attacks, and other forms of incivility will not be tolerated. Please keep your thoughts brief and avoid ALL CAPS. While we respect your first amendment rights, we are obligated to our readers to maintain these standards. Thanks for joining the conversation."
I strongly encourage everyone to be a regular reader of the Heritage website, especially if you do not generally agree with the conservative opinion. The Middle Ground is big enough for a multitude, but it requires of everyone an open mind that does not limit its truth to the platform of any particular political party. Truth is truth is truth. Evidently, the following has a little too much of an inconvenient truth — a truth that can destroy a paradigm.
The bottom line is this: Everything is interconnected, and the two-headed dragon — the inseparable monster wreaking havoc on the American economy — is "Health Care Costs" and "Education Costs." I have found the sword that can slay the dragon, but many would prefer to keep the dragon alive, as if we are talking about "Puff, The Magic Dragon" of our long ago youth. Know this: the two-headed dragon will kill America if we do not kill it first. God help us.
Steven A. Sylwester
* * *
The article that inspired the following essay can be read at:
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/31/morning-bell-a-higher-education-revolution/
If you truly want a revolution in American higher education to make it affordable, you will have to go to places in your mind that you fear and, once there, you will have to brave new thinking — thinking that will have the power to transform you and your paradigm if you will let it. It is not necessary to give up conservatism, but it is necessary to kill a sacred cow or two so the true definition of what conservatism should be in America can finally be seen clearly and then embraced.
Understand this: higher education costs are soaring because health insurance costs are soaring because medical care costs are soaring BECAUSE medical care costs are NOT subject to free market corrections BECAUSE health insurance costs are NOT subject to free market corrections. Therefore, higher education costs are NOT subject to free market corrections. Consequently, conservatism that holds free markets to be sacrosanct MUST NOT fall prey to thinking that believes all things are kept in check and balance by free markets. Collusion exists wherever it can exist, and collusion kills the effectiveness of the self-correcting mechanism of free markets — kills it dead. In fact, so kills it that the dragon monster in the cave no longer has an enemy able to stand against it, and that monster in the American economy is the two-headed dragon "Medical Care Costs" and "Higher Education Costs."
President Obama went to the University of Michigan to give his speech, so I will use that university as my model.
I just telephoned University of Michigan Human Resources, and a helpful person there informed me that UMich has approximately 40,000 employees, including both faculty and staff, and that somewhere between 30,000 and 35, 000 of those employees receive benefits, including health insurance. Furthermore, I was told that all employees receiving health insurance receive the same health insurance at the same cost, both the lowly custodian and the top university executive administrator, and that the per employee per month cost of that health insurance is approximately $1,200.00. So, doing the math at the mid-range point of 32,500 employees with benefits, UMich spends approximately $39 million per month every month to provide its employees with health insurance. Repeat: Insurance premiums of $39 million per month!
According to Wikipedia, UMich has 41,674 students (26,208 undergraduates and 15,466 post graduates) and an academic staff of 6,238 (meaning: 5.4 staff positions for every one teaching position). Doing the math: $39 million divided by 41,674 students equals almost $936 per student per month in tuition costs to pay for health insurance for the UMich employees who have benefits. Because yearly tuition pays for nine months of instruction and health care premiums must be paid every month twelve months a year, the yearly tuition cost paid by each student to pay only for the health insurance benefit for UMich employees totals as much as $11,230.00, and that number will continue to go up at the same percentage rate that health insurance premiums go up as long as there is not a reduction in health plan coverages. Repeat: Tuition costs per student as much as $11,230.00 per year to pay for health insurance alone!
The two-headed dragon must be slain, and the free market is wholly incapable of doing that heroic deed. Conservatism MUST find its true definition and MUST do what needs to be done, which I have detailed at: here
http://steven-a-sylwester.blogspot.com/2009/12/nationalize-us-private-health-insurance.html
and for which I have argued in defense of my own proposal at: here
http://steven-a-sylwester.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-comments-to-heritage-blog-regarding.html
But more still needs to be done than just solving the health care crisis. Conservatism MUST demand that America be restored by the nation receiving fair compensation for its goods and services, meaning: here
http://steven-a-sylwester.blogspot.com/2011/12/this-deserves-macarthur-genius-award.html
Read my COMMENTARY at that last link — force yourself by any means necessary!
Finally, read my "Proposal #6: Public Education" at: here
http://steven-a-sylwester.blogspot.com/2012/01/restated-and-proposed-amendments-to-us.html
God help us.
Steven A. Sylwester
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MY SECOND COMMENT SUBMISSION WHICH WAS ACCEPTED AND POSTED AS COMMENT #53 AT: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/31/morning-bell-a-higher-education-revolution/#idc-cover
Mike Brownfield,
Just so you know: http://steven-a-sylwester.blogspot.com/2012/02/he...(this web page)
I do not know if you moderate the comments for your own articles, but you should if you do not.
I submitted my comment (now at the above link) when no comments were yet posted for this article. In fact, my very reasonable hope was that my comment might be posted as the first comment. But, alas, my comment was rejected by the blog moderator. At this point, you might safely post this comment as a last comment after all the readers have already left. Good enough. Just do it.
What my comment reveals is startling. It startled me, and I am already jaded to the point where all of my illusions are long-ago shattered. I am so jaded that I am now convinced that liberalism is a sinking ship and that conservatism is the last hope for America. However, conservatism akin to an ostrich with its head buried in the sand is as doomed as any pie-in-the-sky liberalism; lies, half-truths, wild imaginations, wishful thoughts — call them what you may — but know this: anyone who does not look at the stark bare-naked problem plainly and close-up is basing his/her thinking on guesses that have been formed by biases and prejudices.
Do Not Be Stupid. That is my First Rule for myself, and it should be your First Rule, too. Think about things as if your life depended on it — as if your children's lives depended on it — as if the life of your nation depended on it. Throw out "Stupid" — eliminate it! Confront the truth of the matter, whatever that truth might be.
The truth is this: at UMich (and at every other university in America with a similar student : teacher : staff ratio), the student must pay as much as $11,230.00 in tuition costs per year to pay for health insurance for someone else, even if the student has no health insurance at all for him/herself, and that — a translated $1,200/month/employee premium — pays for an excellent full-coverage policy on a group health insurance basis. That is an outrage, yet that is the buried truth fueling the rising costs of higher education.
Mr. Brownfield, have you ever participated at the table in a labor contract negotiation from the first meeting through the last meeting? I have — twice! It is an excruciating process, and the second time through shatters every illusion you ever had, and then crushes the shards of your illusions to sand and then to dust before your eyes. Finally, after all of that and the pondering of all of that for years thereafter, the sun comes out again and you can see things clearly like you have never seen them before. That is the vantage point from which I am sharing what I know.
What I know is this: The paradigm requiring employers to fund and process group health insurance policies that are contracted with profit-driven private health insurance companies is what is destroying America's economy by destroying America's businesses and America's educational institutions. The paradigm thrives on a self-perpetuating collusion that is plain-as-day to anyone with eyes to see it, and the collusion is unavoidable and inevitable because the Health Care Loop is a closed economic system that is not vulnerable to free market corrections except at the point of total economic collapse at the national level. I am not kidding — not at all. If pragmatic conservative capitalists cannot see what I see, America is doomed to a slow death that will be catastrophic in the end.
Get This Straight: A free market economy must have free markets that are absolutely and completely vulnerable to market corrections in every respect or there is no free market economy at all. Instead, there is only the illusion of a free market economy that is in truth hiding a fertile ground on which economic cancers will inevitably sprout and grow and thrive wherever market corrections are not allowed to happen until after the economic cancer has already metastasized and economic death is certain. That is dire — and that is where we are now.
Do not fiddle around with this. Do not create false hopes around illusions that hide the truth. The problem can be solved. The problem must be solved. And conservatives must lead the way.
Steven A. Sylwester
Monday, January 30, 2012
The Constitution of The United States: Restated and Proposed Amendments
This web address can also be accessed at: bit.ly/zPQ2MV
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The following restated and proposed amendments to The Constitution of The United States were written by me without the help of others.
Steven A. Sylwester
January 30, 2012
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RESTATEMENTS OF EXISTING AMENDMENTS:
Amendment II
Plain Sentence: A well-regulated Militia shall not be infringed, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms being necessary to the security of a free State.
Amendment IV
Plain Sentence: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects shall not be violated against unreasonable searches and seizures, and no Warrants shall issue supported by Oath or affirmation but upon probable cause and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
Plain Sentence: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, when in actual service in time of War or public danger unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
Plain Sentence: The accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial in all criminal prosecutions and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
Amendment VII
Plain Sentence: The right of trial by jury shall be preserved where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars in Suits at common law, and no fact tried by a jury than according to the rules of the common law shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States.
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RESTATED EXISTING CONSTITUTIONAL LANGUAGE PROPOSED AS A NEW AMENDMENT:
The United States Constitution reads: Article II, Section 1. [5] No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; …
Plain Sentence: No person except (either) a natural born Citizen at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution or a Citizen of the United States shall be eligible to the Office of President; …
Simplified Plain Sentence Restatement: No person except a Citizen of the United States shall be eligible to the Office of President; …
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NEW PROPOSED AMENDMENTS:
Proposal #1: Supreme Court Gender Equality
Gender equality shall be guaranteed on the Supreme Court and on the Court of Appeals according to the following:
1. The Congress shall determine an odd number of Justices no fewer than nine who shall together compose the Supreme Court. The total number of Justices shall include one Chief Justice of the United States and the remaining even number of Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, of whom all shall be citizens of the United States.
Of the total number of Associate Justices, half shall be male by legal designation and half shall be female by legal designation.
When vacancies occur, the President shall nominate Justices to the Supreme Court who are then appointed by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate. The Chief Justice shall be appointed for nine years, and shall not be reappointed Chief Justice thereafter. Associate Justices shall be appointed to hold their offices during good behavior. Successive Chief Justices shall alternate between male and female without exception.
The President shall nominate the Chief Justice according to gender from among the Associate Justices, except no person shall be eligible for nomination who would be more than 69 years old at the time of appointment. If no Associate Justice is qualified by age to be appointed the Chief Justice, the President shall appoint any other qualified person.
If an Associate Justice is nominated to be the Chief Justice by the President but fails to be appointed by the Senate, that Associate Justice shall retain the position of Associate Justice. If an Associate Justice becomes the Chief Justice, that Justice shall retire from the Supreme Court when the nine-year appointment as Chief Justice expires.
2. All Court of Appeals en banc courts shall be composed of an even number of Circuit Judges, of whom half shall be male by legal designation and half shall be female by legal designation. Only if the Circuit Chief Judge presides shall an entire en banc court be composed of an odd number of Judges.
3. Upon ratification, the amendment shall be enacted straightforwardly in due time.
All new Associate Justices shall be female until an equal number of male and female Associate Justices are seated on the Supreme Court. Thereafter, all Associate Justice seats will be identified as being either male or female, and will be filled as the need arises according to strict gender distinction without exception.
The current Chief Justice shall complete a nine-year term from the date he was sworn in as Chief Justice, and shall then immediately retire from the Supreme Court and shall be replaced by the first female Chief Justice of the United States. If the current Chief Justice leaves his position for any reason before his term expires, his appointed successor shall be female.
On a district basis, all Court of Appeals appointments shall be female until gender equality is achieved among active Circuit Judges. Thereafter, new appointments shall be made in a manner that maintains gender equality among all active Judges.
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Proposal #2: Universal Health Care
The government shall provide all citizens with free and equal health care, including all tests, treatments, medications, therapies, procedures, surgeries, hospitalizations, and long-term care that:
1) are legal and approved by the government,
2) are done according to government standards by government licensed physicians and practitioners,
3) are not subject to malpractice claims or lawsuits of any sort, and
4) are affordable within an overall government health care program budget that does not exceed 15% of the government’s GDP.
Government licensed physicians and practitioners who work solely within the government health care program shall be exempt from any need for professional malpractice insurance of any sort: they shall be personally immune in all cases from any legal claims or lawsuits that could result from patients who suffer injury, bad outcomes, or death while under their care. However, such physicians and practitioners shall be subject to loss of their license for professional malpractice and/or negligence, and may also be subject to criminal charges, and to their penalties if found guilty.
Personal health insurance and long-term care insurance shall be unnecessary, except to provide desired coverage for experimental care and extraordinary end-of-life care that is not approved by the government program.
The government health care program shall be paid for by two dedicated and approximately equal taxations: a national sales tax (excluding food and energy purchases) and a corporate and personal tax on equity in real property based on government assessed value (excluding hospitals, schools, governments, and approved religious organizations).
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Proposal #3: Multinational Corporations Designated Foreign Nations
Re: Article I Section 8. [3]
All multinational corporations or enterprises, international corporations, transnational corporations, and micro-multinational corporations with management headquarters located in a home country outside of the United States shall be recognized as foreign Nations, and shall be required to contract an Agreement with the United States Congress before selling their goods and services in the United States or its territories.
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Proposal #4: One Percent Ownership of Patents and Copyrights
Re: Article I Section 8. [8]
The United States shall have one percent (1%) ownership of each and every copyright and patent issued and registered by the United States government. The ownership shall be limited to the pre-tax gross revenues generated by any and all uses of that which is protected by U.S. copyright and patent law, and all such ownership shall be without exception. All revenues earned from such ownership shall be used to fund the free public education guaranteed to citizens by law, with all revenues from patents supporting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics education exclusively and all revenues from copyrights supporting either Arts and Humanities education or Physical Education and Health education exclusively according to the general categories that create the revenues (i.e. computer-related patents support computer science education, music copyrights support music arts education, sporting event copyrights support physical education, and so forth).
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Proposal #5: Water, Sun, and Underground Natural Resources Management
Re: Article. IV. Section. 3. Paragraph. 2.
Section. 1.
The Congress shall have presiding jurisdiction over all public waters in the United States. Public waters shall be all waters:
1) from groundwater springs or from headwaters, snow melt, or runoff that combine to form brooks, creeks, and streams that flow into an ocean or gulf or that become tributaries to rivers that flow into an ocean or gulf;
2) from aquifers accessed or potentially accessed by human-made wells and/or pumping mechanisms; and
3) from lakes of any size and any origin that serve as water sources for any life-sustaining human uses, including fishing and agricultural uses.
The States shall be responsible for all waters of any sort originating in the States until the waters first cross a State boundary or until the waters begin to define the boundary between two States or two nations, at which point the federal government shall become wholly responsible for those waters thereafter.
Section. 2.
Presiding jurisdiction and responsibility shall be to guarantee pure and clean water:
1) that is free from human-made or human-caused pollutants that are toxic or harmful to any living creatures and/or plant life in nature and
2) that is treatable to be made safe for human drinking, cooking, and hygiene in every case, including in the case of pregnant women, except when natural flooding or other polluting disasters occur.
The Congress shall provide remedy if necessary when pollutions occur in public waters and shall legislate the fines and punishments to be levied when municipalities and/or companies are found guilty of polluting. The Congress shall act when new scientific discovery reveals that existing standards are insufficient to protect good health and when new technology invention allows for the affordable improvement of existing standards.
Reckless and/or negligent polluting of public waters shall be a felony, and willful polluting of public waters for profit that causes either human death or at least a yearlong loss of use of a public waters source that had been potable for an established population of more than 5,000 people shall be a capital offense. Corporate executives shall be held personally accountable for any polluting of public waters done by their companies when foreknowledge can be proven.
Section. 3.
Municipal water treatments shall include only those substances and processes that are used solely for water purification purposes. No municipal water treatments of any sort that are intended to be either medicinal or health promoting as additives in human drinking water shall be allowed.
Section. 4.
Nowhere in the United States shall public waters be controlled by a private citizen or by a corporation that is not a municipality. Public access to free drinking water shall be a human right at all times in every municipality in the United States. The legal owner of all public waters shall be the United States of America.
Section. 5.
The Congress shall have presiding jurisdiction over all known and unknown precious metals, minerals, ores, and energy-generating substances and gases that can be mined, drilled for, or otherwise taken from the Earth on the public lands, on the private lands, and in the territorial waters of the United States and its territories.
From public lands and territorial waters, as compensation for being the owner of the land and the ocean or gulf floor and for contracting extraction rights, the United States shall receive five percent (5%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means. Any contracting of extraction rights shall be conditional upon actual work being done, and contracts shall be wholly rescinded if no extractions are made during any 365-day period following the signing of the contract. Extraction rights shall not be given to foreign nations or to companies that do not have their corporate headquarters in the United States.
From private lands, as compensation for being Sovereign and Protector of those lands and of the public roadways, highways, and waterways used for all necessary transporting, the United States shall receive four percent (4%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means. If access to the Earth beneath public lands is made underground from private lands, the United States shall receive five percent (5%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means.
Section. 6.
The United States shall spend all revenues earned from contracting extraction rights on public lands and in territorial waters as needed:
1) on environmental clean-ups that will create and protect pure and clean water;
2) on research to determine effective ways to replenish the depleting aquifers, especially the Ogallala Aquifer; and
3) on public waterworks projects that will enhance and protect the drinking water sources for established municipalities.
The United States shall spend all revenues earned from extractions made from private lands on the Nikola Tesla Project, which shall be a joint project with other cooperating nations to develop clean unlimited energy from the Earth and its higher atmosphere, especially from the ionosphere and the magnetosphere. When it is discovered how to harness controllable atmospheric electricity that can be used as a universal source of nonpolluting industrial power, the technology shall be freely shared among nations as a gift from the Creator to the whole world.
Section. 7.
A national building code shall require architectural design inclusion of dedicated efficient space for photo-voltaic system installations according to industry-established minimum space requirements for all new construction of residential, commercial, and governmental structures enclosing at least 1,000 square feet of heated space.
All existing structures shall be exempt as long as no remodeling involves any structural changes to existing roofs, excluding any structural changes that solely relate to replacing or installing gutters, low profile skylights, vents, satellite dishes, and/or roofing. Any structural additions to existing structures that add or alter roof-lines to accommodate additional square footage shall not be exempt from the code requirements.
Required shall be a minimum of 100 square feet of clear roof surface to accommodate solar modules or panels faced due south at an angle that matches the location’s latitude with an allowable 15- to 20-degree variation east or west from due south. The solar panels shall be located where they will not be shaded by trees or intruded upon by vents, chimneys, or other roof structure penetrations. An efficient accessible routing path from the roof array to a centralized inverter and then to the structure’s load center for the photo-voltaic system’s generated energy shall be required.
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Proposal #6: Public Education
Re: Article. I. Section. 8.
Section. 1.
The Congress shall fund, oversee the administration of, and nominate students to the six tuition-free United States military academies located at: West Point, New York, for the Army; Annapolis, Maryland, for the Navy and the Marine Corps; Colorado Springs, Colorado, for the Air Force; New London, Connecticut, for the Coast Guard; Kings Point, New York, for the Merchant Marine; and Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, for the Cyber/Biologic Defense.
Section. 2.
The Congress shall require the States to provide thirteen years of tuition-free public education for all United States citizens and all otherwise legal residents from age five through age eighteen. Public education shall be according to three national standards:
1) Every student shall be literate at no less than age-appropriate-grade-level (plus or minus one year) while being actively challenged and fully facilitated to achieve personal potentials in all core academic subjects, including those of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (“literate” being defined as educated, cultured, and lucid within an American social, philosophical, and historical context as taught in a thirteen-year standard curriculum that explores America from 1492 to the current time, with an ability to read, write, and effectively communicate in the English language using current computer technologies);
2) Exceptional students shall be individually advanced to the academic level at which they can succeed while being challenged; and
3) Students whose academic skills competency and knowledge proficiency are measured in the aggregate minimally either two years below or two years above age-appropriate-grade-level shall be designated as Special Education students and shall receive educational funding at twice the normal rate (competency and proficiency testing shall be done when requested by a teacher, parent, or student).
Thirteen years of tuition-free public education shall not be defined by the completion of a thirteen-year standard curriculum that ends in high school graduation in every case. Some lower-tier Special Education students will remain functionally illiterate despite all teaching efforts while some upper-tier Special Education students will graduate from a community college or a public university before their nineteenth birthday and shall thereby receive their college and/or university education on a tuition-free basis.
The term “tuition-free” applies only in the case of public education institutions, including any school designations that encompass any part of the spectrum from kindergarten enrollee through master degree recipient, that is: inclusive from primary school through public university. It does not include graduate studies at the doctoral degree level.
Students who enroll in private schools of any sort shall receive government vouchers that are the equivalent of their local public school tuition if the private schools they enroll in are accredited by the government. Government accreditation of private schools shall only regard standard subjects that are common to local public schools and shall not regard religious subjects of any sort. A homeschool student shall receive government vouchers to rent textbooks and an educational computer hardware and software package if those items have been approved and accredited by the government for homeschool use, if the student is fully registered according to the laws governing homeschool status and is government-approved in that status, and if the total worth of the vouchers for the student does not exceed the local public school tuition cost.
The government vouchers shall pay the vendor or the private school directly in all cases, and in no case shall government vouchers be redeemable for cash by either a student or a student’s parent or legal guardian.
Section. 3.
The Congress shall require the States to identify all exceptional students who are intellectually either moderately-to-highly gifted or exceptionally-to-profoundly gifted by standard academic measures (“moderately-to-highly gifted” being in the top two percent or 98th percentile and “exceptionally-to-profoundly gifted” being in the top one percent or 99th percentile). The United States shall recognize its most gifted citizens — its geniuses — as a natural resource and a national treasure, and shall maximize the potential of that resource and treasure through its public education system in every individual case beginning at the earliest possible opportunity. However, no interventions shall ever be made against the will of the student, regardless of the student’s potential to excel; the Pursuit of Happiness shall stand as an unalienable Right of every individual citizen, even the citizen who is a minor child.
The Congress shall forbid any notion that the purpose of public education is to socialize the citizenry. The purpose of public education shall be to make citizens literate in useful knowledge, confident in factoring new information into old thinking, and competent in self-directed analysis, so that public education might inspire joy and courage in its graduates through the benefits that derive from life-long learning habits, a purposeful informed participation in America’s future, and an enduring appreciation for political dissent and for the American free enterprise system. Public education in the United States shall work to cultivate this flower: that, in every citizen’s life, the gift to America shall be the citizen and the gift to the citizen shall be America.
Section. 4.
The Congress shall establish a national three-year merit-based public high school for the nation’s most intellectually gifted science-minded high school students. The national public high school shall be simultaneously located at no less than 150 public research university campuses nationwide, shall be tuition-free without exception, shall have highly selective enrollment with requirements and standards that cannot be challenged, and shall use the same intensive accelerated-learning curriculum at every site without exception. The defined curriculum shall offer courses in mathematics, computer science, and the physical sciences of chemistry and physics according to standard prerequisite streams, with the high school students enrolling in university classes with university students at times during all three years.
The offered majors shall be limited to:
1) Mathematics through at least Elementary Linear Algebra,
2) Computer Science through at least the standard university sophomore-year computer science sequence course for computer and information science majors that is taken concurrently with the Elements of Discrete Mathematics sequence,
3) Chemistry through the Organic Chemistry sequence and Organic Analysis, and
4) Physics through the standard university sophomore-year physics sequence course for physics majors that covers physics of waves and statistical thermodynamics.
All students shall take the same six Advanced Placement courses: English Language, United States History, United States Government & Politics, and Chemistry during the sophomore year and English Literature and Economics during the junior year. United States History and United States Government & Politics shall be combined as one course. All students shall concurrently take the university calculus sequence and the university calculus-based physics sequence before graduating. There shall be no electives other than choosing a major.
The national public high school capstone shall be a non-graded senior-year-long Colloquy on the topic: Morality, Ethics & Society: Science & Technology in the 21st Century. The Colloquy shall be student-directed according to established rules; shall result in United States Constitution Amendment Proposals, World Treaty Proposals, and Philosophy of Science and Technology Definition Statements; and shall conclude each term with deserving students receiving a Linus Pauling Achievement Award honoring the American scientist and peace activist who is one of only two people to have won more than one Nobel Prize in different fields, and the only person to win two undivided Nobel Prizes: the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances and the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in peace and disarmament campaigns establishing The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Though the defined curriculum does not offer life sciences courses, such courses can be taken optionally during summer term if offered by a host university. National public high school students shall be limited to attending only at their home host university during the fall-through-spring school year, but can attend at any national public high school host university on a tuition-free basis during summer term. The student shall pay any costs for summer term other than tuition costs, except the United States shall pay all costs if the student is requested to enroll in a particular course or program by the government.
The national public high school shall operate under the aegis of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration with cooperation from the non-military intelligence agencies and from the United States Cyber/Biologic Defense Academy, and with oversight from the Congress. The national public high school shall not answer to local school boards or to the States in any way. The national public high school graduation requirements shall supersede State high school graduation requirements without exception.
Section. 5.
The United States Cyber/Biologic Defense Academy shall have no physical fitness requirements whatsoever. It shall at all times maintain a Stephen Hawking Rule which declares that the mind alone shall determine eligibility and no physical defect of any sort shall be disqualifying. The Cyber/Biologic Defense shall be disciplined and uniformed, but shall not undergo any traditional basic training that includes strenuous whole-body strength-related activities of any sort, including marching. A brilliant wheelchair-bound person is eligible to enroll in the United States Cyber/Biologic Defense Academy and to serve in the Cyber/Biologic Defense at any rank of command, including Chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The term “cyber/biologic” refers to all things related either to transmissions of any sort in cyberspace known and unknown, including any hostile activity on the Internet, any manifestation of computer hacking, and any potentially harmful computer data manipulation, or to hostile biological actions that could be property-damaging, disease-causing, and/or life-threatening in any way, or to both simultaneously in any evil pairing. The term “defense” must naturally have an offensive component to be whole.
The United States Cyber/Biologic Defense Academy shall have access to all national public high school student transcripts and shall be welcome to freely recruit national public high school students.
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Proposal #7: Certain Rights Regarding Obligations and Freedoms
No one’s right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness shall exceed that of another’s all things being equal. No one shall be required to be a hero, act selflessly, or in any way endanger him/herself for another under any circumstance.
Triage decisions and actions are not ever subject to legal consequences, even when mercy killing occurs. In disaster and catastrophe, the Natural Law — the Survival of the Fittest —applies without question.
Chivalry and Good Samaritan acts shall not be legally required of the individual unless they are first expressly required of society as a whole in written law, for mercy cannot be expected where it is not encouraged.
The law altogether describes what society considers “good enough,” and it is there that fairness begins, never to be better or more righteous than that “altogether” measure but always to be at least just as mean, at least in spirit; for consistency — “good enough” — is the right measure of things, even when it is wrong in actual truth.
An unwanted guest cannot be legally expelled in one case but not the other, no matter the circumstance, no matter the eventual outcome, for the divine gift of Eden was the knowledge of good and evil, not life. As is the measure for man so too shall be the measure for woman: no less than that and no more.
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Posted March 11, 2012
Proposal #8: Definitions of Law, Religion, and Judicial Limits
Re: Article. I. Section. 8. and Article. III. Section. 2.
Section. 1.
The minimum context for all judicial considerations of the Constitution in all proceedings in the supreme and inferior Courts shall be one complete and uninterrupted sentence without abridgment or reduction of any sort. A judicial ruling based on either a single clause or a partial sentence that has been disembodied from its whole and complete sentence in the Constitution shall be categorically unconstitutional unless any right consideration of the minimum context will not alter the ruling. Judicial consideration of an underlying Plain Sentence in the Constitution shall be legitimate if the Plain Sentence reduces punctuation in its reordering of all the clauses in the source sentence as it is stated in the Constitution and if the Plain Sentence cannot be disputed according to the long established Rules of Grammar and Sentence Structure for the English language. An indisputable Plain Sentence shall supersede Original Language in establishing the intent of the Constitution.
Section. 2.
The Constitution shall be first and last a Principle: a Philosophy that Guides its Laws, and not ever Laws outside of that context. The Principle of the Constitution shall enlighten, embolden, and encourage the American Premise, which is from The Declaration of Independence: “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.” What were once “all men” are now “all people” — specifically, all citizens of the United States of America.
The Principle of the Constitution shall have as its fundamental understanding that as the opposite of Love is not Hate, it is Indifference, the opposite of Life is therefore not Death, it is the lack of Freedom to act according to one’s own Will — and so too for Liberty and so too for the pursuit of Happiness. To be utterly clear: the Right to Life is also the Right to Death, the Right to Liberty is also the Right to Obligation and Commitment, and the Right to pursue Happiness is also the Right to be Sad by one’s own choosing. The Constitution shall possess this as its fundamental understanding regarding all citizens of the United States without exception.
The Principle of the Constitution shall be inseparable from the First Amendment, which shall be elemental and irreducible as one complete thought that in its total provides the essential definition of “religion” for all judicial considerations under the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Furthermore, “religion” shall be defined according to Webster’s Dictionary as “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith, “ which shall include an adherence to any aspect of scientific thinking that is speculative, theoretical, and unproven, especially regarding the Origins of the Universe and of Life on Earth.
The Constitution shall premise that everyone has a god and a religion, that “god” is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “a person or thing of supreme value,” and that religion is how people live their lives in relation to their god. A religion can be entirely personal with no connection whatsoever to a group of fellow believers of any sort or to any creed, tradition, or scripture. A religion does not have to be organized and does not have to use the language or the rituals of the sacred to be a religion, it only must include loyalty to a belief or to a set of beliefs that cannot be proven, and any such beliefs can range helterskelter from unspecific, undefined, and changeable to specific, defined, and unchanging and be held at any depth of emotion and intellect and at any level of certainty; a person’s god can be anyone or anything, including him/herself or his/her favorite possession or pastime. By every accounting of others, a person’s religion can be entirely vacuous, wholly misguided, and without any perceptible merit at all. A religion need not promote personal virtue or in any way serve the common good to be valid and within the constitutional definition. Any judgment of hypocrisy made by others shall be irrelevant, even if it can be rightly proven beyond any doubt in a Court of law.
Religion shall be sacrosanct and inviolable under the law for the individual citizen only, but not for any group, even including the Roman Catholic Church, even including an individual family; no one shall be entitled to definitively decide for another regarding religion, either by defining god or by defining beliefs, except to teach beliefs and to then welcome another to freely join a group that shares those taught beliefs. To the extent that groups are made up of free-thinking individuals, religious groups shall have constitutional rights to liberty and protection, but only to that extent; no religious group as a hierarchy or as an institution or as a tradition and no religious leader of any sort regardless of esteem shall ever have the authority in the United States and its Territories to exercise binding legal jurisdiction over any person or property or to in any way supersede the Constitution.
The United States government shall recognize American patriotism as a religion born in blood and sacrifice and the “sacred Honor” that has been pledged anew by every generation that has since joined Lives and Fortunes with those Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Therefore, Congress shall encourage and facilitate the ongoing teaching of comparative religions in the United States public schools beginning in kindergarten so that an abiding sense of the sacred might be instilled in the nation’s citizens.
Section. 3.
The law in the United States shall not be defined by legal precedents made in Court rulings, but shall in every case be defined by the Congress in acts of legislation. The sole duty and obligation of the Courts shall be to rightly settle disputes within the bounds of existing law using only the language of existing law and any Understanding in effect.
A Court ruling shall be final and binding unless an appeal to a higher Court overrules a lower Court, in which case the final and binding ruling becomes that of the higher Court. A final and binding ruling permanently settles a case when no more appeals are possible, and any such ruling thereby potentially creates an Understanding that will remain in effect for one thousand days. An Understanding is any clarification of law formed by a judge, a panel of judges, or a jury to justify a ruling in which the existing law was either vague or nonspecific to the needs of the settled dispute. An Understanding shall prevail in all Courts without exception until either the Congress acts or the Understanding expires. The Congress can legislate the Understanding into law according to the Court ruling or in an alteration of its own making, including the legislating of a new law that is entirely contrary to the Understanding, or it can choose to let the Understanding expire, in which case the law reverts back to its existing vague and nonspecific language.
The Courts, including the Supreme Court, shall judge according to the existing language of the Constitution and its associated laws and according to the Principle of the Constitution, and shall advise the Congress of shortcomings, needs, and inconsistencies in the law through the ruling clarifications that result in Understandings. It is the duty and obligation of the Congress to legislate the laws of the United States.
Past Supreme Court rulings that have effectively created new law by either establishing or building on legal precedents shall be reduced to Understandings on a going-back-two-years-every-year basis, with each Understanding expiring one thousand days after being reduced from its precedent, such that one hundred years of past precedents shall become Understandings during the next fifty years. That process shall continue unabated until no precedents remain in the law of the United States.
Legal precedents shall become nothing more than footnotes in the history of United States jurisprudence; they shall have no remaining force of law within them once the transition required by this amendment is done.
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I will post at least [five] more proposed amendments as I finish them.
Steven A. Sylwester
January 30, 2012
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The following restated and proposed amendments to The Constitution of The United States were written by me without the help of others.
Steven A. Sylwester
January 30, 2012
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RESTATEMENTS OF EXISTING AMENDMENTS:
Amendment II
Plain Sentence: A well-regulated Militia shall not be infringed, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms being necessary to the security of a free State.
Amendment IV
Plain Sentence: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects shall not be violated against unreasonable searches and seizures, and no Warrants shall issue supported by Oath or affirmation but upon probable cause and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
Plain Sentence: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, when in actual service in time of War or public danger unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
Plain Sentence: The accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial in all criminal prosecutions and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
Amendment VII
Plain Sentence: The right of trial by jury shall be preserved where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars in Suits at common law, and no fact tried by a jury than according to the rules of the common law shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States.
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RESTATED EXISTING CONSTITUTIONAL LANGUAGE PROPOSED AS A NEW AMENDMENT:
The United States Constitution reads: Article II, Section 1. [5] No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; …
Plain Sentence: No person except (either) a natural born Citizen at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution or a Citizen of the United States shall be eligible to the Office of President; …
Simplified Plain Sentence Restatement: No person except a Citizen of the United States shall be eligible to the Office of President; …
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NEW PROPOSED AMENDMENTS:
Proposal #1: Supreme Court Gender Equality
Gender equality shall be guaranteed on the Supreme Court and on the Court of Appeals according to the following:
1. The Congress shall determine an odd number of Justices no fewer than nine who shall together compose the Supreme Court. The total number of Justices shall include one Chief Justice of the United States and the remaining even number of Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, of whom all shall be citizens of the United States.
Of the total number of Associate Justices, half shall be male by legal designation and half shall be female by legal designation.
When vacancies occur, the President shall nominate Justices to the Supreme Court who are then appointed by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate. The Chief Justice shall be appointed for nine years, and shall not be reappointed Chief Justice thereafter. Associate Justices shall be appointed to hold their offices during good behavior. Successive Chief Justices shall alternate between male and female without exception.
The President shall nominate the Chief Justice according to gender from among the Associate Justices, except no person shall be eligible for nomination who would be more than 69 years old at the time of appointment. If no Associate Justice is qualified by age to be appointed the Chief Justice, the President shall appoint any other qualified person.
If an Associate Justice is nominated to be the Chief Justice by the President but fails to be appointed by the Senate, that Associate Justice shall retain the position of Associate Justice. If an Associate Justice becomes the Chief Justice, that Justice shall retire from the Supreme Court when the nine-year appointment as Chief Justice expires.
2. All Court of Appeals en banc courts shall be composed of an even number of Circuit Judges, of whom half shall be male by legal designation and half shall be female by legal designation. Only if the Circuit Chief Judge presides shall an entire en banc court be composed of an odd number of Judges.
3. Upon ratification, the amendment shall be enacted straightforwardly in due time.
All new Associate Justices shall be female until an equal number of male and female Associate Justices are seated on the Supreme Court. Thereafter, all Associate Justice seats will be identified as being either male or female, and will be filled as the need arises according to strict gender distinction without exception.
The current Chief Justice shall complete a nine-year term from the date he was sworn in as Chief Justice, and shall then immediately retire from the Supreme Court and shall be replaced by the first female Chief Justice of the United States. If the current Chief Justice leaves his position for any reason before his term expires, his appointed successor shall be female.
On a district basis, all Court of Appeals appointments shall be female until gender equality is achieved among active Circuit Judges. Thereafter, new appointments shall be made in a manner that maintains gender equality among all active Judges.
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Proposal #2: Universal Health Care
The government shall provide all citizens with free and equal health care, including all tests, treatments, medications, therapies, procedures, surgeries, hospitalizations, and long-term care that:
1) are legal and approved by the government,
2) are done according to government standards by government licensed physicians and practitioners,
3) are not subject to malpractice claims or lawsuits of any sort, and
4) are affordable within an overall government health care program budget that does not exceed 15% of the government’s GDP.
Government licensed physicians and practitioners who work solely within the government health care program shall be exempt from any need for professional malpractice insurance of any sort: they shall be personally immune in all cases from any legal claims or lawsuits that could result from patients who suffer injury, bad outcomes, or death while under their care. However, such physicians and practitioners shall be subject to loss of their license for professional malpractice and/or negligence, and may also be subject to criminal charges, and to their penalties if found guilty.
Personal health insurance and long-term care insurance shall be unnecessary, except to provide desired coverage for experimental care and extraordinary end-of-life care that is not approved by the government program.
The government health care program shall be paid for by two dedicated and approximately equal taxations: a national sales tax (excluding food and energy purchases) and a corporate and personal tax on equity in real property based on government assessed value (excluding hospitals, schools, governments, and approved religious organizations).
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Proposal #3: Multinational Corporations Designated Foreign Nations
Re: Article I Section 8. [3]
All multinational corporations or enterprises, international corporations, transnational corporations, and micro-multinational corporations with management headquarters located in a home country outside of the United States shall be recognized as foreign Nations, and shall be required to contract an Agreement with the United States Congress before selling their goods and services in the United States or its territories.
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Proposal #4: One Percent Ownership of Patents and Copyrights
Re: Article I Section 8. [8]
The United States shall have one percent (1%) ownership of each and every copyright and patent issued and registered by the United States government. The ownership shall be limited to the pre-tax gross revenues generated by any and all uses of that which is protected by U.S. copyright and patent law, and all such ownership shall be without exception. All revenues earned from such ownership shall be used to fund the free public education guaranteed to citizens by law, with all revenues from patents supporting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics education exclusively and all revenues from copyrights supporting either Arts and Humanities education or Physical Education and Health education exclusively according to the general categories that create the revenues (i.e. computer-related patents support computer science education, music copyrights support music arts education, sporting event copyrights support physical education, and so forth).
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Proposal #5: Water, Sun, and Underground Natural Resources Management
Re: Article. IV. Section. 3. Paragraph. 2.
Section. 1.
The Congress shall have presiding jurisdiction over all public waters in the United States. Public waters shall be all waters:
1) from groundwater springs or from headwaters, snow melt, or runoff that combine to form brooks, creeks, and streams that flow into an ocean or gulf or that become tributaries to rivers that flow into an ocean or gulf;
2) from aquifers accessed or potentially accessed by human-made wells and/or pumping mechanisms; and
3) from lakes of any size and any origin that serve as water sources for any life-sustaining human uses, including fishing and agricultural uses.
The States shall be responsible for all waters of any sort originating in the States until the waters first cross a State boundary or until the waters begin to define the boundary between two States or two nations, at which point the federal government shall become wholly responsible for those waters thereafter.
Section. 2.
Presiding jurisdiction and responsibility shall be to guarantee pure and clean water:
1) that is free from human-made or human-caused pollutants that are toxic or harmful to any living creatures and/or plant life in nature and
2) that is treatable to be made safe for human drinking, cooking, and hygiene in every case, including in the case of pregnant women, except when natural flooding or other polluting disasters occur.
The Congress shall provide remedy if necessary when pollutions occur in public waters and shall legislate the fines and punishments to be levied when municipalities and/or companies are found guilty of polluting. The Congress shall act when new scientific discovery reveals that existing standards are insufficient to protect good health and when new technology invention allows for the affordable improvement of existing standards.
Reckless and/or negligent polluting of public waters shall be a felony, and willful polluting of public waters for profit that causes either human death or at least a yearlong loss of use of a public waters source that had been potable for an established population of more than 5,000 people shall be a capital offense. Corporate executives shall be held personally accountable for any polluting of public waters done by their companies when foreknowledge can be proven.
Section. 3.
Municipal water treatments shall include only those substances and processes that are used solely for water purification purposes. No municipal water treatments of any sort that are intended to be either medicinal or health promoting as additives in human drinking water shall be allowed.
Section. 4.
Nowhere in the United States shall public waters be controlled by a private citizen or by a corporation that is not a municipality. Public access to free drinking water shall be a human right at all times in every municipality in the United States. The legal owner of all public waters shall be the United States of America.
Section. 5.
The Congress shall have presiding jurisdiction over all known and unknown precious metals, minerals, ores, and energy-generating substances and gases that can be mined, drilled for, or otherwise taken from the Earth on the public lands, on the private lands, and in the territorial waters of the United States and its territories.
From public lands and territorial waters, as compensation for being the owner of the land and the ocean or gulf floor and for contracting extraction rights, the United States shall receive five percent (5%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means. Any contracting of extraction rights shall be conditional upon actual work being done, and contracts shall be wholly rescinded if no extractions are made during any 365-day period following the signing of the contract. Extraction rights shall not be given to foreign nations or to companies that do not have their corporate headquarters in the United States.
From private lands, as compensation for being Sovereign and Protector of those lands and of the public roadways, highways, and waterways used for all necessary transporting, the United States shall receive four percent (4%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means. If access to the Earth beneath public lands is made underground from private lands, the United States shall receive five percent (5%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means.
Section. 6.
The United States shall spend all revenues earned from contracting extraction rights on public lands and in territorial waters as needed:
1) on environmental clean-ups that will create and protect pure and clean water;
2) on research to determine effective ways to replenish the depleting aquifers, especially the Ogallala Aquifer; and
3) on public waterworks projects that will enhance and protect the drinking water sources for established municipalities.
The United States shall spend all revenues earned from extractions made from private lands on the Nikola Tesla Project, which shall be a joint project with other cooperating nations to develop clean unlimited energy from the Earth and its higher atmosphere, especially from the ionosphere and the magnetosphere. When it is discovered how to harness controllable atmospheric electricity that can be used as a universal source of nonpolluting industrial power, the technology shall be freely shared among nations as a gift from the Creator to the whole world.
Section. 7.
A national building code shall require architectural design inclusion of dedicated efficient space for photo-voltaic system installations according to industry-established minimum space requirements for all new construction of residential, commercial, and governmental structures enclosing at least 1,000 square feet of heated space.
All existing structures shall be exempt as long as no remodeling involves any structural changes to existing roofs, excluding any structural changes that solely relate to replacing or installing gutters, low profile skylights, vents, satellite dishes, and/or roofing. Any structural additions to existing structures that add or alter roof-lines to accommodate additional square footage shall not be exempt from the code requirements.
Required shall be a minimum of 100 square feet of clear roof surface to accommodate solar modules or panels faced due south at an angle that matches the location’s latitude with an allowable 15- to 20-degree variation east or west from due south. The solar panels shall be located where they will not be shaded by trees or intruded upon by vents, chimneys, or other roof structure penetrations. An efficient accessible routing path from the roof array to a centralized inverter and then to the structure’s load center for the photo-voltaic system’s generated energy shall be required.
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Proposal #6: Public Education
Re: Article. I. Section. 8.
Section. 1.
The Congress shall fund, oversee the administration of, and nominate students to the six tuition-free United States military academies located at: West Point, New York, for the Army; Annapolis, Maryland, for the Navy and the Marine Corps; Colorado Springs, Colorado, for the Air Force; New London, Connecticut, for the Coast Guard; Kings Point, New York, for the Merchant Marine; and Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, for the Cyber/Biologic Defense.
Section. 2.
The Congress shall require the States to provide thirteen years of tuition-free public education for all United States citizens and all otherwise legal residents from age five through age eighteen. Public education shall be according to three national standards:
1) Every student shall be literate at no less than age-appropriate-grade-level (plus or minus one year) while being actively challenged and fully facilitated to achieve personal potentials in all core academic subjects, including those of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (“literate” being defined as educated, cultured, and lucid within an American social, philosophical, and historical context as taught in a thirteen-year standard curriculum that explores America from 1492 to the current time, with an ability to read, write, and effectively communicate in the English language using current computer technologies);
2) Exceptional students shall be individually advanced to the academic level at which they can succeed while being challenged; and
3) Students whose academic skills competency and knowledge proficiency are measured in the aggregate minimally either two years below or two years above age-appropriate-grade-level shall be designated as Special Education students and shall receive educational funding at twice the normal rate (competency and proficiency testing shall be done when requested by a teacher, parent, or student).
Thirteen years of tuition-free public education shall not be defined by the completion of a thirteen-year standard curriculum that ends in high school graduation in every case. Some lower-tier Special Education students will remain functionally illiterate despite all teaching efforts while some upper-tier Special Education students will graduate from a community college or a public university before their nineteenth birthday and shall thereby receive their college and/or university education on a tuition-free basis.
The term “tuition-free” applies only in the case of public education institutions, including any school designations that encompass any part of the spectrum from kindergarten enrollee through master degree recipient, that is: inclusive from primary school through public university. It does not include graduate studies at the doctoral degree level.
Students who enroll in private schools of any sort shall receive government vouchers that are the equivalent of their local public school tuition if the private schools they enroll in are accredited by the government. Government accreditation of private schools shall only regard standard subjects that are common to local public schools and shall not regard religious subjects of any sort. A homeschool student shall receive government vouchers to rent textbooks and an educational computer hardware and software package if those items have been approved and accredited by the government for homeschool use, if the student is fully registered according to the laws governing homeschool status and is government-approved in that status, and if the total worth of the vouchers for the student does not exceed the local public school tuition cost.
The government vouchers shall pay the vendor or the private school directly in all cases, and in no case shall government vouchers be redeemable for cash by either a student or a student’s parent or legal guardian.
Section. 3.
The Congress shall require the States to identify all exceptional students who are intellectually either moderately-to-highly gifted or exceptionally-to-profoundly gifted by standard academic measures (“moderately-to-highly gifted” being in the top two percent or 98th percentile and “exceptionally-to-profoundly gifted” being in the top one percent or 99th percentile). The United States shall recognize its most gifted citizens — its geniuses — as a natural resource and a national treasure, and shall maximize the potential of that resource and treasure through its public education system in every individual case beginning at the earliest possible opportunity. However, no interventions shall ever be made against the will of the student, regardless of the student’s potential to excel; the Pursuit of Happiness shall stand as an unalienable Right of every individual citizen, even the citizen who is a minor child.
The Congress shall forbid any notion that the purpose of public education is to socialize the citizenry. The purpose of public education shall be to make citizens literate in useful knowledge, confident in factoring new information into old thinking, and competent in self-directed analysis, so that public education might inspire joy and courage in its graduates through the benefits that derive from life-long learning habits, a purposeful informed participation in America’s future, and an enduring appreciation for political dissent and for the American free enterprise system. Public education in the United States shall work to cultivate this flower: that, in every citizen’s life, the gift to America shall be the citizen and the gift to the citizen shall be America.
Section. 4.
The Congress shall establish a national three-year merit-based public high school for the nation’s most intellectually gifted science-minded high school students. The national public high school shall be simultaneously located at no less than 150 public research university campuses nationwide, shall be tuition-free without exception, shall have highly selective enrollment with requirements and standards that cannot be challenged, and shall use the same intensive accelerated-learning curriculum at every site without exception. The defined curriculum shall offer courses in mathematics, computer science, and the physical sciences of chemistry and physics according to standard prerequisite streams, with the high school students enrolling in university classes with university students at times during all three years.
The offered majors shall be limited to:
1) Mathematics through at least Elementary Linear Algebra,
2) Computer Science through at least the standard university sophomore-year computer science sequence course for computer and information science majors that is taken concurrently with the Elements of Discrete Mathematics sequence,
3) Chemistry through the Organic Chemistry sequence and Organic Analysis, and
4) Physics through the standard university sophomore-year physics sequence course for physics majors that covers physics of waves and statistical thermodynamics.
All students shall take the same six Advanced Placement courses: English Language, United States History, United States Government & Politics, and Chemistry during the sophomore year and English Literature and Economics during the junior year. United States History and United States Government & Politics shall be combined as one course. All students shall concurrently take the university calculus sequence and the university calculus-based physics sequence before graduating. There shall be no electives other than choosing a major.
The national public high school capstone shall be a non-graded senior-year-long Colloquy on the topic: Morality, Ethics & Society: Science & Technology in the 21st Century. The Colloquy shall be student-directed according to established rules; shall result in United States Constitution Amendment Proposals, World Treaty Proposals, and Philosophy of Science and Technology Definition Statements; and shall conclude each term with deserving students receiving a Linus Pauling Achievement Award honoring the American scientist and peace activist who is one of only two people to have won more than one Nobel Prize in different fields, and the only person to win two undivided Nobel Prizes: the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances and the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in peace and disarmament campaigns establishing The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Though the defined curriculum does not offer life sciences courses, such courses can be taken optionally during summer term if offered by a host university. National public high school students shall be limited to attending only at their home host university during the fall-through-spring school year, but can attend at any national public high school host university on a tuition-free basis during summer term. The student shall pay any costs for summer term other than tuition costs, except the United States shall pay all costs if the student is requested to enroll in a particular course or program by the government.
The national public high school shall operate under the aegis of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration with cooperation from the non-military intelligence agencies and from the United States Cyber/Biologic Defense Academy, and with oversight from the Congress. The national public high school shall not answer to local school boards or to the States in any way. The national public high school graduation requirements shall supersede State high school graduation requirements without exception.
Section. 5.
The United States Cyber/Biologic Defense Academy shall have no physical fitness requirements whatsoever. It shall at all times maintain a Stephen Hawking Rule which declares that the mind alone shall determine eligibility and no physical defect of any sort shall be disqualifying. The Cyber/Biologic Defense shall be disciplined and uniformed, but shall not undergo any traditional basic training that includes strenuous whole-body strength-related activities of any sort, including marching. A brilliant wheelchair-bound person is eligible to enroll in the United States Cyber/Biologic Defense Academy and to serve in the Cyber/Biologic Defense at any rank of command, including Chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The term “cyber/biologic” refers to all things related either to transmissions of any sort in cyberspace known and unknown, including any hostile activity on the Internet, any manifestation of computer hacking, and any potentially harmful computer data manipulation, or to hostile biological actions that could be property-damaging, disease-causing, and/or life-threatening in any way, or to both simultaneously in any evil pairing. The term “defense” must naturally have an offensive component to be whole.
The United States Cyber/Biologic Defense Academy shall have access to all national public high school student transcripts and shall be welcome to freely recruit national public high school students.
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Proposal #7: Certain Rights Regarding Obligations and Freedoms
No one’s right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness shall exceed that of another’s all things being equal. No one shall be required to be a hero, act selflessly, or in any way endanger him/herself for another under any circumstance.
Triage decisions and actions are not ever subject to legal consequences, even when mercy killing occurs. In disaster and catastrophe, the Natural Law — the Survival of the Fittest —applies without question.
Chivalry and Good Samaritan acts shall not be legally required of the individual unless they are first expressly required of society as a whole in written law, for mercy cannot be expected where it is not encouraged.
The law altogether describes what society considers “good enough,” and it is there that fairness begins, never to be better or more righteous than that “altogether” measure but always to be at least just as mean, at least in spirit; for consistency — “good enough” — is the right measure of things, even when it is wrong in actual truth.
An unwanted guest cannot be legally expelled in one case but not the other, no matter the circumstance, no matter the eventual outcome, for the divine gift of Eden was the knowledge of good and evil, not life. As is the measure for man so too shall be the measure for woman: no less than that and no more.
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Posted March 11, 2012
Proposal #8: Definitions of Law, Religion, and Judicial Limits
Re: Article. I. Section. 8. and Article. III. Section. 2.
Section. 1.
The minimum context for all judicial considerations of the Constitution in all proceedings in the supreme and inferior Courts shall be one complete and uninterrupted sentence without abridgment or reduction of any sort. A judicial ruling based on either a single clause or a partial sentence that has been disembodied from its whole and complete sentence in the Constitution shall be categorically unconstitutional unless any right consideration of the minimum context will not alter the ruling. Judicial consideration of an underlying Plain Sentence in the Constitution shall be legitimate if the Plain Sentence reduces punctuation in its reordering of all the clauses in the source sentence as it is stated in the Constitution and if the Plain Sentence cannot be disputed according to the long established Rules of Grammar and Sentence Structure for the English language. An indisputable Plain Sentence shall supersede Original Language in establishing the intent of the Constitution.
Section. 2.
The Constitution shall be first and last a Principle: a Philosophy that Guides its Laws, and not ever Laws outside of that context. The Principle of the Constitution shall enlighten, embolden, and encourage the American Premise, which is from The Declaration of Independence: “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.” What were once “all men” are now “all people” — specifically, all citizens of the United States of America.
The Principle of the Constitution shall have as its fundamental understanding that as the opposite of Love is not Hate, it is Indifference, the opposite of Life is therefore not Death, it is the lack of Freedom to act according to one’s own Will — and so too for Liberty and so too for the pursuit of Happiness. To be utterly clear: the Right to Life is also the Right to Death, the Right to Liberty is also the Right to Obligation and Commitment, and the Right to pursue Happiness is also the Right to be Sad by one’s own choosing. The Constitution shall possess this as its fundamental understanding regarding all citizens of the United States without exception.
The Principle of the Constitution shall be inseparable from the First Amendment, which shall be elemental and irreducible as one complete thought that in its total provides the essential definition of “religion” for all judicial considerations under the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Furthermore, “religion” shall be defined according to Webster’s Dictionary as “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith, “ which shall include an adherence to any aspect of scientific thinking that is speculative, theoretical, and unproven, especially regarding the Origins of the Universe and of Life on Earth.
The Constitution shall premise that everyone has a god and a religion, that “god” is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “a person or thing of supreme value,” and that religion is how people live their lives in relation to their god. A religion can be entirely personal with no connection whatsoever to a group of fellow believers of any sort or to any creed, tradition, or scripture. A religion does not have to be organized and does not have to use the language or the rituals of the sacred to be a religion, it only must include loyalty to a belief or to a set of beliefs that cannot be proven, and any such beliefs can range helterskelter from unspecific, undefined, and changeable to specific, defined, and unchanging and be held at any depth of emotion and intellect and at any level of certainty; a person’s god can be anyone or anything, including him/herself or his/her favorite possession or pastime. By every accounting of others, a person’s religion can be entirely vacuous, wholly misguided, and without any perceptible merit at all. A religion need not promote personal virtue or in any way serve the common good to be valid and within the constitutional definition. Any judgment of hypocrisy made by others shall be irrelevant, even if it can be rightly proven beyond any doubt in a Court of law.
Religion shall be sacrosanct and inviolable under the law for the individual citizen only, but not for any group, even including the Roman Catholic Church, even including an individual family; no one shall be entitled to definitively decide for another regarding religion, either by defining god or by defining beliefs, except to teach beliefs and to then welcome another to freely join a group that shares those taught beliefs. To the extent that groups are made up of free-thinking individuals, religious groups shall have constitutional rights to liberty and protection, but only to that extent; no religious group as a hierarchy or as an institution or as a tradition and no religious leader of any sort regardless of esteem shall ever have the authority in the United States and its Territories to exercise binding legal jurisdiction over any person or property or to in any way supersede the Constitution.
The United States government shall recognize American patriotism as a religion born in blood and sacrifice and the “sacred Honor” that has been pledged anew by every generation that has since joined Lives and Fortunes with those Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Therefore, Congress shall encourage and facilitate the ongoing teaching of comparative religions in the United States public schools beginning in kindergarten so that an abiding sense of the sacred might be instilled in the nation’s citizens.
Section. 3.
The law in the United States shall not be defined by legal precedents made in Court rulings, but shall in every case be defined by the Congress in acts of legislation. The sole duty and obligation of the Courts shall be to rightly settle disputes within the bounds of existing law using only the language of existing law and any Understanding in effect.
A Court ruling shall be final and binding unless an appeal to a higher Court overrules a lower Court, in which case the final and binding ruling becomes that of the higher Court. A final and binding ruling permanently settles a case when no more appeals are possible, and any such ruling thereby potentially creates an Understanding that will remain in effect for one thousand days. An Understanding is any clarification of law formed by a judge, a panel of judges, or a jury to justify a ruling in which the existing law was either vague or nonspecific to the needs of the settled dispute. An Understanding shall prevail in all Courts without exception until either the Congress acts or the Understanding expires. The Congress can legislate the Understanding into law according to the Court ruling or in an alteration of its own making, including the legislating of a new law that is entirely contrary to the Understanding, or it can choose to let the Understanding expire, in which case the law reverts back to its existing vague and nonspecific language.
The Courts, including the Supreme Court, shall judge according to the existing language of the Constitution and its associated laws and according to the Principle of the Constitution, and shall advise the Congress of shortcomings, needs, and inconsistencies in the law through the ruling clarifications that result in Understandings. It is the duty and obligation of the Congress to legislate the laws of the United States.
Past Supreme Court rulings that have effectively created new law by either establishing or building on legal precedents shall be reduced to Understandings on a going-back-two-years-every-year basis, with each Understanding expiring one thousand days after being reduced from its precedent, such that one hundred years of past precedents shall become Understandings during the next fifty years. That process shall continue unabated until no precedents remain in the law of the United States.
Legal precedents shall become nothing more than footnotes in the history of United States jurisprudence; they shall have no remaining force of law within them once the transition required by this amendment is done.
* * *
I will post at least [five] more proposed amendments as I finish them.
Steven A. Sylwester
January 30, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Water Is Holy
I dedicate the following to my father Robert Alfred Sylwester on the occasion of his 85th birthday today, January 5, 2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sylwester
http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Sylwester/e/B001H6MKJA
http://www.corwin.com/authors/517501
(Jesus said) “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:43-48 NIV
Thanks be to God
Divine perfection “as your heavenly Father is perfect” is the stuff of God’s grace; it is unfathomable and inexplicable; it is beyond what is humanly possible. Yet Jesus tells us to be all of that: to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, and to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. What might that look like? In small part, I think it looks like the following: an attempt at grace upon grace.
Steven A. Sylwester
* * *
Water is essential for life — all life of any and every sort. Approximately 60 percent of the substance of a human body is water, and approximately 75 percent of human body waste is water. A healthy human adult consumes approximately 2.5 quarts of water every day. A human can survive for only four or five days without drinking water. Though nearly 75 percent of the Earth's surface is covered with water, 98 percent of that water is salt water, and is not fit for human consumption. It is estimated that less than one percent of all the water on Earth is potentially available for human consumption at any one time.
Many of the facts concerning water are startling and sobering. Consider:
http://www.waterinfo.org/resources/water-facts
http://www.lenntech.com/water-trivia-facts.htm
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/water_a_vital_nutrient?open
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howthingswork/f/blbodyelements.htm
All in all, the most precious substance on Earth is potable fresh water — that water which is safe to drink and to use in cooking. Potable fresh water is more valuable than oil or gold or anything else. Yet it is the one substance that is free to all, or should be so. But dangers are ever present. For example, consider the dangers of mercury contamination: http://water.usgs.gov/wid/FS_216-95/FS_216-95.html
http://www1.american.edu/ted/MINAMATA.HTM
http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10370_12150_12220-26953--,00.html
http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/sources.asp
Also, consider the dangers of corporate ownership of water rights and water sources:
http://www.alternativesmagazine.com/49/powdar.html
http://waterindustry.org/Water-Facts/world-water-5.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/VANOVEDR/
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/four-ways-to-play-the-global-water-crisis/1275
http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/nbc-no-deal-between-water-district-poland-spring-now
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/articles/2008/public_ownership_water_fenton.php
What follows is my proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that defines the term “public waters” and guarantees: “The legal owner of all public waters shall be the United States of America.” — that is: We The People.
* * *
The Constitution of The United States:
Article. IV. Section. 3. Paragraph. 2: The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.
Proposed Amendment: Water, Sun, and Underground Natural Resources Management
Re: Article. IV. Section. 3. Paragraph. 2.
Section. 1.
The Congress shall have presiding jurisdiction over all public waters in the United States. Public waters shall be all waters:
1) from groundwater springs or from headwaters, snow melt, or runoff that combine to form brooks, creeks, and streams that flow into an ocean or gulf or that become tributaries to rivers that flow into an ocean or gulf;
2) from aquifers accessed or potentially accessed by human-made wells and/or pumping mechanisms; and
3) from lakes of any size and any origin that serve as water sources for any life-sustaining human uses, including fishing and agricultural uses.
The States shall be responsible for all waters of any sort originating in the States until the waters first cross a State boundary or until the waters begin to define the boundary between two States or two nations, at which point the federal government shall become wholly responsible for those waters thereafter.
Section. 2.
Presiding jurisdiction and responsibility shall be to guarantee pure and clean water:
1) that is free from human-made or human-caused pollutants that are toxic or harmful to any living creatures and/or plant life in nature and
2) that is treatable to be made safe for human drinking, cooking, and hygiene in every case, including in the case of pregnant women, except when natural flooding or other polluting disasters occur.
The Congress shall provide remedy if necessary when pollutions occur in public waters and shall legislate the fines and punishments to be levied when municipalities and/or companies are found guilty of polluting. The Congress shall act when new scientific discovery reveals that existing standards are insufficient to protect good health and when new technology invention allows for the affordable improvement of existing standards.
Reckless and/or negligent polluting of public waters shall be a felony, and willful polluting of public waters for profit that causes either human death or at least a yearlong loss of use of a public waters source that had been potable for an established population of more than 5,000 people shall be a capital offense. Corporate executives shall be held personally accountable for any polluting of public waters done by their companies when foreknowledge can be proven.
Section. 3.
Municipal water treatments shall include only those substances and processes that are used solely for water purification purposes. No municipal water treatments of any sort that are intended to be either medicinal or health promoting as additives in human drinking water shall be allowed.
Section. 4.
Nowhere in the United States shall public waters be controlled by a private citizen or by a corporation that is not a municipality. Public access to free drinking water shall be a human right at all times in every municipality in the United States. The legal owner of all public waters shall be the United States of America.
Section. 5.
The Congress shall have presiding jurisdiction over all known and unknown precious metals, minerals, ores, and energy-generating substances and gases that can be mined, drilled for, or otherwise taken from the Earth on the public lands, on the private lands, and in the territorial waters of the United States and its territories.
From public lands and territorial waters, as compensation for being the owner of the land and the ocean or gulf floor and for contracting extraction rights, the United States shall receive five percent (5%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means. Any contracting of extraction rights shall be conditional upon actual work being done, and contracts shall be wholly rescinded if no extractions are made during any 365-day period following the signing of the contract. Extraction rights shall not be given to foreign nations or to companies that do not have their corporate headquarters in the United States.
From private lands, as compensation for being Sovereign and Protector of those lands and of the public roadways, highways, and waterways used for all necessary transporting, the United States shall receive four percent (4%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means. If access to the Earth beneath public lands is made underground from private lands, the United States shall receive five percent (5%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means.
Section. 6.
The United States shall spend all revenues earned from contracting extraction rights on public lands and in territorial waters as needed:
1) on environmental clean-ups that will create and protect pure and clean water;
2) on research to determine effective ways to replenish the depleting aquifers, especially the Ogallala Aquifer; and
3) on public waterworks projects that will enhance and protect the drinking water sources for established municipalities.
The United States shall spend all revenues earned from extractions made from private lands on the Nikola Tesla Project, which shall be a joint project with other cooperating nations to develop clean unlimited energy from the Earth and its higher atmosphere, especially from the ionosphere and the magnetosphere. When it is discovered how to harness controllable atmospheric electricity that can be used as a universal source of nonpolluting industrial power, the technology shall be freely shared among nations as a gift from the Creator to the whole world.
Section. 7.
A national building code shall require architectural design inclusion of dedicated efficient space for photo-voltaic system installations according to industry-established minimum space requirements for all new construction of residential, commercial, and governmental structures enclosing at least 1,000 square feet of heated space.
All existing structures shall be exempt as long as no remodeling involves any structural changes to existing roofs, excluding any structural changes that solely relate to replacing or installing gutters, low profile skylights, vents, satellite dishes, and/or roofing. Any structural additions to existing structures that add or alter roof-lines to accommodate additional square footage shall not be exempt from the code requirements.
Required shall be a minimum of 100 square feet of clear roof surface to accommodate solar modules or panels faced due south at an angle that matches the location’s latitude with an allowable 15- to 20-degree variation east or west from due south. The solar panels shall be located where they will not be shaded by trees or intruded upon by vents, chimneys, or other roof structure penetrations. An efficient accessible routing path from the roof array to a centralized inverter and then to the structure’s load center for the photo-voltaic system’s generated energy shall be required.
* * *
COMMENTARY:
Water is holy. As such, it should be sacred.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sylwester
http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Sylwester/e/B001H6MKJA
http://www.corwin.com/authors/517501
(Jesus said) “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:43-48 NIV
Thanks be to God
Divine perfection “as your heavenly Father is perfect” is the stuff of God’s grace; it is unfathomable and inexplicable; it is beyond what is humanly possible. Yet Jesus tells us to be all of that: to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, and to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. What might that look like? In small part, I think it looks like the following: an attempt at grace upon grace.
Steven A. Sylwester
* * *
Water is essential for life — all life of any and every sort. Approximately 60 percent of the substance of a human body is water, and approximately 75 percent of human body waste is water. A healthy human adult consumes approximately 2.5 quarts of water every day. A human can survive for only four or five days without drinking water. Though nearly 75 percent of the Earth's surface is covered with water, 98 percent of that water is salt water, and is not fit for human consumption. It is estimated that less than one percent of all the water on Earth is potentially available for human consumption at any one time.
Many of the facts concerning water are startling and sobering. Consider:
http://www.waterinfo.org/resources/water-facts
http://www.lenntech.com/water-trivia-facts.htm
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/water_a_vital_nutrient?open
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howthingswork/f/blbodyelements.htm
All in all, the most precious substance on Earth is potable fresh water — that water which is safe to drink and to use in cooking. Potable fresh water is more valuable than oil or gold or anything else. Yet it is the one substance that is free to all, or should be so. But dangers are ever present. For example, consider the dangers of mercury contamination: http://water.usgs.gov/wid/FS_216-95/FS_216-95.html
http://www1.american.edu/ted/MINAMATA.HTM
http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10370_12150_12220-26953--,00.html
http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/sources.asp
Also, consider the dangers of corporate ownership of water rights and water sources:
http://www.alternativesmagazine.com/49/powdar.html
http://waterindustry.org/Water-Facts/world-water-5.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/VANOVEDR/
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/four-ways-to-play-the-global-water-crisis/1275
http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/nbc-no-deal-between-water-district-poland-spring-now
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/articles/2008/public_ownership_water_fenton.php
What follows is my proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that defines the term “public waters” and guarantees: “The legal owner of all public waters shall be the United States of America.” — that is: We The People.
* * *
The Constitution of The United States:
Article. IV. Section. 3. Paragraph. 2: The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.
Proposed Amendment: Water, Sun, and Underground Natural Resources Management
Re: Article. IV. Section. 3. Paragraph. 2.
Section. 1.
The Congress shall have presiding jurisdiction over all public waters in the United States. Public waters shall be all waters:
1) from groundwater springs or from headwaters, snow melt, or runoff that combine to form brooks, creeks, and streams that flow into an ocean or gulf or that become tributaries to rivers that flow into an ocean or gulf;
2) from aquifers accessed or potentially accessed by human-made wells and/or pumping mechanisms; and
3) from lakes of any size and any origin that serve as water sources for any life-sustaining human uses, including fishing and agricultural uses.
The States shall be responsible for all waters of any sort originating in the States until the waters first cross a State boundary or until the waters begin to define the boundary between two States or two nations, at which point the federal government shall become wholly responsible for those waters thereafter.
Section. 2.
Presiding jurisdiction and responsibility shall be to guarantee pure and clean water:
1) that is free from human-made or human-caused pollutants that are toxic or harmful to any living creatures and/or plant life in nature and
2) that is treatable to be made safe for human drinking, cooking, and hygiene in every case, including in the case of pregnant women, except when natural flooding or other polluting disasters occur.
The Congress shall provide remedy if necessary when pollutions occur in public waters and shall legislate the fines and punishments to be levied when municipalities and/or companies are found guilty of polluting. The Congress shall act when new scientific discovery reveals that existing standards are insufficient to protect good health and when new technology invention allows for the affordable improvement of existing standards.
Reckless and/or negligent polluting of public waters shall be a felony, and willful polluting of public waters for profit that causes either human death or at least a yearlong loss of use of a public waters source that had been potable for an established population of more than 5,000 people shall be a capital offense. Corporate executives shall be held personally accountable for any polluting of public waters done by their companies when foreknowledge can be proven.
Section. 3.
Municipal water treatments shall include only those substances and processes that are used solely for water purification purposes. No municipal water treatments of any sort that are intended to be either medicinal or health promoting as additives in human drinking water shall be allowed.
Section. 4.
Nowhere in the United States shall public waters be controlled by a private citizen or by a corporation that is not a municipality. Public access to free drinking water shall be a human right at all times in every municipality in the United States. The legal owner of all public waters shall be the United States of America.
Section. 5.
The Congress shall have presiding jurisdiction over all known and unknown precious metals, minerals, ores, and energy-generating substances and gases that can be mined, drilled for, or otherwise taken from the Earth on the public lands, on the private lands, and in the territorial waters of the United States and its territories.
From public lands and territorial waters, as compensation for being the owner of the land and the ocean or gulf floor and for contracting extraction rights, the United States shall receive five percent (5%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means. Any contracting of extraction rights shall be conditional upon actual work being done, and contracts shall be wholly rescinded if no extractions are made during any 365-day period following the signing of the contract. Extraction rights shall not be given to foreign nations or to companies that do not have their corporate headquarters in the United States.
From private lands, as compensation for being Sovereign and Protector of those lands and of the public roadways, highways, and waterways used for all necessary transporting, the United States shall receive four percent (4%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means. If access to the Earth beneath public lands is made underground from private lands, the United States shall receive five percent (5%) of the pre-tax gross revenues generated from any and all extractions made by mining, drilling, or any other means.
Section. 6.
The United States shall spend all revenues earned from contracting extraction rights on public lands and in territorial waters as needed:
1) on environmental clean-ups that will create and protect pure and clean water;
2) on research to determine effective ways to replenish the depleting aquifers, especially the Ogallala Aquifer; and
3) on public waterworks projects that will enhance and protect the drinking water sources for established municipalities.
The United States shall spend all revenues earned from extractions made from private lands on the Nikola Tesla Project, which shall be a joint project with other cooperating nations to develop clean unlimited energy from the Earth and its higher atmosphere, especially from the ionosphere and the magnetosphere. When it is discovered how to harness controllable atmospheric electricity that can be used as a universal source of nonpolluting industrial power, the technology shall be freely shared among nations as a gift from the Creator to the whole world.
Section. 7.
A national building code shall require architectural design inclusion of dedicated efficient space for photo-voltaic system installations according to industry-established minimum space requirements for all new construction of residential, commercial, and governmental structures enclosing at least 1,000 square feet of heated space.
All existing structures shall be exempt as long as no remodeling involves any structural changes to existing roofs, excluding any structural changes that solely relate to replacing or installing gutters, low profile skylights, vents, satellite dishes, and/or roofing. Any structural additions to existing structures that add or alter roof-lines to accommodate additional square footage shall not be exempt from the code requirements.
Required shall be a minimum of 100 square feet of clear roof surface to accommodate solar modules or panels faced due south at an angle that matches the location’s latitude with an allowable 15- to 20-degree variation east or west from due south. The solar panels shall be located where they will not be shaded by trees or intruded upon by vents, chimneys, or other roof structure penetrations. An efficient accessible routing path from the roof array to a centralized inverter and then to the structure’s load center for the photo-voltaic system’s generated energy shall be required.
* * *
COMMENTARY:
Water is holy. As such, it should be sacred.
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