Fighting Corruption

A number of members of Congress and other "High Officials" have gone on record against attempts to overturn the results in the Electoral College. But they seem to me to be only telling half the story.

I need to clarify a few things before I dig into this:

For those who read the New Testament, in 2nd Peter 2: 10, Peter declares among the sins of certain wicked people, the sin of "speaking evil of dignities". Some read that to mean "of dignitaries". If he meant dignitaries, he would have said dignitaries. Some note the mention of "despising government" in the previous sentence and assume that dignities means the acts of governing bodies. But the whole phrase is about "walking in the lust of uncleanness, despising government", clearly meaning that they despise the need for being governed by God. 

The right to criticize the unjust acts of governing bodies is actually one of the dignities which the wicked speak evil of. The right to speak out in support of the just acts of governing bodies is another. So is the personal responsibility to figure out which is which. These are some of the dignities Peter speaks of.

The Constitution doesn't specify any means to overturn an invalid election. It doesn't even specify a means of declaring an election invalid. If we do not want to risk further implicit erosion of the Constitution by redefinition, we should return to the assumption that a power not given to Congress by the Constitution is not given by Congress. 

Each state is tasked with determining the validity of that state's election processes in the Constitution, and that is as it should be. (Except now states are getting too big.)

Declaring the election invalid at this point should not be considered an option.

There are a couple of theoretical ways to let Trump do a second term now. 

1. Biden and Kamala might both have a change of heart and submit a document to Congress declaring themselves unable to discharge their duties, and then Congress might decide to choose Trump to fill the vacancy since he did get so close to half the vote.
2. Biden and Kamala might take office and choose a cabinet, and then the cabinet might declare them unfit. And then Congress might choose Trump to fill the vacancy.
3. Impeach both Biden and Kamala. And, then, the choice of a new president to finish out the term devolves to Congress, and Congress might (low probability) choose Trump to fill in the rest of the term.
   

Other than that, it appears that the democrats get a turn for four years.

However, I have watched governing bodies go ballistic, refusing to respond to their constituents' rightful complaints, and I have watched that happen this whole past election process. The problems with the election process were known from well before election day, and they were not addressed then, and they have not yet been addressed.

I've blogged about a few of the problems here and in my main blog (and, I think, in my computing blogs and freedom blog and elsewhere -- lots of technical issues).

Various state governments have behaved very irresponsibly in the election processes.

Perhaps we should consider an amendment to make the election process less vulnerable before the next election.

The Constitution does not give us a way to declare the election invalid. The only direct recourse it gives us is the right to seek judgements of treason against the perpetrators. That's a lot of work, so we need to think of some less direct means.

(If we want it to be possible to legally and Constitutionally overturn an invalid election, we must propose and pass an amendment adding the means to do so before the election occurs, not after. But we must be careful, when we do so, not to make the processes even more vulnerable.)

That's a full stop.

How do we fight corruption?

As I say, I have watched governing bodies railroad the "desired results" through on many occasions in the past, perverting the democratic processes as they do so -- because waiting for the democratic processes to work properly means waiting too long for whatever reason they think of, and I watched it happening in the election processes this past year or so.

A million or so demonstrators is a million or so demonstrators. Something is wrong when a million people get out in the streets about something. That was true last fall, and it is true now. Even if those millions were mostly all extreme leftists or extreme rightists, it would still be true. 

A million people is one in four hundred. That's people close to you. They are not even mostly extremists, just people willing to speak out when their conscience moves them to do so.

Did we think it had ended when the left went quiet after the elections in fall?

This is not going to end until either (1) God comes in the sky -- in other words, the natural consequences of bad acts catch up to us -- or (2) each individual in the US learns by him/herself how to listen to his/her own conscience and do what God tells him/her to do through it. 

We don't want to wait for the natural consequences to catch up to us. That's a very violent end. 

So you and I need to listen to our consciences and do what they tell us to do. And we need to advise our friends, enemies, and acquaintances to do likewise.

Yes, that's very difficult, because it requires each one of us to learn to weed through, not just our own personal baser instincts, but also all the overlays of false rules about what is right, wrong, and gray that the traditions we have inherited from our culture have imposed on us, which now make it hard to listen to our own consciences.And we have to learn to set peer pressure aside. 

It requires both brave and wise enough to do what's right and brave and wise enough to be sure we understand what's right.

For those who believe in God, conscience is the connection we have to the God which created us. For those who do not believe in a God which created us, the conscience is the innate patterns of what works and what doesn't which evolution has imparted to the human mind. 

I don't care which you prefer, as long as you aren't so seriously confused as to deny the existence of conscience.

That much of a definition is sufficient, without me having to explain that when I say God, I invoke the grand unifying principle that many physicists and other scientists seek -- the parameters that existed at the instance the dynamic universe came into being, and underlay the path of evolution as the universe was formed, or the fundamental principles by which the static universe functions and continues to function.

When I speak of God coming down in the sky, I speak of the course nature follows, including natural consequences of our acts, as society and as individuals.

If we could simply agree on that much of a shared definition, we should be able to quit fighting about religion, or about the relationship of explicit religion with atheism and agnosticism. 

Conscience, and freedom to follow one's own conscience. A lot of people think that is what the current political argument in the US is all about, and they are not exactly wrong. But the argument is not directly about that.

We have three major factions (and numerous minor factions) of people who don't want to allow others to live by their conscience. 

(This is not some crazy conspiracy theory. Factions and their jockeying for power and resorting to extra-regular means have been part of history forever, and they didn't suddenly disappear just because explicitly democratic processes became the accepted norm in recent history.)

I can suppose that the reasons for members of these factions may be that they themselves are too lazy or scared to get acquainted with their own consciences, but that is not mine to suppose. They simply aren't willing to behave as if they trust others to be free to follow their consciences.

They have agendas, things they think they must force to happen, to "save society". I can presume that is because they don't trust the individuals of whom society is composed to be interested in saving themselves, but, again, I presume too much. 

These factions are trying to destroy the  Constitution of the United States of America, so that they can destroy this lousy, messy, in-the-way-of-their-ambitions free country.

One of the major factions is overtly redefining anything in the Constitution that gets in the way of their agenda.

One is behind the scenes restructuring the legal infrastructure so that the original Constitution cannot function.

One waits in the wings for the other two to do their dirty work, ready to step in and "save the day" when all appears ready to crumble and fall.

All of these factions cross nominal party boundaries.

All three think they are using President Trump as a pawn.

God has other plans. Or nature, if you prefer.

God is still, ultimately in control. Nature will prevail.

That does not mean everything will be all right. Everything will not be all right.

Nor does it mean anyone should now be quiet. If your conscience tells you to speak up and speak out, you should do so. Just remember to keep listening to your conscience as you do so.

Hang on. It's going to be a rough ride. 

There are certain things you believe in, which form the core of your understanding of what's right and wrong. Examine, them, yes. Refine your understanding, yes. But don't give up your belief that there is right and wrong, and that you have a right to know them.

If you are Christian, part of your core beliefs may be that Jesus' name means that God is ultimately our friend, that He ultimately wants to give us all the happiness and joy we are willing to receive.

If you are not, and you believe in God, you must still believe something similar. 

If you prefer not to believe in God, I strongly urge you to believe that it is in our nature to seek happiness and joy, and that, even though nature provides us an apparent chaos from which to win happiness and joy, nature does not oppose itself. The universe is not, ultimately, against you, me, and everyone else.

Believing this does require us to sacrifice a lot of false ideals, but that's a lot easier than the alternatives.

The universe is not out to destroy us all. It is all right for us to struggle to gain happiness. 

God Is Our Help, if we just believe in Him, He will help us to be happy.

Fighting corruption starts with you and me listening to and following our own consciences.