Happy Fourth of July!
The American Manifesto
Such a big fuss this week just because the Supreme Court gave the government the right to bulldoze your house to build a tax generating shopping mall that would spark the local economy. Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, Liberals, not nobody, nowhere, no how, seems to like this decision.
Thomas Jefferson said: “The right to procure property and to use it for one’s own enjoyment is essential to the freedom of every person, and our other rights would mean little without these rights of property ownership.” “The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property management. ....a right given by nature to all men,...that of rescuing their own property wrongfully taken.”
But what does Tom know about today’s America? I’m sure if he knew we export $3 billion dollars a year worth of scrap metal and raw materials to China and we import $30 billion a year worth of manufactured goods from China, sold thru giants like Walmart, he’d understand that a Walmart anywhere would bring a lot more money to the local coffers than some old houses.
Of course, exporting all that scrap metal does bother me a bit. We sold thousands of tons scrap metal to Japan in the 1930’s. Do you think? Nah...it couldn't happen again.
President Theodore Roosevelt said: “In every civilized society property rights must be carefully safeguarded; ordinarily and in the great majority of cases, human rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run identical.”
But what does Teddy know about today’s America? It’s because of him we’re stuck with all these huge National Parks. When I think of the profit loss from all that wasted real estate....
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says:
“No person shall be ....deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” (Traditionally, eminent domain has been utilized to facilitate transportation, the supplying of water and power, et.al..)
Here’s the crux of the whole problem. This old document, the Constitution. We should tear it up and start over. It was written for ordinary people. Who cares about them? We need one written for the new America...Corporate America. Why, we could use this handy old document I found on the internet, it’s perfect!
From the Communist Manifesto: “Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods. In fact, the abolition of private property is, doubtless, the shortest and most significant way to characterize the revolution in the whole social order which has been made necessary by the development of industry – and for this reason it is rightly advanced by communists as their main demand.”
We could call it the American Manifesto. I like the sound of that....manifesto rhymes with pesto and we all like that, so I think it has a chance to get through congress. That oughta work good for corporations like Microsoft who makes software for Communist China, IBM who sold their PC division to China, and Walmart who puts China to work (Were you wondering where China got the money to bid on Union 76 Oil?).
The five Justices who decided that the government can take your home away and give it to corporate developers whenever it wants to: John Paul Stevens (Republican), Anthony M. Kennedy (Republican), David H. Souter (Republican), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Democrat), Stephen G. Breyer (Democrat).
But I wonder if these five can really override these fifty: NEW HAMPSHIRE: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton. MASSACHUSETTS: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry. RHODE ISLAND: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery. CONNECTICUT: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott. NEW YORK: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris. NEW JERSEY: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark. PENNSYLVANIA: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross. DELAWARE: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean. MARYLAND: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton. VIRGINIA: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton. NORTH CAROLINA: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn. SOUTH CAROLINA: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton. GEORGIA: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton.
Remember what Abraham Lincoln said: “The people will get as good a government as they are willing to work for and as bad a government as they are willing to stand for. “
Manifesto rhymes with pesto, which has a good chance as long as people don’t use their noodles for thinking.
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