We will take this shortened holiday week to segue from religious public policy both REAL 99% early religious movements tied to GOD'S original commandments VS those corrupted by global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS buying those 5% to the 1% freemason/Greeks to undermine the ability of our 99% black, white, and brown citizens to create stable, peaceful, justice societies. If our 99% of JEWISH, MUSLIM, PROTESTANT, HINDI, CATHOLIC, BUDDHIST citizens keep feeling they must support those global 1% tied to their own religions ----instead of embracing our early 99% of religious movements ALL HAVING THOSE SAME GOD'S COMMANDMENTS----we will keep returning to DARK, DARK, DARK AGES and never attain stability, wealth, and security. We shared the tenets of our 99% of HINDI/BUDDHIST to show our HINDI religion is based on those same GOD'S commandments----and to show how CASTE SYSTEMS keep those global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS using and corrupting our early 99% religions for their own wealth and power.
So, as white 99% of US citizens are we supposed to support a TRUMP because he is white ---or a CLINTON because he is white when both are MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE killing 99% of white citizens? OF COURSE NOT. Same for our 99% of black and brown citizens. Surely as white Christians we have to support a TRUMP or BUSH or CLINTON because they are Christian---NO, none of the above are CHRISTIAN ---they are pre-Christian CATO, NERO, SENECA-----killing our 99% of CHRISTIAN citizens over and over as history repeats itself----same for our 99% JEWISH, MUSLIM, HINDI, BUDDHIST citizens.
PLEASE COME TOGETHER AS A 99% BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN CITIZENS---AS A 99% PROTESTANT, CATHOLIC, MUSLIM, HINDI, JEWISH CITIZENS TO STOP GLOBAL 1% BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN FROM MOVING FORWARD KILLING OUR REAL US DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC BUILT FOR OUR 99% FREEDOM, LIBERTY, JUSTICE, PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER LAW, EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESS TO REAL FREE MARKET ECONOMIES.
Below we see a long article that discusses what we have discussed many time in sovereign rights in US and yes, it is tied to a right wing interpretation making a bias towards TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. Please glance through especially our new to US immigrant 99% of citizens black, white, and brown citizens.
This is why REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVES did not and will not vote for what we KNOW are global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS candidates whether sold as Democrats or Republicans---CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---NOW TRUMP. We want to remind our 99% of right wing Republican voters tied to wanting all these rights while supporting global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS using them to create civil unrest, civil injustice to all our 99% of WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown citizens and our new immigrant 99%.
STATUTORY "Citizens" v. STATUTORY "Nationals"
1. Introduction
Two words are used to describe citizenship: “citizen” and “national”. There is a world of difference between these two terms and it is extremely important to understand the distinctions before we proceed further. Below is a law dictionary definition of “citizen” that deliberately tries to confuse these two components of citizenship. We will use this definition as a starting point for our discussion of the differences between “citizens” and “nationals”:
citizen. One who, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, or of a particular state, is a member of the political community, owing allegiance and being entitled to the enjoyment of full civil rights. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. U.S. Const., 14th Amend. See Citizenship.
"Citizens" are members of a political community who, in their associated capacity, have established or submitted themselves to the dominion of a government for the promotion of their general welfare and the protection of their individual as well as collective rights. Herriott v. City of Seattle, 81 Wash.2d 48, 500 P.2d 101, 109.
The term may include or apply to children of alien parents from in United States, Von Schwerdtner v. Piper, D.C.Md., 23 F.2d 862, 863; U.S. v. Minoru Yasui, D.C.Or., 48 F.Supp. 40, 54; children of American citizens born outside United States, Haaland v. Attorney General of United States, D.C.Md., 42 F.Supp. 13, 22; Indians, United States v. Hester, C.C.A.Okl., 137 F.2d 145, 147; National Banks, Amierican Surety Co. v. Bank of California, C.C.A.Or., 133 F.2d 160, 162; nonresident who has qualified as administratrix of estate of deceased resident, Hunt v. Noll, C.C.A.Tenn., 112 F.2d 288, 289. However, neither the United States nor a state is a citizen for purposes of diversity jurisdiction. Jizemerjian v. Dept of Air Force, 457 F.Supp. 820. On the other hand, municipalities and other local governments are deemed to be citizens. Rieser v. District of Columbia, 563 F.2d 462. A corporation is not a citizen for purposes of privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. D.D.B. Realty Corp. v. Merrill, 232 F.Supp. 629, 637.
Under diversity statute [28 U.S.C. §1332], which mirrors U.S. Const, Article III's diversity clause, a person is a "citizen of a state" if he or she is a citizen of the United States and a domiciliary of a state of the United States. Gibbons v. Udaras na Gaeltachta, D.C.N.Y., 549 F.Supp. 1094, 1116. “
[Black’s Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, p. 244]
Based on the above definition, being a “citizen” therefore involves the following FOUR individual components, EACH of which require your individual consent in some form. Any attempt to remove the requirement for consent in the case of EACH SPECIFIC component makes the government doing so UNJUST as defined by the Declaration of Independence, and produces involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment:
Table 19: Mandatory components of being a "citizen"
#CharacteristicHow consented toWhat happens when you don’t consent
1Allegiance to the sovereign within the community, which in our country is the “state” and is legally defined as the PEOPLE occupying a fixed territory RATHER than the government or anyone serving them IN the government.Requesting to be naturalized and taking a naturalization oath.Allegiance acquired by birth is INVOLUNTARY.
2VOLUNTARY political association and membership in a political community.Registering to vote or serve on jury duty.If you don’t register to vote or serve on jury duty, you are NOT a “citizen”, even if ELIGIBLE to do either.
3Enjoyment of full CIVIL rights.Choosing a domicileYou can’t be a statutory “citizen” unless you voluntarily choose a domicile.
4Submission to CIVIL authority.Choosing a domicileYou can’t be a statutory “citizen” unless you voluntarily choose a domicile.From the above, we can see that simply calling oneself a “citizen” or not qualifying which SUBSET of each of the above we consent to is extremely hazardous to your freedom! Watch out! The main questions in our mind about the above chart is:
Under maxims of the common law, refusing to consent to ANY ONE OR MORE of the above four prerequisites of BEING a “citizen” makes us ineligible to be called a “citizen” under the laws of that jurisdiction.
Invito beneficium non datur.
No one is obliged to accept a benefit against his consent. Dig. 50, 17, 69. But if he does not dissent he will be considered as assenting. Vide Assent.
Quilibet potest renunciare juri pro se inducto.
Any one may renounce a law introduced for his own benefit. To this rule there are some exceptions. See 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 83.
[Bouvier’s Maxims of Law, 1856,
SOURCE: http://famguardian.org/Publications/BouvierMaximsOfLaw/BouviersMaxims.htm]
The Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual (F.A.M.) identifies TWO components of being a “citizen” with the following language. It acknowledges that one can be a “national of the United States” WITHOUT being a “citizen”, thus implying that those who are NOT “citizens” or who do not consent to ALL the obligations of being a “citizen” automatically become “non-citizen nationals of the United States”:
Department of State
Foreign Affairs Manual (F.A.M.), Volume 7, Section 1111
Downloaded 7/6/2014
b. National vs. Citizen: While most people and countries use the terms “citizenship” and “nationality” interchangeably, U.S. law differentiates between the two. Under current law all U.S. citizens are also U.S. nationals, but not all U.S. nationals are U.S. citizens. The term “national of the United States”, as defined by statute (INA 101 (a)(22) (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(22)) includes all citizens of the United States, and other persons who owe allegiance to the United States but who have not been granted the privilege of citizenship.
(1) Nationals of the United States who are not citizens owe allegiance to the United States and are entitled to the consular protection of the United States when abroad, and to U.S. documentation, such as U.S. passports with appropriate endorsements. They are not entitled to voting representation in Congress and, under most state laws, are not entitled to vote in Federal, state, or local elections except in their place of birth. (See 7 FAM 012; 7 FAM 1300 Appendix B Endorsement 09.)
(2) Historically, Congress, through statutes, granted U.S. non-citizen nationality to persons born or inhabiting territory acquired by the United States through conquest or treaty. At one time or other natives and certain other residents of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Philippines, Guam, and the Panama Canal Zone were U.S. non-citizen nationals. (See 7 FAM 1120.)
(3) Under current law, only persons born in American Samoa and Swains Island are U.S. non-citizen nationals (INA 101(a)(29) (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(29) and INA 308(1) (8 U.S.C. 1408)). (See 7 FAM 1125.)
[SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86755.pdf]
There are many good reasons for the above distinction between NATIONALITY (POLITICAL) status and CITIZEN (CIVIL) status, the most important of which is the ability of the courts to legally distinguish those born in the country but domiciled outside their jurisdiction from those who are domiciled in their jurisdiction. For instance, those domiciled abroad an outside the geographical “United States” are usually called “nationals of the United States” rather than “citizens of the United States”. An example of this phenomenon is described in the following U.S. Supreme Court case, in which an American born in the country is domiciled in Venezuela and therefore is referred to as a “stateless person” not subject to and immune from the civil laws of his country!
Petitioner Newman-Green, Inc., an Illinois corporation, brought this state law contract action in District Court against a Venezuelan corporation, four Venezuelan citizens, and William L. Bettison, a United States citizen domiciled in Caracas, Venezuela. Newman-Green's complaint alleged that the Venezuelan corporation had breached a licensing agreement, and that the individual defendants, joint and several guarantors of royalty payments due under the agreement, owed money to Newman-Green. Several years of discovery and pretrial motions followed. The District Court ultimately granted partial summary judgment for the guarantors and partial summary judgment for Newman-Green. 590 F.Supp. 1083 (ND Ill.1984). Only Newman-Green appealed.
At oral argument before a panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Easterbrook inquired as to the statutory basis for diversity jurisdiction, an issue which had not been previously raised either by counsel or by the District Court Judge. In its complaint, Newman-Green had invoked 28 U.S.C. §1332(a)(3), which confers jurisdiction in the District Court when a citizen of one State sues both aliens and citizens of a State (or States) different from the plaintiff's. In order to be a citizen of a State within the meaning of the diversity statute, a natural person must both be a citizen of the United States and be domiciled within the State. See Robertson v. Cease, 97 U.S. 646, 648-649 (1878); Brown v. Keene, 8 Pet. 112, 115 (1834). The problem in this case is that Bettison, although a United States citizen, has no domicile in any State. He is therefore "stateless" for purposes of § 1332(a)(3). Subsection 1332(a)(2), which confers jurisdiction in the District Court when a citizen of a State sues aliens only, also could not be satisfied because Bettison is a United States citizen. [490 U.S. 829]
When a plaintiff sues more than one defendant in a diversity action, the plaintiff must meet the requirements of the diversity statute for each defendant or face dismissal. Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806).{1} Here, Bettison's "stateless" status destroyed complete diversity under § 1332(a)(3), and his United States citizenship destroyed complete diversity under § 1332(a)(2). Instead of dismissing the case, however, the Court of Appeals panel granted Newman-Green's motion, which it had invited, to amend the complaint to drop Bettison as a party, thereby producing complete diversity under § 1332(a)(2). 832 F.2d. 417 (1987). The panel, in an opinion by Judge Easterbrook, relied both on 28 U.S.C. § 1653 and on Rule 21 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as sources of its authority to grant this motion. The panel noted that, because the guarantors are jointly and severally liable, Bettison is not an indispensable party, and dismissing him would not prejudice the remaining guarantors. 832 F.2d. at 420, citing Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 19(b). The panel then proceeded to the merits of the case, ruling in Newman-Green's favor in large part, but remanding to allow the District Court to quantify damages and to resolve certain minor issues.{2}
[Newman-Green v. Alfonso Larrain, 490 U.S. 826 (1989)]
The U.S. Supreme Court above was trying to deceive the audience by not clarifying WHAT type of “citizen” Bettison was. They refer to CONSTITUTIONAL citizens and STATUTORY citizens with the same name, which indirectly causes the audience to believe that NATIONALITY and DOMICILE are synonymous. They do this to unlawfully and unconstitutionally expand their importance and jurisdiction. Bettison in fact was a CONSTITUTIONAL citizen but not a STATUTORY citizen, so the CIVIL case against him under the STATUTORY codes had to either be dismissed or he had to be removed because he couldn’t lawfully be a defendant! Imagine applying this same logic to a case involving the (illegal) enforcement of the Internal Revenue Code to Americans abroad.
The first thing we notice about the above is the use of the phrase “privileges of citizenship”. Both voting and serving on jury duty are and always have been PRIVILEGES that can be taken away, not RIGHTS that are inalienable. The fact that they are privileges is the reason why convicted felons can’t vote or serve on jury duty, in fact.[1] Those who refuse to be enfranchised or privileged in any way therefore cannot consent to or exericse the obligations or accept the “benefits” of such privileges, and they have a RIGHT to do so. To suggest otherwise is to sanction involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.
It is clearly an absurd and irrational usurpation to say that “nationality” is synonymous with being a PRIVILEGED STATUTORY “citizen” and that we can abandon or expatriate our nationality to evade or avoid the privileges. Under the English monarchy, “nationality” and “citizen” status are synonymous and EVERYONE is a “subject” whether they want to be or not. In America, they are not synonymous and you cannot be compelled to become a subject without violating the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment. Forcing people to abandon their nationality to become unenfranchised actually accomplishes the OPPOSITE and makes them MORE enfranchised, in fact. That is because by doing so they become YET ANOTHER type of enfranchised entity called an “alien” who is a slave to a whole different set of “privileges”.
“Residents, as distinguished from citizens, are aliens who are permitted to take up a permanent abode in the country. Being bound to the society by reason of their dwelling in it, they are subject to its laws so long as they remain there, and, being protected by it, they must defend it, although they do not enjoy all the rights of citizens. They have only certain privileges which the law, or custom, gives them. Permanent residents are those who have been given the right of perpetual residence. They are a sort of citizen of a less privileged character, and are subject to the society without enjoying all its advantages. Their children succeed to their status; for the right of perpetual residence given them by the State passes to their children.”
[The Law of Nations, Vattel, Book 1, Chapter 19, Section 213, p. 87]
There MUST be a status that carries with it NO PRIVILEGES or obligations and if there is NOT, then the entire country is just a big FARM for government animals akin to that described below:
How to Leave the Government Farm, Form #12.020
https://youtu.be/Mp1gJ3iF2IkIt would therefore seem based on 7 Foreign Affairs Manual (F.A.M.) 1100(b)(1) that those who refuse to register to vote or serve on jury duty would satisfy the requirement above of being a “non-citizen national”. Hence, withdrawing consent to be jurist or voter alone would seem to demote us from being a “citizen” to being a “non-citizen national”. However, there is no congressional act that grants this substandard status to anyone OTHER than those in federal possessions such as American Samoa or Swain’s Island. Hence, claiming the status of “non-citizen national” would have to be done delicately with care so as not to confuse yourself with those born in or domiciled in the federal possessions of American Samoa and Swain’s Island, who are described in 8 U.S.C. §1408 and 8 U.S.C. §1452.
STATUTORY “non-citizen nationals” are described in 8 U.S.C. §1408, 8 U.S.C. §1452, and 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(22)(B). However, these statutes only define civil statuses of those situated on federal territory. Those physically situated in a constitutional state would not be described in those statutes but would still appear to be eligible to be “non-citizen nationals” from a COMMON LAW or CONSTITUTIONAL, rather than a STATUTORY standpoint.
Finally, this Court is mindful of the years of past practice in which territorial citizenship has been treated as a statutory [PRIVILEGE!], and not a constitutional, right. In the unincorporated territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, birthright citizenship was conferred upon their inhabitants by various statutes many years after the United States acquired them. See Amicus Br. at 10-11. If the Citizenship Clause guaranteed birthright citizenship in unincorporated territories, these statutes would have been unnecessary. While longstanding practice is not sufficient to demonstrate constitutionality, such a practice requires special scrutiny before being set aside. See, e.g., Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U.S. 22, 31 (1922) (Holmes, J.) ("If a thing has been practiced for two hundred years by common consent, it will need a strong case for the Fourteenth Amendment to affect it[.]"); Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U.S. 664, 678 (1970) ("It is obviously correct that no one acquires a vested or protected right in violation of the Constitution by long use . . . . Yet an unbroken practice . . . is not something to be lightly cast aside."). And while Congress cannot take away the citizenship of individuals covered by the Citizenship Clause, it can bestow citizenship upon those not within the Constitution's breadth. See U.S. Const, art. IV, § 3, cl. 2 ("Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory belonging to the United States."); id. at art. I, § 8, cl. 4 (Congress may "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization . . .."). To date, Congress has not seen fit to bestow birthright citizenship upon American Samoa, and in accordance with the law, this Court must and will respect that choice.16
[Tuana v. USA, Case No. 12-01143 (District of Columbia District Court)]
Those among our readers who do NOT want to be “citizens”, do not want to abandon their nationality, and yet who also do not want to call themselves “non-citizen nationals” may therefore instead refer to themselves simply as “non-resident non-persons” under federal law. Below is our definition of that term from the SEDM Disclaimer:
SEDM DISCLAIMER
4. MEANINGS OF WORDS
The term "non-person" as used on this site we define to be a human not domiciled on federal territory, not engaged in a public office, and not "purposefully and consensually availing themself" of commerce within the jurisdiction of the United States government. We invented this term. The term does not appear in federal statutes because statutes cannot even define things or people who are not subject to them and therefore foreign and sovereign. The term "non-individual" used on this site is equivalent to and a synonym for "non-person" on this site, even though STATUTORY "individuals" are a SUBSET of "persons" within the Internal Revenue Code. Likewise, the term "private human" is also synonymous with "non-person". Hence, a "non-person":
[SEDM Disclaimer, Section 4; SOURCE: http://sedm.org/disclaimer.htm]
The noteworthy silence of the courts on the VERY important subject of this section is what we affectionately call the following:
“The hide the presumption and hide the consent game.”
Corrupt judges know that:
Like the Wizard of Oz, it’s time to pull back the curtain, ahem, or the “robe”, of these corrupt wizards on the federal bench and expose this FRAUD and confidence game for what it is. Let’s return to Kansas, Dorothy. There’s no place like home, and home is an accountable government that needs your explicit permission to do anything civil to you and which can be literally FIRED by all those who are mistreated.
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We will take these quotes from last week's discussion tied to EAST INDIAN concepts of nationalism dealing with church and state---freedom of religion-----not because we agree with all said but because it brings forward GORILLA-IN-THE-ROOM public policy for our 99% of US citizens and our 99% of new immigrant citizens black, white, and brown citizens.
We watched CNN this morning to get that dose of FAKE NEWS---we had to watch a 5% global banking player being a black citizens pretending OBAMA did not kill 99% of our US black citizens to advance his personal wealth working for global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS. Below we see the same from our EAST INDIAN 5% player selling the idea that EAST INDIA is enlightened -----not AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT I AM MAN enlightened -----but creating CORRUPTED PRETENSE of being left social progressive for 99% of citizens while installing these same FDR ROBBER BARON policies with structures built in knowingly allowing for ROBBER BARON LOOTING AND SACKING of our 99% wealth, rights, stability as happened in US during CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA.
We discussed in detail how early 1900s ROBBER BARON ROARING 20s created the same EXTREME WEALTH EXTREME POVERTY through same massive frauds and government corruptions as we are seeing today. FDR was always ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE for only the global 1%-----BUT he installed left social progressive policies that DID HELP BROADEN OUR REAL US FREE MARKET ECONOMICS opening the ability for all 99% of black, white, and brown citizens to accumulate wealth, have rights as citizens, to be educated to be leaders and citizens in public schools.
It was those dastardly 5% to the 1% freemason/Greeks black, white, and brown citizens who went to work immediately after WW 2 -----to kill that access and opportunity for their 99% to make themselves extremely wealthy. Global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS cannot repeat history killing our 99% WITHOUT those 5% players.
'States, religious diversity, and the crisis of secularism
Rajeev Bhargava 22 March 2011
Ronald Dworkin, “Liberalism,” Public and Private Morality, ed. Stuart Hampshire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978)'.
The first thing we saw in reading BHARGAVA'S article was his reference to global banking 1% academics for policy -----CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY-----DWORKIN indeed tied to ROBBER BARON FDR building those structures that ALLOW for ROBBER BARON looting and fleecing of all our 99% wealth. We only posted the beginning of a long article---but please GOGGLE and read because this is the difference between GLOBAL BANKING 1% ECONOMIC PROGRESSIVE LIBERALISM making those OLD WORLD KINGS richer----and our REAL US left social progressive liberalism that creates equal opportunity and access for ALL 99% OF WE THE PEOPLE.
This is what we call PRETENSE because what is being said will help our 99% WE THE PEOPLE has installed policies knowingly setting this stage for SACKING AND LOOTING our 99% WE THE PEOPLE. This is NOT NECESSARY.
Ronald's Dworkin liberalism and its relationshop to his Jurisprudence
Introduction
Ronald Dworkin is a liberal thinker following in the tradition of the great liberal thinkers such as Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu and Mill. For him "the nerve of liberalism" is a certain conception of equality.[1]
In this essay it is proposed to examine aspects of Dworkin's notion of equality in the context of its application to resources, the political structure and jurisprudence. The examination will be necessarily limited. But it will attempt to grasp the essential ingredients of his theory of equality and subject it to analysis within the framework mentioned. One of the matters that will be particularly scrutinised is the contribution equality makes to each of the areas of application under review.
The essay will be constructed in four parts and a conclusion. Part A will deal with Dworkin's theory of liberalism. It is necessary to start here because his ideas about equality in respect of resources, the political structure and jurisprudence find their root in his liberal philosophy. Part B will deal with his theory of resources. No serious attempt will be made to deal with why he rejects a theory of welfare, as space does not permit and in any case it seems outside the direct scope of this essay. Part C will deal with equality in the political structure giving particular attention to Dworkin's explanation of the value behind rights. Part D will deal with Dworkin's jurisprudence. It will focus on the value of the concept equal and respect within the judicial system. The conclusion will attempt to bring cohesion to the matters dealt with.
PART A
DWORKIN'S LIBERALISM
Dworkin's conception of liberalism is encompassed in two principles
"and makes it vulnerable to the charge that liberalism is a negative theory for uncommitted people. Moreover it offers no effective argument against utilitarianism and other contemporary justifications for economic inequality"[10]
Dworkin sees liberalism as a theory of commitment. He distinguishes liberalism based on neutrality (the type of liberalism he ascribes to John Rawls, A Theory of Justice) from his liberalism based on equality. This liberalism of equality has a positive commitment to an egalitarian morality which rejects the economics of privilege[11] . Fundamental to this liberalism based on equality is a requirement for a government to treat its citizens as equals. A government in a society of liberalism based on equality will remain neutral only to the extent and to the degree that equality demands[12].
Dworkin in his Tanner Lecture draws the boundary between his theory of liberalism and that of Rawls. In Rawls' theory [13] the State stays neutral to the seeking of the good by citizens. There is a separation between personal conviction and the political life. The world of political life is a meld of the overlapping consensus of personal convictions. Dworkin categorises the separation between personal conviction and political life as "discontinuance"[15]. Dworkin wishes to bring personal conviction and political life together: to bring a morality to political life. He espouses a "continuity" theory which he sees as appealing to committed liberals because it integrates moral principle for those who want their convictions to match political life. We can see here the beginning of Dworkin's attempt to evolve an integrated political theory. An attempt to bring individual morality to the political arena and consequently into all facets of public life. It is also an attempt to synthesise the individual with the community. The individual notions of liberty with community notions of equality: he sees invasions of liberty as being just as much invasions of equality . Invasions of liberty are unjustified where there might be criminal sanctions against the private and personal activities of persons (eg criminal sanctions against homosexuality). They can only be justified as necessary for the security of persons, the protection of property or as a necessary function to produce an egalitarian distribution of resources. So in fact he connects politics and resources to rights, equality to liberty, in this attempt at integration.
In any liberal society (or any society) there are two major structures, the economic structure and the political structure. In respect of the economic structure, Dworkin says a liberal founding a new state would propound the following principles of "rough equality"
"resources and opportunities should be distributed so far as possible, equally, so that roughly the same share of whatever is available is devoted to satisfying the ambitions of each"[16]
These matters are satisfied through collective decision making and the market. Dworkin recognises the market economy has problems for equality. The market might present the most egalitarian place for the distribution of resources on the basis that people differ only in preferences. However, the problem is that people in the real world do not come to the market on an equal footing. They enter life with different talents, burdened by physical disabilities, subject to differing social economic and emotional backgrounds and so are disadvantaged in the market place. Accordingly, in a liberal society some modification of the market will be necessary in order to ensure a proper equality. This brings us to Dworkin's theory of resources.
'Take first the idealized French conception. In this conception, the state must be separated from religion but the state retains the power to interfere in religion. However, religion is divested of any power to intervene in matters of state. In short, separation means one-sided exclusion'.
'The idealized American self-understanding interprets separation to mean mutual exclusion. Neither the state nor religion is meant to interfere in the domain of the other. This mutual exclusion is believed necessary to resolve conflicts between different Christian denominations, to grant some measure of equality between them, but most crucially to provide individuals with the freedom to set up and maintain their own religious associations'.
_____________________________________________
We do not want to go into detail all of what we discussed during FDR NEW DEAL public policy that was good and bad---we want to remind our 99% of WE THE PEOPLE that those same global banking 5% players black, white, and brown citizens working back in early 1900s ROBBER BARON period are MOVING FORWARD CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA these same global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS policies pretending they help our US 99% with freedom, liberty, justice, pursuit of happiness, equal opportunity and access while those structures assure we will have NONE OF THE ABOVE.
We spent last week discussing in detail how each world religion starting from GOD'S will of social justice was captured by the same global 1% KINGS AND QUEENS behind continuous wars, empire-building greed and immorality------and we shout that those we are told are the BRAHMINS----THOSE TEACHERS AND SCHOLARS ---are simply global banking 1% working for them pretending to be working for a just society.
Can a DWORKIN in policy writing help if decades later OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS kill all of what he states is JUST SOCIETAL LAW? Well, he knew back in FDR days that a US FED global banking was installed----he knew FDR policies tied to US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES were installed moving the emphasis from our strong US DOMESTIC ECONOMY to global markets only those FDR -era ROBBER BARONS could access.
As we state again and again with SOCIALIST/COMMUNIST policies tied to MARXISM-----the goals are to create lots of collective wealth appearing to help our 99% of citizens black, white, and brown citizens always having the goals of sending in those HITLERS----STALINS-----MAOS------FRANCOS----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA'S to claim all that collective wealth. Today, that is our SOCIAL SECURITY TRUSTS, MEDICARE TRUSTS, PUBLIC PRIVATE PENSIONS AND 401K'S, OUR PROPERTIES.
DWORKIN INSTALLED A MARXIST VERSION OF SOCIALISM AND NOT A REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE CAPITALIST SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERALISM TIED TO AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, I AM MAN LOCKEAN STRUCTURE.
PART ADWORKIN'S LIBERALISM
Dworkin's conception of liberalism is encompassed in two principles
When we read that EAST INDIAN article pretending THEY have the best societal structure for religious, and secular freedoms and liberties tied to DWORKIN we KNOW that EAST Indian academic is the same 5% to the 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS PLAYER.
DWORKIN/FDR et al those global banking 1% players use these pretenses to capture population groups---as we describe those 5% freemason/Greek players black, white, and brown----5% fake religious leaders JEWISH, PROTESTANT, CATHOLIC, MUSLIM, HINDI. When we allow global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS players to write our LAWS as our 99% did over last century----we get today's MOVING FORWARD killing US sovereignty being taken to colonial status. Global banking 1% SLATE calling it an ERROR.
Ronald Dworkin’s Error
The distinguished legal scholar, who died last week, gave judges too much license to draw on their own sense of morality.
By Eric Posner
Ronald Dworkin in 2008
Courtesy of David Shankbone/Wikimedia Commons
The distinguished legal scholar Ronald Dworkin, author of Law’s Empire, among many other books, and a frequent commentator for the New York Review of Books, died last week. An ingenious scholar, he made many important contributions to legal philosophy. Yet his most influential idea has produced a more questionable legacy. This is the idea that when judges decide constitutional cases, they should draw on moral principles as well as the legal materials at hand, like statutes and judicial precedents. This idea, abused by liberal and conservative judges alike, has harmed our democracy.
When judges are called upon to resolve disputes, they frequently face a pile of ambiguous texts. The Constitution, for example, overflows with vague, undefined phrases—“due process of law,” “equal protection,” “cruel and unusual punishment.” Statutes and earlier decided cases are often no better.
To resolve these ambiguities, judges may look for clues about the writers’ meanings, or follow canons of interpretation, like the rule that more specific legal commands prevail over more general commands. But it is tempting for judges also to rely on their moral beliefs, or ideological predispositions. If the Constitution bans “cruel and unusual punishment,” a judge who rejects the death penalty on moral grounds may want to conclude that the death penalty is cruel and unusual, and hence constitutionally barred. If the Constitution creates a “right to bear arms,” a judge who believes strongly in the right to self-defense may conclude that this right restricts gun control.
Dworkin did not believe that judges should simply impose their moral views on the law. He developed a sophisticated theory that holds that the judge’s duty is to take existing legal materials—the relevant constitutional text, precedents from previous court cases, and so forth—and provide the best account of how they fit together. In doing so, the judge must not only parse the legal texts; he or she must also engage in moral reasoning, so that the interpretation finally chosen not only reconciles those texts but reconciles them in the best way possible, that is, so as to advance a morally correct vision of society.
This account provides an accurate and defensible description of how judges develop the common law (the body of law made by judges, via court rulings, that governs much private conduct like contracting) and interpret statutes. Although judges deny that they “make law,” Dworkin rightly pointed out that when confronted with legal texts like statutes, judges must draw on general background norms to interpret them, and these norms frequently reflect common moral and political suppositions. Where there is a moral consensus, the use of these norms is almost invisible. And when judges disagree, or make mistakes, legislatures can easily correct their decisions by passing new statutes.
But Dworkin was most famous for applying this idea to disputes over the meaning of the U.S. Constitution. And here he made a wrong move. Constitutional law differs from statutes and the common law in two relevant ways. First, the process to amend the Constitution is extremely cumbersome, so that if the Supreme Court declares that pornography or campaign spending is protected by the right to free speech, it is virtually impossible for the public to undo this ruling by electing legislators who oppose pornography or support campaign finance reform. Second, the Constitution and most of its significant amendments were produced a century or two ago, when the country was radically different. As a result, they provide only limited guidance today and hence maximum space for judges to “interpret.”
Moreover, Supreme Court justices face no negative consequences if they interpret the Constitution so as to advance their ideological commitments. (By contrast, state judges typically serve short terms and can be replaced by appointment or election.) Encouraged by fawning lawyers, journalists, and law professors, Supreme Court justices frequently come to think of themselves as uniquely qualified to divine public morality—which almost always somehow coincides with their own. Because our system gives judges so much power, Supreme Court justices are able to impose their ideological commitments over an enormous range of public policy issues—health care and gun control, criminal punishment and sexual freedom, religious liberty and public schooling.
In his obituary of Dworkin, New York Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak noted that Justice Anthony Kennedy is the most Dworkinian of the current crop of justices, the most likely to justify his decision using moralistic language. Kennedy is also the least respected of the bunch. His efforts to provide the moral basis for his votes typically descend into gobbledygook. “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life,” he warbles in one forgettable opinion on abortion rights. It is in the nature of issues like abortion that reasonable people have differing moral attitudes; democracy exists to enable them to resolve their disagreements in a fair and peaceful way. When judges decide these issues based on their moral beliefs, they deprive people of their right to determine policy through the vote. Judges ought to be more respectful of public attitudes; Dworkin’s method encourages them not to be.
Dworkin, like many liberals, rightly worried that majorities will exploit minorities if judges do not step in. If it were not for the Supreme Court, he once wrote, black children would still attend segregated schools in the South. This was probably inaccurate given the legislative changes that took place in the 1960s. Jim Crow was defeated by political organization that changed public attitudes and ultimately led to federal civil rights statutes, not judicial noblesse oblige. But if we give the Supreme Court credit for its role in the civil rights revolution, we also must remember that a century earlier the Supreme Court had declared that blacks were not citizens in Dred Scott, helping to precipitate the Civil War, and in the 1930s the court absurdly attempted to prevent the federal government from addressing the Great Depression by experimenting with economic regulation. The current conservative majority “fits” constitutional text and judicial precedent to the justices’ ideological distrust of government intervention in the market. That is why the Supreme Court has been able even today to strike down many economic regulations, like regulations designed to prevent firms from confusing consumers and rules that allow buyers of defective goods to win large punitive damages.
Dworkin was horrified by the rulings of the conservative justices, but, while he obviously did not cause them in any direct way, his theory of judging gave philosophical respectability to what psychologists call motivated reasoning. It is tempting for all of us to interpret the world so as to confirm our moral views. Judges given license by Dworkin to interpret the Constitution persuade themselves that their moral beliefs are embodied in that document, and thus disregard the policy choices made by the public’s elected representatives.
In a typical ivory tower conceit, Dworkin responds by arguing that it is essential that nominees to the Supreme Court discuss their “judicial philosophies” with the Senate. The idea is to ensure that Supreme Court review has a democratic pedigree. But no one with any hope of confirmation would ever do such a thing. Because constitutional law is so politicized, nominees must hide their views from the public. Confirmation hearings take place entirely in code. President Bush says that judicial nominees should exercise “strict constructionism,” while President Obama says that they should use “empathy.” Chief Justice John Roberts claimed at his nomination to be an umpire calling balls and strikes, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that she would merely “apply the law”—while everyone knows that what is really at stake is whether Roe v. Wade will be overturned or campaign finance reform will be permitted.
The upshot is that rather than resolve gun control, abortion, and campaign finance by voting for politicians who hold our opinions, we vote for politicians who we hope will pick judicial nominees who hold our views, while the potential justices do everything they can to mask their positions.
This is not a good way to run a country. It would be better if judges tried to avoid making constitutional decisions and instead deferred to the national and state governments as much as possible. A few scholars, notably Jeremy Waldron of New York University and Adrian Vermeule of Harvard, have argued for this kind of judicial passivity. Waldron emphasizes the real harm that occurs when judicial review effectively blocks the public from exercising its right to political participation, while Vermeule argues that judges cannot be expected to possess either the moral wisdom or the knowledge of the empirical world that is necessary to bear the interpretive burden that Dworkin assigns to them.
Dworkin liked to imagine that judges should act like Hercules, drawing on superhuman wisdom and patience to bring order to the Augean stables of our law. His critics see the judge as bureaucrat and humble servant of people. Is it any wonder that someone like Anthony Kennedy would find the Dworkinian view more appealing?
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'And yet, when Dworkin – a Rhode Island-born graduate of Harvard and Oxford, one-time New York clerk to the marvellously named Judge Learned Hand – started teaching at US law schools in the 1950s, he found lots of people who would say such things. "It was voguish to say that there's no right answer to legal questions'.
LIVING WELL-----has two meanings ------
After CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA called those 5% to the 1% freemason/Greeks in to loot and sack our US treasury and end our US sovereignty and rights-----DWORKIN got it wrong said SLATE----what SLATE means is that instead of creating a structure from AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT capitalism he and FDR should have gone right to far-right, authoritarian, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXISM----as did Europe, Asia, Arabia, and Latin America. DWORKIN AND FDR did this not because they were ALTRUISTIC----they did this because US back in early 1900s still had lots of domestic growth left needing to be harvested ergo, they remained with CAPITALISM.
Today, a century later with MOVING FORWARD having fleeced all those hundreds of trillions of dollars in public assets from our Federal, state, and local government coffers and our 99% people's pockets------SLATE SAYS DWORKIN MADE AN ERROR----that error was remaining capitalist -----that is why MOVING FORWARD has a goal of taking us far-right LIBERTARIAN MARXIST. All while selling the same SMOKE AND MIRRORS that these policies are all about GOD'S commandments to build JUST SOCIETIES.
A graduate of Harvard/Oxford will always be working for global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS killing our 99% WE THE PEOPLE.
Ronald Dworkin: 'We have a responsibility to live well'
One of the greatest legal and moral philosophers of the postwar era, Ronald Dworkin argues in his new book, Justice for Hedgehogs, that there are absolute moral values – and that they are built on dignity and self-respect
Stuart Jeffries
Thu 31 Mar 2011 16.00 EDT First published on Thu 31 Mar 2011 16.00 EDT
Ronald Dworkin. Photograph: Graham Turner
Ronald Dworkin is wondering about what his friend Alfred Brendel does when he plays the piano. "Why does he play that way? When he plays a great sonata, for example, he must think his interpretation is better than other interpretations or he wouldn't play it that way, mustn't he?"
We're having coffee in the vast, coolly modern sitting room of his four-storey Belgravia house. Dworkin, who is not only Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University but also Jeremy Bentham Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London, and one of the greatest legal scholars of the postwar era, has other houses – in New York and Martha's Vineyard – but this is the grandest. He reclines, suave and donnish, in his grey armchair.
Dworkin smiles, then presses on asking and answering questions, leaving me incidental. "Why does he think what he's playing is better than other interpretations? He must think it's better and the question is why. It's not because what he plays is more beautiful than what he might otherwise play. Because if he was aiming at beauty, he could depart from what the composer had written. But he is faithful to the composition. And yet, he's not just playing the composer's music, he's interpreting it."
I mumble something fatuous about how I like the way Brendel plays Schubert's late piano sonatas. Only later do I realise I should have quoted what Dworkin writes about TS Eliot in his new book, Justice for Hedgehogs. Eliot said that poets cannot write poetry except as part of a tradition that they interpret and thereby retrospectively shape. And then I should have added that this is true of all interpreters – poets, painters, perhaps even professors with two intimidating-sounding jobs. But I didn't.
Instead, I'm overcome by unworthy thoughts. Why is Dworkin talking about Brendel? After all, one article I read in preparing for this interview concerned Dworkin and Brendel: "These towering intellects are entwined in a poignant and touching emotional foursome. Mr Brendel's wife of 31 years, Irene, is stepping out with Professor Dworkin. Not to be outdone, Moravian-born Brendel, 75, has found comfort and solace with a fortysomething Italian lady called Maria." The Daily Mail's headline? "Odd quartet for Brendel". Let's put aside Daily Mail moralising: if Dworkin can remain friends with Brendel while describing Irene as his "close and longtime companion", then good for him and everybody else involved.
We're two hours into a conversation that has ranged over US taxation policy, gay marriages and abortion. To listen to Dworkin is to feel like a drowning man who occasionally glimpses through the mist a stately ship, realising that you'll never get close enough to clamber aboard. I felt similarly reading Justice for Hedgehogs, the 79-year-old professor of philosophy's grand, perhaps culminating, statement of what truth is, what life means, what morality requires and justice demands.
The question of how Brendel plays the piano is hardly beside the point. Dworkin's book insists that historians, artists, lawyers, critics and philosophers are all engaged in interpretation. Every time you make a moral or political judgment about, say, gay marriages, you're making an interpretation.
But here's the twist that makes his book controversial. Dworkin insists many interpretations are true or false. Yes, it would be daft to say that when Alfred Brendel plays the andantino from Schubert's Sonata in A, he has found the one and only true interpretation; right to say that he aims at interpreting it better than anyone else. But the judge who interprets a past law not only aims at interpreting it correctly, but their judgment is either true or false. Thus, at least, argues Dworkin.
Why does any of this matter? "Well, for example, if I say abortion is wrong, I believe what I say is true, not that it's one legitimate opinion among many. I hate it when people say: 'It's OK for gay people to get married but that's only my opinion.' You can't think it's just your opinion or you wouldn't hold it. Imagine a judge who's just sentenced a man to jail for life saying: 'Other judges might have found differently and they're entitled to their opinions.' Who could reasonably say such a thing?"
And yet, when Dworkin – a Rhode Island-born graduate of Harvard and Oxford, one-time New York clerk to the marvellously named Judge Learned Hand – started teaching at US law schools in the 1950s, he found lots of people who would say such things. "It was voguish to say that there's no right answer to legal questions. But if you say there's no right answer in interpreting a law and you're talking about justice, you're not really getting involved in the issues that matter. Most intellectuals thought effectively that moral or legal judgments were just emotional expressions with no basis in cognition. Freddie Ayer argued that moral judgments are just grunts of approval or disapproval."
Two things made the Grunt Thesis plausible. God and science. God, argues Dworkin, gave us moral laws whose truth was guaranteed by Him. But the rise of science led, Dworkin argues, to scepticism about God's existence and thus a doubt that He could make our values true or false. The methods of science too undermined convictions that there are objective values. "The idea is that we are not entitled to think our moral convictions true unless they are required by pure reason or produced by something in the world." In the book, Dworkin calls this "the Gibraltar of all mental blocks". We must, he argues, get over it. And yet this Gibraltar rules the waves of philosophy: a recent issue of Philosophy Now was themed around the death of morality. If moral judgments can't be true, do we need them at all?
When I first studied philosophy 30 years ago, my undergraduate textbook made relativism and scepticism about morality seem natural. It was called Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong by JL Mackie and began: "There are no objective values." It suggested that the fact that values conflict (I support gay marriages, while you – you monster – think they're a disgrace) indicates they can't be true.
Dworkin, who used to argue these points at University College, Oxford, with Mackie in the late 70s, says: "My reply to John then and now is that his scepticism is self-defeating. When Mackie says: 'All moral propositions are false', that's a moral proposition, which is false if his proposition 'All moral propositions are false' is true, which it isn't." A-ha, a version of the Cretan liar paradox that Doctor Who used to make a clever robot short-circuit and explode. Sadly, Mackie died in 1981 so isn't around to retort.
But if objective moral values aren't in the world, where are they hiding? In the book, Dworkin finally tells us when we are justified in thinking any value judgment true, namely: "When we are justified in thinking that our arguments for holding it true are adequate arguments." Isn't that circular? Yes, but Dworkin argues it's good circular, not bad circular.
Super. But why, you'll be wondering, is the book called Justice for Hedgehogs? The title refers to a distinction political philosopher Isaiah Berlin made between hedgehogs and foxes, based on an ancient Greek parable. The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one great thing. Dworkin is a hedgehog. "The hedgehog is an anti-pluralist image. Pluralism was Isaiah Berlin's extremely popular thought that there are truths but they conflict. I think it's wrong. Truths don't conflict in the domain of value any more than in science."
This isn't the first time Dworkin has written about cute wildlife. He once wrote a paper called Some Pink Zebras, asking whether something we can imagine but that does not exist can be as real as something that does exist. Justice for Hedgehogs has similar how-many-angels-can-dance on-a-pinheadpassages, but it's grander in vision.
He builds up a comprehensive system of value – embracing democracy, justice, political obligation, morality, liberty, equality – from his notions of dignity and self-respect. Again, Dworkin isn't part of the zeitgeist. "Almost all moral philosophy nowadays is steeped in self-abnegation. Mine starts from self-assertion, which was popular with the Greeks like Aristotle and Plato but not now. Now morality is perceived as being about self-sacrifice. I try to show how that's wrong."
Why is self-assertion important? "We have a responsibility to live well. Our challenge is to act as if we respect ourselves. Enjoying ourselves is not enough." But doesn't self-assertion clash with our moral duties to others? "No. The first challenge is to live well – that is ethics – and then to see how that connects with what we owe other people – which is morality. The connection is twofold. One is respect for the importance of other people's lives. And the other is equal concern for their lives."
Imagine you're in a lifeboat and you have to decide which of two children is to go overboard to their deaths. If you're a utilitarian – who believes what's important morally is maximising the happiness of the greatest number – you wouldn't mind if it was your child or another's who dies. Dworkin's system holds that you're justified in saving your child. Why? "Because it's my child! Because they're part of what it means for my life to be lived well. They're part of my life, for which I take responsibility." His twin children Anthony and Jennifer, let's hope, have always found this part of their dad's philosophy reassuring.
"Such favouritism can't work at a political level: you can't give someone tax breaks because he's your son. But at the moral level it does: you can save someone because they're your child, while at the same time respecting other people's lives. Each person must take his own life seriously: he must accept that it is a matter of importance that his life be a successful performance rather than a wasted opportunity. I'm talking about dignity. It's a term overused by politicians, but any moral theory worth its salt needs to proceed from it."
This focus on dignity gives his ethical views a special flavour. In earlier books he's argued that a child born with terrible disabilities, or someone condemned to a persistent vegetative state may be better terminated: a life without dignity is not worth living. Here he writes about abortion with the notion of dignity in mind. He believes that "in many circumstances abortion is an act of self-contempt": "A woman betrays her own dignity when she aborts for frivolous reasons: to avoid rescheduling a holiday, for instance. I would reach a different ethical judgment in other cases: when a teenage girl's prospects for a decent life would be ruined if she became a single mother, for example. But whether the judgment is right or wrong in any particular case, it remains an ethical, not a moral, judgment. It must be left to women, as their dignity demands each to take responsibility for her own ethical convictions." What about the foetus? "Because an early foetus has no interests of its own, any more than a flower does, a foetus cannot be supposed to have rights protecting its interests."
This perspective leads him, too, to argue that taxation in many countries today is unjust, not because it takes too much but too little. "In the US now, many states are running out of money to do the things that they do. They have to run police forces, fire departments and most of all they have to save people from undignified death." That concern with the dignity we owe others was borrowed by Dworkin from Immanuel Kant: the idea is you cannot respect yourself unless you treat other people objectively well. "That does not happen in the US."
The argument – surely especially unpopular in this age of austerity – that taxes should be raised is aimed squarely at middle-class Americans. "In my country, we used to have a triangle, with the poor at the bottom. Now we have a diamond – the middle classes are most numerous, there's contempt for those at the bottom expressed in unwillingness to countenance tax rises that undermines everyone's dignity."
At the end of the book Dworkin writes: "Without dignity our lives are only blinks of duration. But if we manage to lead a good life well, we create something more. We write a subscript to our mortality. We make our lives tiny diamonds in the cosmic sands."
Has Dworkin made himself a tiny diamond in the cosmic sands? His glittering intellectual career. His 42-year marriage to the beautiful daughter of a rich New Yorker, Betsy Ross, who died in 2000. His romantic consolations late in life. His mental acuity and appetite for argument, as I know to my cost, remain still frighteningly immense.
What he says by way of answer makes me feel I need to up my game. "I've tried to be responsible for my decisions and to make an authentic life. When I was a Wall Street lawyer, I realised I didn't want that life. So I went and did what I found most fulfilling, thinking about, arguing for the things that are hard, important and rewarding. I've tried to do it well. I can't say if I've succeeded."
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Here is again our EAST INDIAN academic writing that INDIA has the best societal structures addressing GOD'S WILL of societal justice we showed he has tied FDR/DWORKIN to his stance-----he being tied to those same OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS IVY LEAGUE universities. Remember, today's ROOSEVELT INSTITUTE pretends to be left social progressive FDR ----when in fact it is far-right, authoritarian, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXIST ----which is MOVING FORWARD to East Indian 3000BC HINDI CASTE SYSTEM.
BHARGAVA is simply that FDR----that DWORKIN all tied to global bankng 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS. His policy stances will NOT be good for our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, or brown---or any of our world religious 99%.
Rajeev Bhargava
This individual is not a direct affiliate of the Berkley Center. S/he has contributed to one or more of our events, publications, or projects. Please contact the individual at her/his home institution.
Rajeev Bhargava is senior fellow and director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, where he has worked since 2005. Previously he served for many years as professor of political theory and Indian political thought and head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Delhi. He is the author of What is Political Theory and Why Do We Need It? (2010), The Promise of India’s Secular Democracy (2010), and Individualism in Social Science (1992). He has edited or co-edited Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution (2008), Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship: Dialogues and Perceptions (2005), Transforming India (2000), and Multiculturalism, Liberalism and Democracy (1999). Bhargava holds a B.A. from the University of Delhi and M.Phil. and D.Phil. from Oxford University.
So, today our US politics is filled with candidates MOVING FORWARD on the right LIBERTARIAN on the left MARXISM-----with this goal of ending our US national sovereignty ---and rebuilding ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE for only the global 1%. Those 5% to the 1% players trying to sound like FDR-ERA real left social progressive liberals while MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE 3000BC DARK AGES.
BHARGAVA'S job is to make very, very, very far-right wing captured BUDDHIST/HINDI sound real FDR social progressive. We will have all kinds of global banking media and 5% ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT FAKE left groups pretending MOVING FORWARD is good while being very, very, very bad for all our 99% WE THE PEOPLE.
'For instance, that liberalism dictates that freedom of individuals must override the demands of community, an article of faith for communitarians. Also, that liberals and communitarians can never intersect so that any apparent convergence is proof that one or the other ideologies has been grossly misinterpreted'
It makes no difference that FDR was pretending to be Christian----that DWORKIN was pretending to be JEWISH----that BHARGAVA pretends to be HINDI---------since the goal of MOVING FORWARD is far-right wing LIBERTARIAN MARXISM that is what global banking 5% will sell as being JUST AND HELPFUL to our US 99% of WE THE PEOPLE
The trouble with liberalism and other isms
Rajeev Bhargava
April 01, 2018 00:15 IST
Updated: March 31, 2018 22:46 IST
Ethical people should not have to always ask if they are living up to a core value identified with an ‘ism’Recently, an interesting debate ensued amongst eminent public intellectuals, sparked off by Harsh Mander’s lament at the increasing invisiblisation of Indian Muslims in our public sphere. Since one indication of this disturbing trend, cited by Mander, was the advice from a politician that before entering the political arena, Muslims might as well jettison their skull caps and burqas, the contentious discussion centred on what a correct and consistent liberal position on this issue entailed. Ramachandra Guha claimed that this counsel was “forward-looking” because burqas in particular were “antediluvian”, inviting unambiguous liberal opposition.
Mukul Kesavan and Apoorvanand claimed its oppressive symbolism should have no bearing on citizenship rights, that our political participation cannot depend on sartorial habits dictated by religious affiliation. Besides, a liberal offensive against religious orthodoxy must not rely on callous stereotypes about one another.
A little bit of both?
I do not wish to engage in this debate, though I must confess that on this issue my sympathies are more with Mander and Kesavan than with Guha. I am interested instead in foregrounding a potential problem plaguing such debates, particularly the assumption that all ideologies including liberalism are tightly bound, self-contained systems containing principles or values wholly distinct from and in permanent rivalry with other ideological systems, say, communitarianism, socialism or conservatism. For instance, that liberalism dictates that freedom of individuals must override the demands of community, an article of faith for communitarians. Also, that liberals and communitarians can never intersect so that any apparent convergence is proof that one or the other ideologies has been grossly misinterpreted. How can someone, without contradiction, be both liberal and communitarian?
In fact, liberalism has no timeless, fixed content, an unchanging core. The different doctrines/principles that fall under the rubric ‘liberalism’ share only a family resemblance. Each of them is as different from the other as are members of a large extended family. Some liberalisms are single value doctrines (monists); others try to combine different values (pluralists); some single value liberalisms insist on liberty as the core value, others equality. Multi-value liberalisms give due place to both, and some even to community (fraternity). Some are out and out value-individualists, others combine them with values of community; some think that the hallmark of liberalism is toleration, for others it is individual autonomy; some, idolising a free market, demand that the state keep its role to the minimum, others demand state intervention for social welfare and justice. If there are many liberalisms, there invariably exist many ways of being liberal, and therefore no one course of action dictated by liberalism exists. The question what is required by liberalism has no single answer. Likewise, the answer to the question, what is to be done, cannot be extracted from a simple query about what liberalism or any other ism requires.
Secondly, the family of doctrines that fall under ‘liberalism’ exist in a field where they interact with contending ideological families, which they shape and are shaped by. This is partly why they evolve and have a history. In some historical contexts, some forms of liberalisms are difficult to distinguish from conservatism, and in others from socialism. A doctrine that fell under ‘liberalism’ in the past can today, for many liberals, fall outside. Most of these perspectives develop at some time under conditions of hostile competition but at other times through conversation and dialogue. Consider liberalism and communitarianism, or community-oriented religious pluralism. They are engaged in a continuous and frequently converging debate. When they mutually criticise each other, they also learn from and refine each other.
A rhetorical, antipodal approach blinds us to such convergence. Only if one believes that liberalism is complete as it is, can one dismiss religious or non-religious communitarianism. But doing so is to commit the mistake of treating a living tradition of thought as a dead dogma. When one views them as rigid self-contained systems in mortal combat and search for total victory, one exaggerates differences between and disregards differences within communitarianism and liberalism.
Breaking boundaries
In short, many of these doctrines not only share a family resemblance but, to carry the metaphor further, sometimes marry each other, producing offsprings that sometimes resemble one parent and sometimes the other. Good thinkers, attempting to offer a solution to a problem, thinking self-reflectively through existing predicaments, do not bother to consult the fossilised handbook of a particular ideology to find out whether the proffered solution is dictated by it. Wise thinkers who contribute to a debate do not persistently cross-check to see if they are crossing an ideological frontier. They do not needlessly think through an ideological prism, and when they do, they allow dead ideology to do the thinking for them and become dogmatic gatekeepers of ideological fortresses.
It is bad practice to follow ideological diktats, to worry more about ideological consistency than about concrete issues at hand. Strangely, to do so is to fall into the trap of self-indulgent, expressivist politics (How am I expressed in politics?) rather than a politics of ethically sensitive engagement with complex situations involving others. Fruitful moral thinking is contextual and value-pragmatic. Moral integrity does not mean ideological consistency, nor being soft on one principle to accommodate another, a sign of moral opportunism. Real ethical lives dip into different ideological currents. Living ideological traditions are flexible, yielding the possibility of multiple morally legitimate practices. Ethical people should not have to always ask if they are living up to a core value identified with an ‘ism’. Doing so often leads to moral blunders or outright stupidity.
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This week's discussion returns to the importance for all 99% of US CITIZENS and our 99% new immigrant citizens to fight for our US SOVEREIGN governance tied to US CONSTITUTION, BILL OF RIGHTS, EQUAL PROTECTION AND OPPORTUNITY/ACCESS being attacked by MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD for only the global 1%. When we discuss the failure's of FDR NEW DEAL calling it pretense because of gorilla-in-the-room structures like US FED and US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE policies installed at same time as REAL left social progressive policies that were indeed GOOD for our US 99% black, white, and brown citizens---- we have that POWER to get rid of bad FDR structures like US FED---US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE policies while fighting to keep the BEST IN WORLD HISTORY government structures that gave our US citizens REAL freedom, liberty, justice, pursuit of happiness, equal protection under law, and opportunity and access to REAL free market domestic community economies.
When our US 99% are made to feel all is hopeless in winning back our POWER as citizens-----we need to WAKE UP and understand that these documents still exist---they still are enforce-----and we simply need to EDUCATE on public policy to know who is a global banking 5 % freemason/Greek player. EASY PEASY---
LET'S GET RID OF ALL GLOBAL BANKING 5% POLS AND PLAYERS AND RETURN TO REAL FDR LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL CAPITALISM WHICH REQUIRES WE KEEP OUR AMERICAN SOVEREIGN RIGHTS.
This is critical to all US 99% black, white, and brown citizens but it is especially critical for our 99% new immigrants whether white collar or factory to understand how our US politics was corrupted by global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS and how to FIX OUR US CITIES ----by ending that dastardly designation FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Bill of Rights and Later Amendments
Index to this page
Bill of Rights
Amendment 1 Freedoms, Petitions, Assembly
Amendment 2 Right to bear arms
Amendment 3 Quartering of soldiers
Amendment 4 Search and arrest
Amendment 5 Rights in criminal cases
Amendment 6 Right to a fair trial
Amendment 7 Rights in civil cases
Amendment 8 Bail, fines, punishment
Amendment 9 Rights retained by the People
Amendment 10 States' rights
Later Amendments
Amendment 11 Lawsuits against states
Amendment 12 Presidential elections
Amendment 13 Abolition of slavery
Amendment 14 Civil rights
Amendment 15 Black suffrage
Amendment 16 Income taxes
Amendment 17 Senatorial elections
Amendment 18 Prohibition of liquor
Amendment 19 Women's suffrage
Amendment 20 Terms of office
Amendment 21 Repeal of Prohibition
Amendment 22 Term Limits for the Presidency
Amendment 23 Washington, D.C., suffrage
Amendment 24 Abolition of poll taxes
Amendment 25 Presidential succession
Amendment 26 18-year-old suffrage
Amendment 27 Congressional pay raises
Original Ten Amendments: The Bill of Rights
Passed by Congress September 25, 1789.
Ratified December 15, 1791.
Amendment I
Freedoms, Petitions, Assembly
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.
Amendment II
Right to bear arms
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
Quartering of soldiers
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
Search and arrest
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
Rights in criminal cases
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; 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
Right to a fair trial
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, 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, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; 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
Rights in civil cases
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Bail, fines, punishment
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
Rights retained by the People
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
States' rights
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Later Amendments
Amendment 11
Lawsuits against states
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
February 7, 1795.
Amendment 12
Presidential elections
The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;--The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. [And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.]* The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
June 15, 1804.
Superseded by Section 3 of the Twentieth Amendment.
Amendment 13
Abolition of slavery
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce these article by appropriate legislation.
December 6, 1865.
Amendment 14
Civil rights
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
July 9, 1868.
Amendment 15
Black suffrage
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
February 3, 1870.
Amendment 16
Income taxes
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
February 3, 1913.
Amendment 17
Senatorial elections
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
April 8, 1913.
Amendment 18
Prohibition of liquor
Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article, the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
January 16, 1919. Repealed by the Twenty-First, December 5, 1933.
Amendment 19
Women's suffrage
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any States on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
August 18, 1920.
Amendment 20
Terms of office
Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.
Section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.
Section 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.
Section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.
January 23, 1933.
Amendment 21
Repeal of Prohibition
Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
Section 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.
Section 3. The article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
December 5, 1933.
Amendment 22
Term Limits for the Presidency
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
February 27, 1951.
Amendment 23
Washington, D.C., suffrage
Section 1. The District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:
A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a state, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
March 29, 1961.
Amendment 24
Abolition of poll taxes
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
January 23, 1964.
Amendment 25
Presidential succession
Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
February 10, 1967.
Amendment 26
18-year-old suffrage
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
June 30, 1971.
Amendment 27
Congressional pay raises
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
So, as white 99% of US citizens are we supposed to support a TRUMP because he is white ---or a CLINTON because he is white when both are MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE killing 99% of white citizens? OF COURSE NOT. Same for our 99% of black and brown citizens. Surely as white Christians we have to support a TRUMP or BUSH or CLINTON because they are Christian---NO, none of the above are CHRISTIAN ---they are pre-Christian CATO, NERO, SENECA-----killing our 99% of CHRISTIAN citizens over and over as history repeats itself----same for our 99% JEWISH, MUSLIM, HINDI, BUDDHIST citizens.
PLEASE COME TOGETHER AS A 99% BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN CITIZENS---AS A 99% PROTESTANT, CATHOLIC, MUSLIM, HINDI, JEWISH CITIZENS TO STOP GLOBAL 1% BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN FROM MOVING FORWARD KILLING OUR REAL US DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC BUILT FOR OUR 99% FREEDOM, LIBERTY, JUSTICE, PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER LAW, EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESS TO REAL FREE MARKET ECONOMIES.
Below we see a long article that discusses what we have discussed many time in sovereign rights in US and yes, it is tied to a right wing interpretation making a bias towards TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. Please glance through especially our new to US immigrant 99% of citizens black, white, and brown citizens.
This is why REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVES did not and will not vote for what we KNOW are global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS candidates whether sold as Democrats or Republicans---CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---NOW TRUMP. We want to remind our 99% of right wing Republican voters tied to wanting all these rights while supporting global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS using them to create civil unrest, civil injustice to all our 99% of WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown citizens and our new immigrant 99%.
STATUTORY "Citizens" v. STATUTORY "Nationals"
1. Introduction
Two words are used to describe citizenship: “citizen” and “national”. There is a world of difference between these two terms and it is extremely important to understand the distinctions before we proceed further. Below is a law dictionary definition of “citizen” that deliberately tries to confuse these two components of citizenship. We will use this definition as a starting point for our discussion of the differences between “citizens” and “nationals”:
citizen. One who, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, or of a particular state, is a member of the political community, owing allegiance and being entitled to the enjoyment of full civil rights. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. U.S. Const., 14th Amend. See Citizenship.
"Citizens" are members of a political community who, in their associated capacity, have established or submitted themselves to the dominion of a government for the promotion of their general welfare and the protection of their individual as well as collective rights. Herriott v. City of Seattle, 81 Wash.2d 48, 500 P.2d 101, 109.
The term may include or apply to children of alien parents from in United States, Von Schwerdtner v. Piper, D.C.Md., 23 F.2d 862, 863; U.S. v. Minoru Yasui, D.C.Or., 48 F.Supp. 40, 54; children of American citizens born outside United States, Haaland v. Attorney General of United States, D.C.Md., 42 F.Supp. 13, 22; Indians, United States v. Hester, C.C.A.Okl., 137 F.2d 145, 147; National Banks, Amierican Surety Co. v. Bank of California, C.C.A.Or., 133 F.2d 160, 162; nonresident who has qualified as administratrix of estate of deceased resident, Hunt v. Noll, C.C.A.Tenn., 112 F.2d 288, 289. However, neither the United States nor a state is a citizen for purposes of diversity jurisdiction. Jizemerjian v. Dept of Air Force, 457 F.Supp. 820. On the other hand, municipalities and other local governments are deemed to be citizens. Rieser v. District of Columbia, 563 F.2d 462. A corporation is not a citizen for purposes of privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. D.D.B. Realty Corp. v. Merrill, 232 F.Supp. 629, 637.
Under diversity statute [28 U.S.C. §1332], which mirrors U.S. Const, Article III's diversity clause, a person is a "citizen of a state" if he or she is a citizen of the United States and a domiciliary of a state of the United States. Gibbons v. Udaras na Gaeltachta, D.C.N.Y., 549 F.Supp. 1094, 1116. “
[Black’s Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, p. 244]
Based on the above definition, being a “citizen” therefore involves the following FOUR individual components, EACH of which require your individual consent in some form. Any attempt to remove the requirement for consent in the case of EACH SPECIFIC component makes the government doing so UNJUST as defined by the Declaration of Independence, and produces involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment:
Table 19: Mandatory components of being a "citizen"
#CharacteristicHow consented toWhat happens when you don’t consent
1Allegiance to the sovereign within the community, which in our country is the “state” and is legally defined as the PEOPLE occupying a fixed territory RATHER than the government or anyone serving them IN the government.Requesting to be naturalized and taking a naturalization oath.Allegiance acquired by birth is INVOLUNTARY.
2VOLUNTARY political association and membership in a political community.Registering to vote or serve on jury duty.If you don’t register to vote or serve on jury duty, you are NOT a “citizen”, even if ELIGIBLE to do either.
3Enjoyment of full CIVIL rights.Choosing a domicileYou can’t be a statutory “citizen” unless you voluntarily choose a domicile.
4Submission to CIVIL authority.Choosing a domicileYou can’t be a statutory “citizen” unless you voluntarily choose a domicile.From the above, we can see that simply calling oneself a “citizen” or not qualifying which SUBSET of each of the above we consent to is extremely hazardous to your freedom! Watch out! The main questions in our mind about the above chart is:
- Must we expressly consent to ALL of the above as indicated in the third column from the left above in order to truthfully be called a “citizen” as legally defined?
- Which components in the above table are MANDATORY in order to be called a “citizen”?
- What if we don’t consent to the “benefits” domicile protection franchise? Does that NOT make us a “citizen” under the civil statutory laws of that jurisdiction?
- What if we choose a domicile in the place, but refuse to register to vote and make ourselves ineligible to serve on jury duty. Does that make us NOT a “citizen”?
- If we AREN’T a “citizen” as defined above because we don’t consent to ALL of the components, then what would we be called on:
5.1 Government forms?
5.2 Under the statutes of the jurisdiction we are NOT a "citizen" of?
Under maxims of the common law, refusing to consent to ANY ONE OR MORE of the above four prerequisites of BEING a “citizen” makes us ineligible to be called a “citizen” under the laws of that jurisdiction.
Invito beneficium non datur.
No one is obliged to accept a benefit against his consent. Dig. 50, 17, 69. But if he does not dissent he will be considered as assenting. Vide Assent.
Quilibet potest renunciare juri pro se inducto.
Any one may renounce a law introduced for his own benefit. To this rule there are some exceptions. See 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 83.
[Bouvier’s Maxims of Law, 1856,
SOURCE: http://famguardian.org/Publications/BouvierMaximsOfLaw/BouviersMaxims.htm]
The Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual (F.A.M.) identifies TWO components of being a “citizen” with the following language. It acknowledges that one can be a “national of the United States” WITHOUT being a “citizen”, thus implying that those who are NOT “citizens” or who do not consent to ALL the obligations of being a “citizen” automatically become “non-citizen nationals of the United States”:
Department of State
Foreign Affairs Manual (F.A.M.), Volume 7, Section 1111
Downloaded 7/6/2014
b. National vs. Citizen: While most people and countries use the terms “citizenship” and “nationality” interchangeably, U.S. law differentiates between the two. Under current law all U.S. citizens are also U.S. nationals, but not all U.S. nationals are U.S. citizens. The term “national of the United States”, as defined by statute (INA 101 (a)(22) (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(22)) includes all citizens of the United States, and other persons who owe allegiance to the United States but who have not been granted the privilege of citizenship.
(1) Nationals of the United States who are not citizens owe allegiance to the United States and are entitled to the consular protection of the United States when abroad, and to U.S. documentation, such as U.S. passports with appropriate endorsements. They are not entitled to voting representation in Congress and, under most state laws, are not entitled to vote in Federal, state, or local elections except in their place of birth. (See 7 FAM 012; 7 FAM 1300 Appendix B Endorsement 09.)
(2) Historically, Congress, through statutes, granted U.S. non-citizen nationality to persons born or inhabiting territory acquired by the United States through conquest or treaty. At one time or other natives and certain other residents of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Philippines, Guam, and the Panama Canal Zone were U.S. non-citizen nationals. (See 7 FAM 1120.)
(3) Under current law, only persons born in American Samoa and Swains Island are U.S. non-citizen nationals (INA 101(a)(29) (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(29) and INA 308(1) (8 U.S.C. 1408)). (See 7 FAM 1125.)
[SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86755.pdf]
There are many good reasons for the above distinction between NATIONALITY (POLITICAL) status and CITIZEN (CIVIL) status, the most important of which is the ability of the courts to legally distinguish those born in the country but domiciled outside their jurisdiction from those who are domiciled in their jurisdiction. For instance, those domiciled abroad an outside the geographical “United States” are usually called “nationals of the United States” rather than “citizens of the United States”. An example of this phenomenon is described in the following U.S. Supreme Court case, in which an American born in the country is domiciled in Venezuela and therefore is referred to as a “stateless person” not subject to and immune from the civil laws of his country!
Petitioner Newman-Green, Inc., an Illinois corporation, brought this state law contract action in District Court against a Venezuelan corporation, four Venezuelan citizens, and William L. Bettison, a United States citizen domiciled in Caracas, Venezuela. Newman-Green's complaint alleged that the Venezuelan corporation had breached a licensing agreement, and that the individual defendants, joint and several guarantors of royalty payments due under the agreement, owed money to Newman-Green. Several years of discovery and pretrial motions followed. The District Court ultimately granted partial summary judgment for the guarantors and partial summary judgment for Newman-Green. 590 F.Supp. 1083 (ND Ill.1984). Only Newman-Green appealed.
At oral argument before a panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Easterbrook inquired as to the statutory basis for diversity jurisdiction, an issue which had not been previously raised either by counsel or by the District Court Judge. In its complaint, Newman-Green had invoked 28 U.S.C. §1332(a)(3), which confers jurisdiction in the District Court when a citizen of one State sues both aliens and citizens of a State (or States) different from the plaintiff's. In order to be a citizen of a State within the meaning of the diversity statute, a natural person must both be a citizen of the United States and be domiciled within the State. See Robertson v. Cease, 97 U.S. 646, 648-649 (1878); Brown v. Keene, 8 Pet. 112, 115 (1834). The problem in this case is that Bettison, although a United States citizen, has no domicile in any State. He is therefore "stateless" for purposes of § 1332(a)(3). Subsection 1332(a)(2), which confers jurisdiction in the District Court when a citizen of a State sues aliens only, also could not be satisfied because Bettison is a United States citizen. [490 U.S. 829]
When a plaintiff sues more than one defendant in a diversity action, the plaintiff must meet the requirements of the diversity statute for each defendant or face dismissal. Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806).{1} Here, Bettison's "stateless" status destroyed complete diversity under § 1332(a)(3), and his United States citizenship destroyed complete diversity under § 1332(a)(2). Instead of dismissing the case, however, the Court of Appeals panel granted Newman-Green's motion, which it had invited, to amend the complaint to drop Bettison as a party, thereby producing complete diversity under § 1332(a)(2). 832 F.2d. 417 (1987). The panel, in an opinion by Judge Easterbrook, relied both on 28 U.S.C. § 1653 and on Rule 21 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as sources of its authority to grant this motion. The panel noted that, because the guarantors are jointly and severally liable, Bettison is not an indispensable party, and dismissing him would not prejudice the remaining guarantors. 832 F.2d. at 420, citing Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 19(b). The panel then proceeded to the merits of the case, ruling in Newman-Green's favor in large part, but remanding to allow the District Court to quantify damages and to resolve certain minor issues.{2}
[Newman-Green v. Alfonso Larrain, 490 U.S. 826 (1989)]
The U.S. Supreme Court above was trying to deceive the audience by not clarifying WHAT type of “citizen” Bettison was. They refer to CONSTITUTIONAL citizens and STATUTORY citizens with the same name, which indirectly causes the audience to believe that NATIONALITY and DOMICILE are synonymous. They do this to unlawfully and unconstitutionally expand their importance and jurisdiction. Bettison in fact was a CONSTITUTIONAL citizen but not a STATUTORY citizen, so the CIVIL case against him under the STATUTORY codes had to either be dismissed or he had to be removed because he couldn’t lawfully be a defendant! Imagine applying this same logic to a case involving the (illegal) enforcement of the Internal Revenue Code to Americans abroad.
The first thing we notice about the above is the use of the phrase “privileges of citizenship”. Both voting and serving on jury duty are and always have been PRIVILEGES that can be taken away, not RIGHTS that are inalienable. The fact that they are privileges is the reason why convicted felons can’t vote or serve on jury duty, in fact.[1] Those who refuse to be enfranchised or privileged in any way therefore cannot consent to or exericse the obligations or accept the “benefits” of such privileges, and they have a RIGHT to do so. To suggest otherwise is to sanction involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.
It is clearly an absurd and irrational usurpation to say that “nationality” is synonymous with being a PRIVILEGED STATUTORY “citizen” and that we can abandon or expatriate our nationality to evade or avoid the privileges. Under the English monarchy, “nationality” and “citizen” status are synonymous and EVERYONE is a “subject” whether they want to be or not. In America, they are not synonymous and you cannot be compelled to become a subject without violating the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment. Forcing people to abandon their nationality to become unenfranchised actually accomplishes the OPPOSITE and makes them MORE enfranchised, in fact. That is because by doing so they become YET ANOTHER type of enfranchised entity called an “alien” who is a slave to a whole different set of “privileges”.
“Residents, as distinguished from citizens, are aliens who are permitted to take up a permanent abode in the country. Being bound to the society by reason of their dwelling in it, they are subject to its laws so long as they remain there, and, being protected by it, they must defend it, although they do not enjoy all the rights of citizens. They have only certain privileges which the law, or custom, gives them. Permanent residents are those who have been given the right of perpetual residence. They are a sort of citizen of a less privileged character, and are subject to the society without enjoying all its advantages. Their children succeed to their status; for the right of perpetual residence given them by the State passes to their children.”
[The Law of Nations, Vattel, Book 1, Chapter 19, Section 213, p. 87]
There MUST be a status that carries with it NO PRIVILEGES or obligations and if there is NOT, then the entire country is just a big FARM for government animals akin to that described below:
How to Leave the Government Farm, Form #12.020
https://youtu.be/Mp1gJ3iF2IkIt would therefore seem based on 7 Foreign Affairs Manual (F.A.M.) 1100(b)(1) that those who refuse to register to vote or serve on jury duty would satisfy the requirement above of being a “non-citizen national”. Hence, withdrawing consent to be jurist or voter alone would seem to demote us from being a “citizen” to being a “non-citizen national”. However, there is no congressional act that grants this substandard status to anyone OTHER than those in federal possessions such as American Samoa or Swain’s Island. Hence, claiming the status of “non-citizen national” would have to be done delicately with care so as not to confuse yourself with those born in or domiciled in the federal possessions of American Samoa and Swain’s Island, who are described in 8 U.S.C. §1408 and 8 U.S.C. §1452.
STATUTORY “non-citizen nationals” are described in 8 U.S.C. §1408, 8 U.S.C. §1452, and 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(22)(B). However, these statutes only define civil statuses of those situated on federal territory. Those physically situated in a constitutional state would not be described in those statutes but would still appear to be eligible to be “non-citizen nationals” from a COMMON LAW or CONSTITUTIONAL, rather than a STATUTORY standpoint.
Finally, this Court is mindful of the years of past practice in which territorial citizenship has been treated as a statutory [PRIVILEGE!], and not a constitutional, right. In the unincorporated territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, birthright citizenship was conferred upon their inhabitants by various statutes many years after the United States acquired them. See Amicus Br. at 10-11. If the Citizenship Clause guaranteed birthright citizenship in unincorporated territories, these statutes would have been unnecessary. While longstanding practice is not sufficient to demonstrate constitutionality, such a practice requires special scrutiny before being set aside. See, e.g., Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U.S. 22, 31 (1922) (Holmes, J.) ("If a thing has been practiced for two hundred years by common consent, it will need a strong case for the Fourteenth Amendment to affect it[.]"); Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U.S. 664, 678 (1970) ("It is obviously correct that no one acquires a vested or protected right in violation of the Constitution by long use . . . . Yet an unbroken practice . . . is not something to be lightly cast aside."). And while Congress cannot take away the citizenship of individuals covered by the Citizenship Clause, it can bestow citizenship upon those not within the Constitution's breadth. See U.S. Const, art. IV, § 3, cl. 2 ("Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory belonging to the United States."); id. at art. I, § 8, cl. 4 (Congress may "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization . . .."). To date, Congress has not seen fit to bestow birthright citizenship upon American Samoa, and in accordance with the law, this Court must and will respect that choice.16
[Tuana v. USA, Case No. 12-01143 (District of Columbia District Court)]
Those among our readers who do NOT want to be “citizens”, do not want to abandon their nationality, and yet who also do not want to call themselves “non-citizen nationals” may therefore instead refer to themselves simply as “non-resident non-persons” under federal law. Below is our definition of that term from the SEDM Disclaimer:
SEDM DISCLAIMER
4. MEANINGS OF WORDS
The term "non-person" as used on this site we define to be a human not domiciled on federal territory, not engaged in a public office, and not "purposefully and consensually availing themself" of commerce within the jurisdiction of the United States government. We invented this term. The term does not appear in federal statutes because statutes cannot even define things or people who are not subject to them and therefore foreign and sovereign. The term "non-individual" used on this site is equivalent to and a synonym for "non-person" on this site, even though STATUTORY "individuals" are a SUBSET of "persons" within the Internal Revenue Code. Likewise, the term "private human" is also synonymous with "non-person". Hence, a "non-person":
- Retains their sovereign immunity. They do not waive it under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. Chapter 97 or the longarm statutes of the state they occupy.
- Is protected by the United States Constitution and not federal statutory civil law.
- May not have federal statutory civil law cited against them. If they were, a violation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 17 and a constitutional tort would result if they were physcially present on land protected by the United States Constitution within the exterior limits of states of the Union.
- Is on an equal footing with the United States government in court. "Persons" would be on an UNEQUAL, INFERIOR, and subservient level if they were subject to federal territorial law.
[SEDM Disclaimer, Section 4; SOURCE: http://sedm.org/disclaimer.htm]
The noteworthy silence of the courts on the VERY important subject of this section is what we affectionately call the following:
“The hide the presumption and hide the consent game.”
Corrupt judges know that:
- All just powers of CIVIL government derive from the CONSENT of the governed per the Declaration of Independence.
- Any civil statutory power wielded by government against your consent is inherently UNJUST.
- The foundation of justice itself is the right to be left alone:PAULSEN, ETHICS (Thilly's translation), chap. 9.
“Justice, as a moral habit, is that tendency of the will and mode of conduct which refrains from disturbing the lives and interests of others, and, as far as possible, hinders such interference on the part of others. This virtue springs from the individual's respect for his fellows as ends in themselves and as his co equals. The different spheres of interests may be roughly classified as follows: body and life; the family, or the extended individual life; property, or the totality of the instruments of action; honor, or the ideal existence; and finally freedom, or the possibility of fashioning one's life as an end in itself. The law defends these different spheres, thus giving rise to a corresponding number of spheres of rights, each being protected by a prohibition. . . . To violate the rights, to interfere with the interests of others, is injustice. All injustice is ultimately directed against the life of the neighbor; it is an open avowal that the latter is not an end in itself, having the same value as the individual's own life. The general formula of the duty of justice may therefore be stated as follows: Do no wrong yourself, and permit no wrong to be done, so far as lies in your power; or, expressed positively: Respect and protect the right.” - [Readings on the History and System of the Common Law, Second Edition, Roscoe Pound, 1925, p. 2]
- The first duty of government is to protect your right to be left alone by THEM, and subsequently, by everyone else. This right is NOT a privilege and cannot be given away or diminished if it truly is “unalienable”, as the Declaration of Independence (which is organic law enacted into law at 1 Stat. 1) says:"Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit."
[James Madison, The Federalist No. 51 (1788)]
"The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."
[Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting); see also Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210 (1990)] - The government can only CIVILLY govern people with statutes who consent to become STATUTORY “citizens”.
- You have a RIGHT to NOT participate in franchises or privileges.
- You can choose NOT to be a privileged “citizen” WITHOUT abandoning your nationality. Only in a monarchy where everyone is a “subject” regardless of their consent can a government NOT allow this.
- They can only CIVILLY government people who consent to become “citizens”.
- All men and all creations of men such as government are equal. Hence, an entire government of men has no more power than a single human as a legal “person”.
- If government becomes abusive, you have a RIGHT and a DUTY under the Declaration of Independence to quit your public office as a “citizen”, and quit paying for the PRIVILEGE of occupying the position in the form of taxes.“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”
- [Declaration of Independence; SOURCE: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html]
Like the Wizard of Oz, it’s time to pull back the curtain, ahem, or the “robe”, of these corrupt wizards on the federal bench and expose this FRAUD and confidence game for what it is. Let’s return to Kansas, Dorothy. There’s no place like home, and home is an accountable government that needs your explicit permission to do anything civil to you and which can be literally FIRED by all those who are mistreated.
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We will take these quotes from last week's discussion tied to EAST INDIAN concepts of nationalism dealing with church and state---freedom of religion-----not because we agree with all said but because it brings forward GORILLA-IN-THE-ROOM public policy for our 99% of US citizens and our 99% of new immigrant citizens black, white, and brown citizens.
We watched CNN this morning to get that dose of FAKE NEWS---we had to watch a 5% global banking player being a black citizens pretending OBAMA did not kill 99% of our US black citizens to advance his personal wealth working for global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS. Below we see the same from our EAST INDIAN 5% player selling the idea that EAST INDIA is enlightened -----not AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT I AM MAN enlightened -----but creating CORRUPTED PRETENSE of being left social progressive for 99% of citizens while installing these same FDR ROBBER BARON policies with structures built in knowingly allowing for ROBBER BARON LOOTING AND SACKING of our 99% wealth, rights, stability as happened in US during CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA.
We discussed in detail how early 1900s ROBBER BARON ROARING 20s created the same EXTREME WEALTH EXTREME POVERTY through same massive frauds and government corruptions as we are seeing today. FDR was always ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE for only the global 1%-----BUT he installed left social progressive policies that DID HELP BROADEN OUR REAL US FREE MARKET ECONOMICS opening the ability for all 99% of black, white, and brown citizens to accumulate wealth, have rights as citizens, to be educated to be leaders and citizens in public schools.
It was those dastardly 5% to the 1% freemason/Greeks black, white, and brown citizens who went to work immediately after WW 2 -----to kill that access and opportunity for their 99% to make themselves extremely wealthy. Global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS cannot repeat history killing our 99% WITHOUT those 5% players.
'States, religious diversity, and the crisis of secularism
Rajeev Bhargava 22 March 2011
Ronald Dworkin, “Liberalism,” Public and Private Morality, ed. Stuart Hampshire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978)'.
The first thing we saw in reading BHARGAVA'S article was his reference to global banking 1% academics for policy -----CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY-----DWORKIN indeed tied to ROBBER BARON FDR building those structures that ALLOW for ROBBER BARON looting and fleecing of all our 99% wealth. We only posted the beginning of a long article---but please GOGGLE and read because this is the difference between GLOBAL BANKING 1% ECONOMIC PROGRESSIVE LIBERALISM making those OLD WORLD KINGS richer----and our REAL US left social progressive liberalism that creates equal opportunity and access for ALL 99% OF WE THE PEOPLE.
This is what we call PRETENSE because what is being said will help our 99% WE THE PEOPLE has installed policies knowingly setting this stage for SACKING AND LOOTING our 99% WE THE PEOPLE. This is NOT NECESSARY.
Ronald's Dworkin liberalism and its relationshop to his Jurisprudence
Introduction
Ronald Dworkin is a liberal thinker following in the tradition of the great liberal thinkers such as Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu and Mill. For him "the nerve of liberalism" is a certain conception of equality.[1]
In this essay it is proposed to examine aspects of Dworkin's notion of equality in the context of its application to resources, the political structure and jurisprudence. The examination will be necessarily limited. But it will attempt to grasp the essential ingredients of his theory of equality and subject it to analysis within the framework mentioned. One of the matters that will be particularly scrutinised is the contribution equality makes to each of the areas of application under review.
The essay will be constructed in four parts and a conclusion. Part A will deal with Dworkin's theory of liberalism. It is necessary to start here because his ideas about equality in respect of resources, the political structure and jurisprudence find their root in his liberal philosophy. Part B will deal with his theory of resources. No serious attempt will be made to deal with why he rejects a theory of welfare, as space does not permit and in any case it seems outside the direct scope of this essay. Part C will deal with equality in the political structure giving particular attention to Dworkin's explanation of the value behind rights. Part D will deal with Dworkin's jurisprudence. It will focus on the value of the concept equal and respect within the judicial system. The conclusion will attempt to bring cohesion to the matters dealt with.
PART A
DWORKIN'S LIBERALISM
Dworkin's conception of liberalism is encompassed in two principles
- (a) that governments
"treat all those in its charge as equals, that is entitled to equal concern and respect" [2] and - (b) derived therefore
"that the government treat all those in its charge equally in the distribution of some resource of opportunity, or at least work to secure the state of affairs in which they all are equal or more nearly equal in that respect [3] .
"and makes it vulnerable to the charge that liberalism is a negative theory for uncommitted people. Moreover it offers no effective argument against utilitarianism and other contemporary justifications for economic inequality"[10]
Dworkin sees liberalism as a theory of commitment. He distinguishes liberalism based on neutrality (the type of liberalism he ascribes to John Rawls, A Theory of Justice) from his liberalism based on equality. This liberalism of equality has a positive commitment to an egalitarian morality which rejects the economics of privilege[11] . Fundamental to this liberalism based on equality is a requirement for a government to treat its citizens as equals. A government in a society of liberalism based on equality will remain neutral only to the extent and to the degree that equality demands[12].
Dworkin in his Tanner Lecture draws the boundary between his theory of liberalism and that of Rawls. In Rawls' theory [13] the State stays neutral to the seeking of the good by citizens. There is a separation between personal conviction and the political life. The world of political life is a meld of the overlapping consensus of personal convictions. Dworkin categorises the separation between personal conviction and political life as "discontinuance"[15]. Dworkin wishes to bring personal conviction and political life together: to bring a morality to political life. He espouses a "continuity" theory which he sees as appealing to committed liberals because it integrates moral principle for those who want their convictions to match political life. We can see here the beginning of Dworkin's attempt to evolve an integrated political theory. An attempt to bring individual morality to the political arena and consequently into all facets of public life. It is also an attempt to synthesise the individual with the community. The individual notions of liberty with community notions of equality: he sees invasions of liberty as being just as much invasions of equality . Invasions of liberty are unjustified where there might be criminal sanctions against the private and personal activities of persons (eg criminal sanctions against homosexuality). They can only be justified as necessary for the security of persons, the protection of property or as a necessary function to produce an egalitarian distribution of resources. So in fact he connects politics and resources to rights, equality to liberty, in this attempt at integration.
In any liberal society (or any society) there are two major structures, the economic structure and the political structure. In respect of the economic structure, Dworkin says a liberal founding a new state would propound the following principles of "rough equality"
"resources and opportunities should be distributed so far as possible, equally, so that roughly the same share of whatever is available is devoted to satisfying the ambitions of each"[16]
These matters are satisfied through collective decision making and the market. Dworkin recognises the market economy has problems for equality. The market might present the most egalitarian place for the distribution of resources on the basis that people differ only in preferences. However, the problem is that people in the real world do not come to the market on an equal footing. They enter life with different talents, burdened by physical disabilities, subject to differing social economic and emotional backgrounds and so are disadvantaged in the market place. Accordingly, in a liberal society some modification of the market will be necessary in order to ensure a proper equality. This brings us to Dworkin's theory of resources.
'Take first the idealized French conception. In this conception, the state must be separated from religion but the state retains the power to interfere in religion. However, religion is divested of any power to intervene in matters of state. In short, separation means one-sided exclusion'.
'The idealized American self-understanding interprets separation to mean mutual exclusion. Neither the state nor religion is meant to interfere in the domain of the other. This mutual exclusion is believed necessary to resolve conflicts between different Christian denominations, to grant some measure of equality between them, but most crucially to provide individuals with the freedom to set up and maintain their own religious associations'.
_____________________________________________
We do not want to go into detail all of what we discussed during FDR NEW DEAL public policy that was good and bad---we want to remind our 99% of WE THE PEOPLE that those same global banking 5% players black, white, and brown citizens working back in early 1900s ROBBER BARON period are MOVING FORWARD CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA these same global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS policies pretending they help our US 99% with freedom, liberty, justice, pursuit of happiness, equal opportunity and access while those structures assure we will have NONE OF THE ABOVE.
We spent last week discussing in detail how each world religion starting from GOD'S will of social justice was captured by the same global 1% KINGS AND QUEENS behind continuous wars, empire-building greed and immorality------and we shout that those we are told are the BRAHMINS----THOSE TEACHERS AND SCHOLARS ---are simply global banking 1% working for them pretending to be working for a just society.
Can a DWORKIN in policy writing help if decades later OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS kill all of what he states is JUST SOCIETAL LAW? Well, he knew back in FDR days that a US FED global banking was installed----he knew FDR policies tied to US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES were installed moving the emphasis from our strong US DOMESTIC ECONOMY to global markets only those FDR -era ROBBER BARONS could access.
As we state again and again with SOCIALIST/COMMUNIST policies tied to MARXISM-----the goals are to create lots of collective wealth appearing to help our 99% of citizens black, white, and brown citizens always having the goals of sending in those HITLERS----STALINS-----MAOS------FRANCOS----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA'S to claim all that collective wealth. Today, that is our SOCIAL SECURITY TRUSTS, MEDICARE TRUSTS, PUBLIC PRIVATE PENSIONS AND 401K'S, OUR PROPERTIES.
DWORKIN INSTALLED A MARXIST VERSION OF SOCIALISM AND NOT A REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE CAPITALIST SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERALISM TIED TO AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, I AM MAN LOCKEAN STRUCTURE.
PART ADWORKIN'S LIBERALISM
Dworkin's conception of liberalism is encompassed in two principles
- (a) that governments
"treat all those in its charge as equals, that is entitled to equal concern and respect" [2] and - (b) derived therefore
"that the government treat all those in its charge equally in the distribution of some resource of opportunity, or at least work to secure the state of affairs in which they all are equal or more nearly equal in that respect [3] .
When we read that EAST INDIAN article pretending THEY have the best societal structure for religious, and secular freedoms and liberties tied to DWORKIN we KNOW that EAST Indian academic is the same 5% to the 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS PLAYER.
DWORKIN/FDR et al those global banking 1% players use these pretenses to capture population groups---as we describe those 5% freemason/Greek players black, white, and brown----5% fake religious leaders JEWISH, PROTESTANT, CATHOLIC, MUSLIM, HINDI. When we allow global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS players to write our LAWS as our 99% did over last century----we get today's MOVING FORWARD killing US sovereignty being taken to colonial status. Global banking 1% SLATE calling it an ERROR.
Ronald Dworkin’s Error
The distinguished legal scholar, who died last week, gave judges too much license to draw on their own sense of morality.
By Eric Posner
Ronald Dworkin in 2008
Courtesy of David Shankbone/Wikimedia Commons
The distinguished legal scholar Ronald Dworkin, author of Law’s Empire, among many other books, and a frequent commentator for the New York Review of Books, died last week. An ingenious scholar, he made many important contributions to legal philosophy. Yet his most influential idea has produced a more questionable legacy. This is the idea that when judges decide constitutional cases, they should draw on moral principles as well as the legal materials at hand, like statutes and judicial precedents. This idea, abused by liberal and conservative judges alike, has harmed our democracy.
When judges are called upon to resolve disputes, they frequently face a pile of ambiguous texts. The Constitution, for example, overflows with vague, undefined phrases—“due process of law,” “equal protection,” “cruel and unusual punishment.” Statutes and earlier decided cases are often no better.
To resolve these ambiguities, judges may look for clues about the writers’ meanings, or follow canons of interpretation, like the rule that more specific legal commands prevail over more general commands. But it is tempting for judges also to rely on their moral beliefs, or ideological predispositions. If the Constitution bans “cruel and unusual punishment,” a judge who rejects the death penalty on moral grounds may want to conclude that the death penalty is cruel and unusual, and hence constitutionally barred. If the Constitution creates a “right to bear arms,” a judge who believes strongly in the right to self-defense may conclude that this right restricts gun control.
Dworkin did not believe that judges should simply impose their moral views on the law. He developed a sophisticated theory that holds that the judge’s duty is to take existing legal materials—the relevant constitutional text, precedents from previous court cases, and so forth—and provide the best account of how they fit together. In doing so, the judge must not only parse the legal texts; he or she must also engage in moral reasoning, so that the interpretation finally chosen not only reconciles those texts but reconciles them in the best way possible, that is, so as to advance a morally correct vision of society.
This account provides an accurate and defensible description of how judges develop the common law (the body of law made by judges, via court rulings, that governs much private conduct like contracting) and interpret statutes. Although judges deny that they “make law,” Dworkin rightly pointed out that when confronted with legal texts like statutes, judges must draw on general background norms to interpret them, and these norms frequently reflect common moral and political suppositions. Where there is a moral consensus, the use of these norms is almost invisible. And when judges disagree, or make mistakes, legislatures can easily correct their decisions by passing new statutes.
But Dworkin was most famous for applying this idea to disputes over the meaning of the U.S. Constitution. And here he made a wrong move. Constitutional law differs from statutes and the common law in two relevant ways. First, the process to amend the Constitution is extremely cumbersome, so that if the Supreme Court declares that pornography or campaign spending is protected by the right to free speech, it is virtually impossible for the public to undo this ruling by electing legislators who oppose pornography or support campaign finance reform. Second, the Constitution and most of its significant amendments were produced a century or two ago, when the country was radically different. As a result, they provide only limited guidance today and hence maximum space for judges to “interpret.”
Moreover, Supreme Court justices face no negative consequences if they interpret the Constitution so as to advance their ideological commitments. (By contrast, state judges typically serve short terms and can be replaced by appointment or election.) Encouraged by fawning lawyers, journalists, and law professors, Supreme Court justices frequently come to think of themselves as uniquely qualified to divine public morality—which almost always somehow coincides with their own. Because our system gives judges so much power, Supreme Court justices are able to impose their ideological commitments over an enormous range of public policy issues—health care and gun control, criminal punishment and sexual freedom, religious liberty and public schooling.
In his obituary of Dworkin, New York Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak noted that Justice Anthony Kennedy is the most Dworkinian of the current crop of justices, the most likely to justify his decision using moralistic language. Kennedy is also the least respected of the bunch. His efforts to provide the moral basis for his votes typically descend into gobbledygook. “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life,” he warbles in one forgettable opinion on abortion rights. It is in the nature of issues like abortion that reasonable people have differing moral attitudes; democracy exists to enable them to resolve their disagreements in a fair and peaceful way. When judges decide these issues based on their moral beliefs, they deprive people of their right to determine policy through the vote. Judges ought to be more respectful of public attitudes; Dworkin’s method encourages them not to be.
Dworkin, like many liberals, rightly worried that majorities will exploit minorities if judges do not step in. If it were not for the Supreme Court, he once wrote, black children would still attend segregated schools in the South. This was probably inaccurate given the legislative changes that took place in the 1960s. Jim Crow was defeated by political organization that changed public attitudes and ultimately led to federal civil rights statutes, not judicial noblesse oblige. But if we give the Supreme Court credit for its role in the civil rights revolution, we also must remember that a century earlier the Supreme Court had declared that blacks were not citizens in Dred Scott, helping to precipitate the Civil War, and in the 1930s the court absurdly attempted to prevent the federal government from addressing the Great Depression by experimenting with economic regulation. The current conservative majority “fits” constitutional text and judicial precedent to the justices’ ideological distrust of government intervention in the market. That is why the Supreme Court has been able even today to strike down many economic regulations, like regulations designed to prevent firms from confusing consumers and rules that allow buyers of defective goods to win large punitive damages.
Dworkin was horrified by the rulings of the conservative justices, but, while he obviously did not cause them in any direct way, his theory of judging gave philosophical respectability to what psychologists call motivated reasoning. It is tempting for all of us to interpret the world so as to confirm our moral views. Judges given license by Dworkin to interpret the Constitution persuade themselves that their moral beliefs are embodied in that document, and thus disregard the policy choices made by the public’s elected representatives.
In a typical ivory tower conceit, Dworkin responds by arguing that it is essential that nominees to the Supreme Court discuss their “judicial philosophies” with the Senate. The idea is to ensure that Supreme Court review has a democratic pedigree. But no one with any hope of confirmation would ever do such a thing. Because constitutional law is so politicized, nominees must hide their views from the public. Confirmation hearings take place entirely in code. President Bush says that judicial nominees should exercise “strict constructionism,” while President Obama says that they should use “empathy.” Chief Justice John Roberts claimed at his nomination to be an umpire calling balls and strikes, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that she would merely “apply the law”—while everyone knows that what is really at stake is whether Roe v. Wade will be overturned or campaign finance reform will be permitted.
The upshot is that rather than resolve gun control, abortion, and campaign finance by voting for politicians who hold our opinions, we vote for politicians who we hope will pick judicial nominees who hold our views, while the potential justices do everything they can to mask their positions.
This is not a good way to run a country. It would be better if judges tried to avoid making constitutional decisions and instead deferred to the national and state governments as much as possible. A few scholars, notably Jeremy Waldron of New York University and Adrian Vermeule of Harvard, have argued for this kind of judicial passivity. Waldron emphasizes the real harm that occurs when judicial review effectively blocks the public from exercising its right to political participation, while Vermeule argues that judges cannot be expected to possess either the moral wisdom or the knowledge of the empirical world that is necessary to bear the interpretive burden that Dworkin assigns to them.
Dworkin liked to imagine that judges should act like Hercules, drawing on superhuman wisdom and patience to bring order to the Augean stables of our law. His critics see the judge as bureaucrat and humble servant of people. Is it any wonder that someone like Anthony Kennedy would find the Dworkinian view more appealing?
________________________________________
'And yet, when Dworkin – a Rhode Island-born graduate of Harvard and Oxford, one-time New York clerk to the marvellously named Judge Learned Hand – started teaching at US law schools in the 1950s, he found lots of people who would say such things. "It was voguish to say that there's no right answer to legal questions'.
LIVING WELL-----has two meanings ------
After CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA called those 5% to the 1% freemason/Greeks in to loot and sack our US treasury and end our US sovereignty and rights-----DWORKIN got it wrong said SLATE----what SLATE means is that instead of creating a structure from AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT capitalism he and FDR should have gone right to far-right, authoritarian, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXISM----as did Europe, Asia, Arabia, and Latin America. DWORKIN AND FDR did this not because they were ALTRUISTIC----they did this because US back in early 1900s still had lots of domestic growth left needing to be harvested ergo, they remained with CAPITALISM.
Today, a century later with MOVING FORWARD having fleeced all those hundreds of trillions of dollars in public assets from our Federal, state, and local government coffers and our 99% people's pockets------SLATE SAYS DWORKIN MADE AN ERROR----that error was remaining capitalist -----that is why MOVING FORWARD has a goal of taking us far-right LIBERTARIAN MARXIST. All while selling the same SMOKE AND MIRRORS that these policies are all about GOD'S commandments to build JUST SOCIETIES.
A graduate of Harvard/Oxford will always be working for global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS killing our 99% WE THE PEOPLE.
Ronald Dworkin: 'We have a responsibility to live well'
One of the greatest legal and moral philosophers of the postwar era, Ronald Dworkin argues in his new book, Justice for Hedgehogs, that there are absolute moral values – and that they are built on dignity and self-respect
Stuart Jeffries
Thu 31 Mar 2011 16.00 EDT First published on Thu 31 Mar 2011 16.00 EDT
Ronald Dworkin. Photograph: Graham Turner
Ronald Dworkin is wondering about what his friend Alfred Brendel does when he plays the piano. "Why does he play that way? When he plays a great sonata, for example, he must think his interpretation is better than other interpretations or he wouldn't play it that way, mustn't he?"
We're having coffee in the vast, coolly modern sitting room of his four-storey Belgravia house. Dworkin, who is not only Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University but also Jeremy Bentham Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London, and one of the greatest legal scholars of the postwar era, has other houses – in New York and Martha's Vineyard – but this is the grandest. He reclines, suave and donnish, in his grey armchair.
Dworkin smiles, then presses on asking and answering questions, leaving me incidental. "Why does he think what he's playing is better than other interpretations? He must think it's better and the question is why. It's not because what he plays is more beautiful than what he might otherwise play. Because if he was aiming at beauty, he could depart from what the composer had written. But he is faithful to the composition. And yet, he's not just playing the composer's music, he's interpreting it."
I mumble something fatuous about how I like the way Brendel plays Schubert's late piano sonatas. Only later do I realise I should have quoted what Dworkin writes about TS Eliot in his new book, Justice for Hedgehogs. Eliot said that poets cannot write poetry except as part of a tradition that they interpret and thereby retrospectively shape. And then I should have added that this is true of all interpreters – poets, painters, perhaps even professors with two intimidating-sounding jobs. But I didn't.
Instead, I'm overcome by unworthy thoughts. Why is Dworkin talking about Brendel? After all, one article I read in preparing for this interview concerned Dworkin and Brendel: "These towering intellects are entwined in a poignant and touching emotional foursome. Mr Brendel's wife of 31 years, Irene, is stepping out with Professor Dworkin. Not to be outdone, Moravian-born Brendel, 75, has found comfort and solace with a fortysomething Italian lady called Maria." The Daily Mail's headline? "Odd quartet for Brendel". Let's put aside Daily Mail moralising: if Dworkin can remain friends with Brendel while describing Irene as his "close and longtime companion", then good for him and everybody else involved.
We're two hours into a conversation that has ranged over US taxation policy, gay marriages and abortion. To listen to Dworkin is to feel like a drowning man who occasionally glimpses through the mist a stately ship, realising that you'll never get close enough to clamber aboard. I felt similarly reading Justice for Hedgehogs, the 79-year-old professor of philosophy's grand, perhaps culminating, statement of what truth is, what life means, what morality requires and justice demands.
The question of how Brendel plays the piano is hardly beside the point. Dworkin's book insists that historians, artists, lawyers, critics and philosophers are all engaged in interpretation. Every time you make a moral or political judgment about, say, gay marriages, you're making an interpretation.
But here's the twist that makes his book controversial. Dworkin insists many interpretations are true or false. Yes, it would be daft to say that when Alfred Brendel plays the andantino from Schubert's Sonata in A, he has found the one and only true interpretation; right to say that he aims at interpreting it better than anyone else. But the judge who interprets a past law not only aims at interpreting it correctly, but their judgment is either true or false. Thus, at least, argues Dworkin.
Why does any of this matter? "Well, for example, if I say abortion is wrong, I believe what I say is true, not that it's one legitimate opinion among many. I hate it when people say: 'It's OK for gay people to get married but that's only my opinion.' You can't think it's just your opinion or you wouldn't hold it. Imagine a judge who's just sentenced a man to jail for life saying: 'Other judges might have found differently and they're entitled to their opinions.' Who could reasonably say such a thing?"
And yet, when Dworkin – a Rhode Island-born graduate of Harvard and Oxford, one-time New York clerk to the marvellously named Judge Learned Hand – started teaching at US law schools in the 1950s, he found lots of people who would say such things. "It was voguish to say that there's no right answer to legal questions. But if you say there's no right answer in interpreting a law and you're talking about justice, you're not really getting involved in the issues that matter. Most intellectuals thought effectively that moral or legal judgments were just emotional expressions with no basis in cognition. Freddie Ayer argued that moral judgments are just grunts of approval or disapproval."
Two things made the Grunt Thesis plausible. God and science. God, argues Dworkin, gave us moral laws whose truth was guaranteed by Him. But the rise of science led, Dworkin argues, to scepticism about God's existence and thus a doubt that He could make our values true or false. The methods of science too undermined convictions that there are objective values. "The idea is that we are not entitled to think our moral convictions true unless they are required by pure reason or produced by something in the world." In the book, Dworkin calls this "the Gibraltar of all mental blocks". We must, he argues, get over it. And yet this Gibraltar rules the waves of philosophy: a recent issue of Philosophy Now was themed around the death of morality. If moral judgments can't be true, do we need them at all?
When I first studied philosophy 30 years ago, my undergraduate textbook made relativism and scepticism about morality seem natural. It was called Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong by JL Mackie and began: "There are no objective values." It suggested that the fact that values conflict (I support gay marriages, while you – you monster – think they're a disgrace) indicates they can't be true.
Dworkin, who used to argue these points at University College, Oxford, with Mackie in the late 70s, says: "My reply to John then and now is that his scepticism is self-defeating. When Mackie says: 'All moral propositions are false', that's a moral proposition, which is false if his proposition 'All moral propositions are false' is true, which it isn't." A-ha, a version of the Cretan liar paradox that Doctor Who used to make a clever robot short-circuit and explode. Sadly, Mackie died in 1981 so isn't around to retort.
But if objective moral values aren't in the world, where are they hiding? In the book, Dworkin finally tells us when we are justified in thinking any value judgment true, namely: "When we are justified in thinking that our arguments for holding it true are adequate arguments." Isn't that circular? Yes, but Dworkin argues it's good circular, not bad circular.
Super. But why, you'll be wondering, is the book called Justice for Hedgehogs? The title refers to a distinction political philosopher Isaiah Berlin made between hedgehogs and foxes, based on an ancient Greek parable. The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one great thing. Dworkin is a hedgehog. "The hedgehog is an anti-pluralist image. Pluralism was Isaiah Berlin's extremely popular thought that there are truths but they conflict. I think it's wrong. Truths don't conflict in the domain of value any more than in science."
This isn't the first time Dworkin has written about cute wildlife. He once wrote a paper called Some Pink Zebras, asking whether something we can imagine but that does not exist can be as real as something that does exist. Justice for Hedgehogs has similar how-many-angels-can-dance on-a-pinheadpassages, but it's grander in vision.
He builds up a comprehensive system of value – embracing democracy, justice, political obligation, morality, liberty, equality – from his notions of dignity and self-respect. Again, Dworkin isn't part of the zeitgeist. "Almost all moral philosophy nowadays is steeped in self-abnegation. Mine starts from self-assertion, which was popular with the Greeks like Aristotle and Plato but not now. Now morality is perceived as being about self-sacrifice. I try to show how that's wrong."
Why is self-assertion important? "We have a responsibility to live well. Our challenge is to act as if we respect ourselves. Enjoying ourselves is not enough." But doesn't self-assertion clash with our moral duties to others? "No. The first challenge is to live well – that is ethics – and then to see how that connects with what we owe other people – which is morality. The connection is twofold. One is respect for the importance of other people's lives. And the other is equal concern for their lives."
Imagine you're in a lifeboat and you have to decide which of two children is to go overboard to their deaths. If you're a utilitarian – who believes what's important morally is maximising the happiness of the greatest number – you wouldn't mind if it was your child or another's who dies. Dworkin's system holds that you're justified in saving your child. Why? "Because it's my child! Because they're part of what it means for my life to be lived well. They're part of my life, for which I take responsibility." His twin children Anthony and Jennifer, let's hope, have always found this part of their dad's philosophy reassuring.
"Such favouritism can't work at a political level: you can't give someone tax breaks because he's your son. But at the moral level it does: you can save someone because they're your child, while at the same time respecting other people's lives. Each person must take his own life seriously: he must accept that it is a matter of importance that his life be a successful performance rather than a wasted opportunity. I'm talking about dignity. It's a term overused by politicians, but any moral theory worth its salt needs to proceed from it."
This focus on dignity gives his ethical views a special flavour. In earlier books he's argued that a child born with terrible disabilities, or someone condemned to a persistent vegetative state may be better terminated: a life without dignity is not worth living. Here he writes about abortion with the notion of dignity in mind. He believes that "in many circumstances abortion is an act of self-contempt": "A woman betrays her own dignity when she aborts for frivolous reasons: to avoid rescheduling a holiday, for instance. I would reach a different ethical judgment in other cases: when a teenage girl's prospects for a decent life would be ruined if she became a single mother, for example. But whether the judgment is right or wrong in any particular case, it remains an ethical, not a moral, judgment. It must be left to women, as their dignity demands each to take responsibility for her own ethical convictions." What about the foetus? "Because an early foetus has no interests of its own, any more than a flower does, a foetus cannot be supposed to have rights protecting its interests."
This perspective leads him, too, to argue that taxation in many countries today is unjust, not because it takes too much but too little. "In the US now, many states are running out of money to do the things that they do. They have to run police forces, fire departments and most of all they have to save people from undignified death." That concern with the dignity we owe others was borrowed by Dworkin from Immanuel Kant: the idea is you cannot respect yourself unless you treat other people objectively well. "That does not happen in the US."
The argument – surely especially unpopular in this age of austerity – that taxes should be raised is aimed squarely at middle-class Americans. "In my country, we used to have a triangle, with the poor at the bottom. Now we have a diamond – the middle classes are most numerous, there's contempt for those at the bottom expressed in unwillingness to countenance tax rises that undermines everyone's dignity."
At the end of the book Dworkin writes: "Without dignity our lives are only blinks of duration. But if we manage to lead a good life well, we create something more. We write a subscript to our mortality. We make our lives tiny diamonds in the cosmic sands."
Has Dworkin made himself a tiny diamond in the cosmic sands? His glittering intellectual career. His 42-year marriage to the beautiful daughter of a rich New Yorker, Betsy Ross, who died in 2000. His romantic consolations late in life. His mental acuity and appetite for argument, as I know to my cost, remain still frighteningly immense.
What he says by way of answer makes me feel I need to up my game. "I've tried to be responsible for my decisions and to make an authentic life. When I was a Wall Street lawyer, I realised I didn't want that life. So I went and did what I found most fulfilling, thinking about, arguing for the things that are hard, important and rewarding. I've tried to do it well. I can't say if I've succeeded."
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Here is again our EAST INDIAN academic writing that INDIA has the best societal structures addressing GOD'S WILL of societal justice we showed he has tied FDR/DWORKIN to his stance-----he being tied to those same OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS IVY LEAGUE universities. Remember, today's ROOSEVELT INSTITUTE pretends to be left social progressive FDR ----when in fact it is far-right, authoritarian, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXIST ----which is MOVING FORWARD to East Indian 3000BC HINDI CASTE SYSTEM.
BHARGAVA is simply that FDR----that DWORKIN all tied to global bankng 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS. His policy stances will NOT be good for our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, or brown---or any of our world religious 99%.
Rajeev Bhargava
This individual is not a direct affiliate of the Berkley Center. S/he has contributed to one or more of our events, publications, or projects. Please contact the individual at her/his home institution.
Rajeev Bhargava is senior fellow and director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, where he has worked since 2005. Previously he served for many years as professor of political theory and Indian political thought and head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Delhi. He is the author of What is Political Theory and Why Do We Need It? (2010), The Promise of India’s Secular Democracy (2010), and Individualism in Social Science (1992). He has edited or co-edited Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution (2008), Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship: Dialogues and Perceptions (2005), Transforming India (2000), and Multiculturalism, Liberalism and Democracy (1999). Bhargava holds a B.A. from the University of Delhi and M.Phil. and D.Phil. from Oxford University.
So, today our US politics is filled with candidates MOVING FORWARD on the right LIBERTARIAN on the left MARXISM-----with this goal of ending our US national sovereignty ---and rebuilding ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE for only the global 1%. Those 5% to the 1% players trying to sound like FDR-ERA real left social progressive liberals while MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE 3000BC DARK AGES.
BHARGAVA'S job is to make very, very, very far-right wing captured BUDDHIST/HINDI sound real FDR social progressive. We will have all kinds of global banking media and 5% ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT FAKE left groups pretending MOVING FORWARD is good while being very, very, very bad for all our 99% WE THE PEOPLE.
'For instance, that liberalism dictates that freedom of individuals must override the demands of community, an article of faith for communitarians. Also, that liberals and communitarians can never intersect so that any apparent convergence is proof that one or the other ideologies has been grossly misinterpreted'
It makes no difference that FDR was pretending to be Christian----that DWORKIN was pretending to be JEWISH----that BHARGAVA pretends to be HINDI---------since the goal of MOVING FORWARD is far-right wing LIBERTARIAN MARXISM that is what global banking 5% will sell as being JUST AND HELPFUL to our US 99% of WE THE PEOPLE
The trouble with liberalism and other isms
Rajeev Bhargava
April 01, 2018 00:15 IST
Updated: March 31, 2018 22:46 IST
Ethical people should not have to always ask if they are living up to a core value identified with an ‘ism’Recently, an interesting debate ensued amongst eminent public intellectuals, sparked off by Harsh Mander’s lament at the increasing invisiblisation of Indian Muslims in our public sphere. Since one indication of this disturbing trend, cited by Mander, was the advice from a politician that before entering the political arena, Muslims might as well jettison their skull caps and burqas, the contentious discussion centred on what a correct and consistent liberal position on this issue entailed. Ramachandra Guha claimed that this counsel was “forward-looking” because burqas in particular were “antediluvian”, inviting unambiguous liberal opposition.
Mukul Kesavan and Apoorvanand claimed its oppressive symbolism should have no bearing on citizenship rights, that our political participation cannot depend on sartorial habits dictated by religious affiliation. Besides, a liberal offensive against religious orthodoxy must not rely on callous stereotypes about one another.
A little bit of both?
I do not wish to engage in this debate, though I must confess that on this issue my sympathies are more with Mander and Kesavan than with Guha. I am interested instead in foregrounding a potential problem plaguing such debates, particularly the assumption that all ideologies including liberalism are tightly bound, self-contained systems containing principles or values wholly distinct from and in permanent rivalry with other ideological systems, say, communitarianism, socialism or conservatism. For instance, that liberalism dictates that freedom of individuals must override the demands of community, an article of faith for communitarians. Also, that liberals and communitarians can never intersect so that any apparent convergence is proof that one or the other ideologies has been grossly misinterpreted. How can someone, without contradiction, be both liberal and communitarian?
In fact, liberalism has no timeless, fixed content, an unchanging core. The different doctrines/principles that fall under the rubric ‘liberalism’ share only a family resemblance. Each of them is as different from the other as are members of a large extended family. Some liberalisms are single value doctrines (monists); others try to combine different values (pluralists); some single value liberalisms insist on liberty as the core value, others equality. Multi-value liberalisms give due place to both, and some even to community (fraternity). Some are out and out value-individualists, others combine them with values of community; some think that the hallmark of liberalism is toleration, for others it is individual autonomy; some, idolising a free market, demand that the state keep its role to the minimum, others demand state intervention for social welfare and justice. If there are many liberalisms, there invariably exist many ways of being liberal, and therefore no one course of action dictated by liberalism exists. The question what is required by liberalism has no single answer. Likewise, the answer to the question, what is to be done, cannot be extracted from a simple query about what liberalism or any other ism requires.
Secondly, the family of doctrines that fall under ‘liberalism’ exist in a field where they interact with contending ideological families, which they shape and are shaped by. This is partly why they evolve and have a history. In some historical contexts, some forms of liberalisms are difficult to distinguish from conservatism, and in others from socialism. A doctrine that fell under ‘liberalism’ in the past can today, for many liberals, fall outside. Most of these perspectives develop at some time under conditions of hostile competition but at other times through conversation and dialogue. Consider liberalism and communitarianism, or community-oriented religious pluralism. They are engaged in a continuous and frequently converging debate. When they mutually criticise each other, they also learn from and refine each other.
A rhetorical, antipodal approach blinds us to such convergence. Only if one believes that liberalism is complete as it is, can one dismiss religious or non-religious communitarianism. But doing so is to commit the mistake of treating a living tradition of thought as a dead dogma. When one views them as rigid self-contained systems in mortal combat and search for total victory, one exaggerates differences between and disregards differences within communitarianism and liberalism.
Breaking boundaries
In short, many of these doctrines not only share a family resemblance but, to carry the metaphor further, sometimes marry each other, producing offsprings that sometimes resemble one parent and sometimes the other. Good thinkers, attempting to offer a solution to a problem, thinking self-reflectively through existing predicaments, do not bother to consult the fossilised handbook of a particular ideology to find out whether the proffered solution is dictated by it. Wise thinkers who contribute to a debate do not persistently cross-check to see if they are crossing an ideological frontier. They do not needlessly think through an ideological prism, and when they do, they allow dead ideology to do the thinking for them and become dogmatic gatekeepers of ideological fortresses.
It is bad practice to follow ideological diktats, to worry more about ideological consistency than about concrete issues at hand. Strangely, to do so is to fall into the trap of self-indulgent, expressivist politics (How am I expressed in politics?) rather than a politics of ethically sensitive engagement with complex situations involving others. Fruitful moral thinking is contextual and value-pragmatic. Moral integrity does not mean ideological consistency, nor being soft on one principle to accommodate another, a sign of moral opportunism. Real ethical lives dip into different ideological currents. Living ideological traditions are flexible, yielding the possibility of multiple morally legitimate practices. Ethical people should not have to always ask if they are living up to a core value identified with an ‘ism’. Doing so often leads to moral blunders or outright stupidity.
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This week's discussion returns to the importance for all 99% of US CITIZENS and our 99% new immigrant citizens to fight for our US SOVEREIGN governance tied to US CONSTITUTION, BILL OF RIGHTS, EQUAL PROTECTION AND OPPORTUNITY/ACCESS being attacked by MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD for only the global 1%. When we discuss the failure's of FDR NEW DEAL calling it pretense because of gorilla-in-the-room structures like US FED and US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE policies installed at same time as REAL left social progressive policies that were indeed GOOD for our US 99% black, white, and brown citizens---- we have that POWER to get rid of bad FDR structures like US FED---US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE policies while fighting to keep the BEST IN WORLD HISTORY government structures that gave our US citizens REAL freedom, liberty, justice, pursuit of happiness, equal protection under law, and opportunity and access to REAL free market domestic community economies.
When our US 99% are made to feel all is hopeless in winning back our POWER as citizens-----we need to WAKE UP and understand that these documents still exist---they still are enforce-----and we simply need to EDUCATE on public policy to know who is a global banking 5 % freemason/Greek player. EASY PEASY---
LET'S GET RID OF ALL GLOBAL BANKING 5% POLS AND PLAYERS AND RETURN TO REAL FDR LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL CAPITALISM WHICH REQUIRES WE KEEP OUR AMERICAN SOVEREIGN RIGHTS.
This is critical to all US 99% black, white, and brown citizens but it is especially critical for our 99% new immigrants whether white collar or factory to understand how our US politics was corrupted by global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS and how to FIX OUR US CITIES ----by ending that dastardly designation FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Bill of Rights and Later Amendments
Index to this page
Bill of Rights
Amendment 1 Freedoms, Petitions, Assembly
Amendment 2 Right to bear arms
Amendment 3 Quartering of soldiers
Amendment 4 Search and arrest
Amendment 5 Rights in criminal cases
Amendment 6 Right to a fair trial
Amendment 7 Rights in civil cases
Amendment 8 Bail, fines, punishment
Amendment 9 Rights retained by the People
Amendment 10 States' rights
Later Amendments
Amendment 11 Lawsuits against states
Amendment 12 Presidential elections
Amendment 13 Abolition of slavery
Amendment 14 Civil rights
Amendment 15 Black suffrage
Amendment 16 Income taxes
Amendment 17 Senatorial elections
Amendment 18 Prohibition of liquor
Amendment 19 Women's suffrage
Amendment 20 Terms of office
Amendment 21 Repeal of Prohibition
Amendment 22 Term Limits for the Presidency
Amendment 23 Washington, D.C., suffrage
Amendment 24 Abolition of poll taxes
Amendment 25 Presidential succession
Amendment 26 18-year-old suffrage
Amendment 27 Congressional pay raises
Original Ten Amendments: The Bill of Rights
Passed by Congress September 25, 1789.
Ratified December 15, 1791.
Amendment I
Freedoms, Petitions, Assembly
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.
Amendment II
Right to bear arms
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
Quartering of soldiers
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
Search and arrest
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
Rights in criminal cases
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; 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
Right to a fair trial
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, 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, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; 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
Rights in civil cases
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Bail, fines, punishment
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
Rights retained by the People
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
States' rights
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Later Amendments
Amendment 11
Lawsuits against states
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
February 7, 1795.
Amendment 12
Presidential elections
The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;--The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. [And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.]* The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
June 15, 1804.
Superseded by Section 3 of the Twentieth Amendment.
Amendment 13
Abolition of slavery
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce these article by appropriate legislation.
December 6, 1865.
Amendment 14
Civil rights
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
July 9, 1868.
Amendment 15
Black suffrage
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
February 3, 1870.
Amendment 16
Income taxes
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
February 3, 1913.
Amendment 17
Senatorial elections
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
April 8, 1913.
Amendment 18
Prohibition of liquor
Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article, the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
January 16, 1919. Repealed by the Twenty-First, December 5, 1933.
Amendment 19
Women's suffrage
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any States on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
August 18, 1920.
Amendment 20
Terms of office
Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.
Section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.
Section 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.
Section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.
January 23, 1933.
Amendment 21
Repeal of Prohibition
Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
Section 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.
Section 3. The article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
December 5, 1933.
Amendment 22
Term Limits for the Presidency
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
February 27, 1951.
Amendment 23
Washington, D.C., suffrage
Section 1. The District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:
A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a state, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
March 29, 1961.
Amendment 24
Abolition of poll taxes
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
January 23, 1964.
Amendment 25
Presidential succession
Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
February 10, 1967.
Amendment 26
18-year-old suffrage
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
June 30, 1971.
Amendment 27
Congressional pay raises
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
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