Presidential Exploitation and Manipulation of Constitution

I thought of this blog post idea as an offshoot of the argument for the constitution. Public indoctrination centers and popular culture have put this notion of constitution controlling government and allowing rights since the constitution was created. This post will not set out to argue that the constitution has failed to do either of things. Plus the misguided nature of “rights” is too broad for this particular topic. Rather than try to argue the constitution is an object failure, I will show you where the weaknesses are. One of the best ways to show is by using examples of Presidential overruns and exploits of the constitution.

This will be a multi-post series as I have 8 different presidents with unique situations that exploit the constitution making it a useless piece of paper. We’ll take 4 here and 4 next week. Also I have another idea where I explain how the Supreme Court has probably done the most to destroy any credibility of the constitution that was left. Lets save this idea for the future. So the four presidents, we’ll go over in chronological order are Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. You probably recognize all these names. You may even know where I’m going with some of these guys. I’m going to focus very specifically on the situation that allowed exploit of the constitution and what exactly it means for the constitution going forward.

Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson is often known sometimes mistakenly as one of the more libertarian presidents. But what isn’t often pointed out is Jefferson crafty interpretation of the constitution. Especially in regards to manifest destiny. To that end, Jefferson saw a good deal with the French for the Louisiana territory. In 1803, Jefferson made the purchase for 15 million dollars. This may seem like a harmless transaction to the average person. But if you look deeper, the constitution doesn’t explicitly allow the President to purchase land. Jefferson knew this and found a work around.

The government in the US was set up by the constitution in a checks and balances. The problem that Jefferson had was that congress holds the power over the money. Jefferson in the executive branch holds power over foreign policy. In order to get the money to make the purchase, Jefferson crafted a treaty that had to be ratified by congress. In the treaty, it contained the money for France. To recap, Jefferson exploited a loophole that allow him to make congress approve money for the purchase from France, despite there being no constitutional instruction or precedent. Jefferson’s decision was actually never questioned by the Supreme Court. In fairness to him, the actions he took never broke any constitutional decrees.

Abraham Lincoln

This next president will make Jefferson seem kind of tame in comparison. Although both men are considered to be brilliant minds among the presidents. Abraham Lincoln is probably most famous for his alleged freeing of the slaves. His presidency is dominated by the civil war. War time gives Presidents some interesting angles to manipulate power. Some of Lincoln’s lesser known, not so good actions come at the cost of the constitution. Lincoln was previously a lawyer before his time as President. I think that’s why Lincoln holds the most intricate intrusion of constitutional law.

I suppose we should just start with the egregious offense which would obvious the suspension of habeas corpus. In America, the justice system was set up under the belief that every citizen has a right to due process and a fair trial by a jury of your peers. Lincoln decided that this notion was overridden by the need to eliminate and silence his enemies and confederate spies. Habeas corpus is latin for “You shall have the body”, in a legal proceeding, its when the accused goes to the courtroom to hear what they have been charged with. To put simply, Lincoln suspended the right of knowing why you were arrested in the first place. It might seem like a small detail in the grand scheme of things, but when you realize that Lincoln targeted his political opponents and journalists, you can see the problem. Lincoln literally silenced his enemies.

Lincoln didn’t stop there with overriding constitutional rights. In order to wage the civil war, he used an act passed in 1807 called the insurrection act. You can read more about that here and here. But basically this act allowed Lincoln to send federal troops wherever necessary without the permission of a governor. You’ll be interested to know that Thomas Jefferson created this law. (Jefferson used it against Aaron Burr after he killed Hamilton in a duel) As far as I can tell, the Supreme Court has not heard a case on it. It amounts to basically a martial law act. To date, I believe that Abraham Lincoln was the only one to use to wage actual war on citizens.

The changes in the way government was run under Abraham Lincoln actually jumpstarted what see today. Lincoln’s firm squashing of political opponents and journalists really polarized the partisan nature of American politics. The way that Lincoln waged the war by contracting out the making of uniforms and guns to manufacturers was the beginning of an organized military industrial complex. The fact is that Lincoln created a lot of his power out of thin air. Just like Jefferson found crafty loopholes, Lincoln also found ways to trampled the constitution. Unfortunately it gets worse.

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson is often considered both of the best and worst presidents depending on who you ask. His actions didn’t have such an immediate effect like Jefferson and Lincoln’s. Wilson built a few institutions that today are renegade in their following of the constitution. Both of these institutions are technically outside the purview of constitutional authority. But I believe that both also exploit the rights under the constitutional of the average citizen. If you haven’t guessed yet, its the United Nations and Federal Reserve Bank. Lets take one at a time.

The United Nations was a concept created by Wilson, first called the 14 points which he laid out in a speech. The idea was rebuffed by nearly all the major powers. Wilson’s intentions may have been good to prevent future conflicts. (World War 1 had just ended) At first, the US actually didn’t join the League of Nations which lasted until World War 2. The problem with the United Nations as it stands today is that it mimics a very weak one-world government. The UN has an army of “peacekeepers” that rarely keep any peace. Its usefulness is questionable at best. At best it provides a medium for countries to diplomatically solve their issues. At worst, it just leads to more tension and wars. One particular irony that is often overlooked by everyone is that the permanent security council positions are held by countries like China and Russia. In recent years, these two countries seem to behave in a less than model like way. Even if you ignore the “fake” election interruptions by Russia, they still invaded Crimea a few years ago. In China, the list of human rights violations just gets longer, not to mention the genocide of the Uyghurs. (highly recommend you research this, its horrifying.) The permanent members have the ability to block resolutions. So imagine the hypocritical nature of outrage over countries like Iran when two of the permanent members are guilty of similar or worse violations.

The federal reserve bank was created by Wilson in 1913. I won’t go into a full rant about how the federal reserve bank has devalued and caused more problems with economy due to the manipulation of the money. However, I will say this institution only has one connection to government. The president appoints the chair of the Fed. Otherwise, the federal reserve is completely free of any constitutional restriction. My point here is just this: What could go wrong when you give non-governmental institution the power to control money? Well just look around, you are living it. For the sake of word count, I’ll move on.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt holds the record for most terms as president. Once again, as I mentioned earlier with Lincoln that war time gives President’s interesting angles to manipulate power. FDR did exactly this, although he did serve four terms, there was no constitutional law about it. However, afterwards, congress did limit the president to only 2 terms. I think its worth mentioning even though its a closed loophole.

The other less obvious but more well known FDR actions is the New Deal. The New Deal was obviously a bundle of legislation that formed basically a stimulus in the Great Depression. While its not any specific constitutional intrusion, it does set precedents for more in the future. I think the biggest issue is not that FDR found a creative way to combat the depression but that his government funded and created it. There is also the creation of social security which now just robs people due its financial instability. I think FDR shows us that the constitution leaves quite a few gaping holes in terms of how the government can leverage its power.

This leads to my conclusion, (promise it won’t take long) These four presidents that I have pointed out specific things that either exploited loopholes or just flat out trampled constitution shows where the constitution lacks. The document was brilliantly written but the weaknesses are the same of that as Trump’s border wall. As I have shown here, any president can go around the wall (Constitution), climb over it, or bulldoze through it in the case of Lincoln. Stay tuned for part 2 where I’ll go over the other four: Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.

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Keynesian Magic Trick

A few days ago, the news broke that the House of Representatives and Senate passed a bill. It was the second COVID relief bill, with first one being passed in the Spring. The bill itself was overall a terrible one. The nearly billion dollar budget goes mostly overseas to special interests. All the American people got was about 150 billion or basically 600 dollars if you qualify. But this post is not about the bill itself. Obviously the disaster caused an outrage on social media, from nearly every side. Whether you were for or against getting money or sending money overseas, there was something to hate about it. I don’t really know how I should start but I suppose I will just show you a screenshot of the tweet that gave me my inspiration. Here it is:

Ok, so there is A LOT to unpack here. The quoted tweet is not wrong. There is also nothing wrong with how poor and rich people use their money. In fact, when you hear about rich people they usually manage their money in way that the money works for them. This means investing in high risk, high reward assets. It also means finding higher interest rates on your savings. All perfectly sound things to do, make your money work for you. Now the person who did the Quote tweet above has a whole mess.

Like I just said, there is nothing wrong with saving money at a high interest rate. Its smart. Lets work backwards since the person’s last point is wrong and easy to correct. First of all, a savings account doesn’t function like your mattress or safe at home does. Savings accounts are where the bank gets it money to loan out to other people. Thats why nearly every bank saving account pays out interest. (In a lot of cases its .01 percent because of the Federal Reserve, fuck them.) My point is that putting it in a savings account doesn’t just enrich that person. On the topic of enrichment, what’s the point accepting money if not to be richer?

Alright now we go on to the first half of that tweet. The person is claiming that 600 dollars given to a poor person will have multiplier effect. You might be aware or at least vaguely by the title that “multiplier effect” is from the infamous economics John Maynard Keynes. Keynes studied economics (presumably, I don’t find him to be particularly correct on much of anything) and created a type of economics called Keynesian economics. Its not hard to understand Keynesian economics because the whole basis is on interest rates set by a central bank. Keynes somehow ignores the most important part of the economics, the part where voluntary interactions take place. If you don’t know, then you should know that the Federal Reserve and US Government both subscribe to the Keynesian economic style. (As well does the EU and EU central bank) So you might ask me why is this person wrong about the multiplier effect?

Let’s start out by explaining what Keynes meant by the multiplier effect. Its simple, its the idea that if a person or government were to spend or give an amount of money, the worth of that money would multiply as more people use it to purchase goods and services. But you see here are the two big problems: 1. Government Money 2. Taxes (theft). I think the best way to explain is by example: Let’s say the government gives 100 taxpayer paid dollars. The person who receives that pays income tax on that money so we’re down 70 (30 percent tax rate for easy maths). Then that person purchases some goods from a local shop totaling 70 dollars with sales tax. Lets says the sales tax rate is 8 percent so about 65 dollars actually spent. That local shop owner might purchase school supplies for his children with that 65 dollars. So far we’re up to 40 dollars in taxes taken out from that original 100 dollars originally from taxpayers. In the end after just 12 more transactions, the 100 dollars will completely cancelled out by taxes collected if we’re to assume the next person would spend 60 then 55 and so on. Its a very a simplistic example, yes. But my point is fairly obvious: Its a double negative, cancellation of value of the 100 dollars.

You might say but why double negative? Remember the stimulus money is coming from Government who forces you to pay taxes. So the government steals the money first, then redistributes it. Then the government double dips, stealing it once isn’t enough, they got to steal more. Whether it be income tax, sale tax, property tax or any tax. So in reality the so called “multiplier effect” should be called the government ponzi scheme effect. Its a load of crap. Now I won’t deny that many people might receive value from that stolen money but its not clean. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

You may ask but what if the multiplier effect didn’t have any government interference? In this case, I would agree that it could actually work. If a wealthy person donates money to be used by less fortunate people who didn’t get taxed, it would actually increase its value. Not only to the people using it but the money itself. I don’t think this is a hard concept to understand. The lesson here is don’t take keynesian economics as gospel. Its all bad faith number twisting.

Thank You For Supporting

This part is unrelated to the Keynesian magic trick. In this section, I want to thank all the readers over the past year. To every single visitor to this site in 2020, I want to personally thank you for reading and hopefully enjoying my blog. Its been a pleasure to write with this post, 50 posts. My blog has had its MOST SUCCESSFUL YEAR EVER. Its all thanks to the readership. We had 1,676 views, 1,258 visitors. 34 likes, and 28 comments on the day this was written, December 27th. I am hoping to do even more in 2021, my goals include simple things like changing up the look, getting a domain, possibly taking some donations, doing some kind of vocal blog posts. I absolutely love writing this blog. Right now I make zero dollars on my blog so rest assured, that I am just truly appreciative that someone wants to read my work.

I will just ask one favor for next year…. please consider hitting that follow blog button in the top right corner. It will allow to receive alerts when I post. Thank you again!

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