What is an American? - a short summary

This question is related to the question: What is America?  And it is only after we know what America is can we answer what an American is.

The definition of America, if you want to call it that, is found in the Declaration of Independence.

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

America is founded on the beliefs that:

1)         all men are created equal, i.e. nobody is born to be a king or a ruler over other men.

2)         God gave people unalienable rights, rights that precede and supersede government, rights that the government cannot take away or restrict.

3)         governments are formed to protect these rights and derive their power from the people

4)         when governments fail to do their job, it is the right of the people to change it and make a new government best suited to make the people safe and happy.

But wait.  What God gave people unalienable rights, and how did they know that?

It was the God of the Bible who gave people unalienable rights.  And it was the Bible and Christianity that convinced the Founders that it was true.

Without Christianity, you don’t have unalienable rights, and without unalienable rights you don’t have the United States of America.  Government cannot give unalienable rights.  That requires a Higher Power that our nation recognizes.  A secular country cannot give you unalienable rights.  There is no higher power there than the government.

We don’t teach this anymore to our children or the millions of people who have come here, so nobody knows about unalienable rights anymore.  They know that we are the land of rights, but they are now government-given rights, rights that now require the government to do things for people generally at an enormous expense.  This is why our government is now trillions of dollars in debt; the list of rights, the list of things that the government is now required to provide for people grows with every election cycle.

Unalienable rights are at the heart of what it means to be a free people.  It also requires a high moral system, because with freedom comes great responsibility.  Either you need a strong government with thousands and thousands of police officers to control crime, or you have a people who control themselves.  We used to teach our people the Ten Commandments, Love your neighbor as yourself, and Do unto others as you would have others to unto you.  Now we only teach them to tolerate their neighbor, which can mean nothing more than to ignore him.  We have lost what it means to be an American.

Pensions and income taxes in Illinois - a letter to my state senator

Hi Laura

I hope you are doing well.

I was thinking about attending that event tonight in Evanston on the pension crisis.  But either way, since the topic is on hand, the topic of pensions is one that needs to be discussed.

A number of people are saying that the pensions in Illinois are a promise that must be kept.  Aren’t people allowed to acknowledge that they made a mistake? 

But they fail to grasp one important basic concept here: You can’t make promises for other people and their money.

I can promise that I will pay your rent for the rest of your life.  It’s my money, and I can do with it whatever I want, assuming, of course, that I have enough money to do it.  But I cannot promise that other people will pay your rent.  That’s up to the other people.

What I’m saying is that someone 50 years ago can’t make a promise that other people are supposed to keep.  Even if the whole state at that time voted on it, they don’t have a right to compel people in the future to keep their promises. 

The cost of pensions is easily the biggest single problem in Illinois.  Actually, there is a bigger one, but this one has bankrupted the state.  And it’s going to drive people a lot more people out of the state.  I had to retire a few years ago due to health issues, and we are taxed at our limit right now.  If our property taxes go any higher, we’re going to have to move, and Michigan is a real possibility.  My wife goes there a lot for vacations with her cousins.

The Illinois State Constitution has to be changed.  The pension system must be redone, top to bottom.  I have a pension.  I get around $12,000 a year for 20 years of union work.  What is different is that I am paid out of contributions that my employer paid into a fund out of his profits.  The state sees funding as an unlimited resource that they only have to figure out the way to best get it.  This is wrong.  The state sees the people as their servants rather than seeing itself as the people’s servant.  The rulermakers are making the rules, and they are seeing that they get as much as they can from the public.  This is wrong.

And as long as I’m writing here, I should add that I believe the graduated income tax should be killed.

The single biggest piece of evidence for its impropriety is the way that it is being promoted.  They are asking that people vote for a tax on other people.  The people are not voting on a measure that affects them, but a measure that only affects other people.  It is emphasized over and over that 97% of the people won’t be affected, indeed a lot of them will even benefit by taxing other people. 

That’s bribery.  Politicians are paying people to vote for taking more money from other people.  What these people don’t realize is that once the graduated tax is in place, it will make raising taxes on everyone a lot easier in the future.  When everyone pays the same rate, then politicians are accountable to everyone for every tax increase.  But with a graduated tax rate, each bracket only contains a fraction of the population, so their voice is muted. 

And there is no talk of spending cuts.  I worked my entire career in business.  Businesses routinely have hiring freezes to cut down on low production.  The government sees itself as beyond that.  There is nothing to be cut.  Ever.  From anywhere.  I find that criminally abuse of the public trust: spending people’s money without regard for their permission or financial ability.  They spend and then expect people to come along and pay for it all.  That is wrong.

Laura, I won’t be there tonight.  I have too much I need to do, and I don’t expect I would have any or enough time there to say what I think to everyone else, so I leave this with you.  You are the one who will be voting on these things.

I wish you the very best.

Larry

The wrong solution to gerrymandering

Illinois is a corrupt, bankrupt state that has been run by Democrats for decades.  Gerrymandering has been a big help to keep them in power.  A group called Fair Maps has a good following as the right alternative to this.  I don't think so, and this is what I wrote to the newspaper.

The Sun-Times ran a major opinion piece (April 7) pushing for the Fair Maps Amendment "to protect your vote."  I strongly agree the gerrymandering must be ended, but I don't believe this is the solution to the problem.  I went to the website to see be able to address each of their guiding principles.

The issue of gerrymandering is finally getting more attention.  I am concerned that in our hurried efforts to remove politics from the redistricting process, we are merely changing the form of the politics, not its presence.

This essay will look at the eight criteria used by Fair Maps to guide their districting policies:

1) COMPLY WITH THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

They say that their policies must comply with the U.S. Constitution, but then they flesh out what they think it means, but it isn’t. 

They are correct when they say that “districts should be populated equally, as nearly as is practicable.”  But they say also that “[a]ll persons -- regardless of age, citizenship, immigration status, ability or eligibility to vote – should be accurately counted through the Census.”

The Constitution doesn’t say a lot about the census, but it does have that famous 3/5 clause.  The slave states had a lot of people who were not citizens.  They were slaves.  Our Founders did not want these non-citizens to be counted equally as the citizens, because they saw this as giving more representatives to a state than it should have.  So it is not enough just to say that every person should be accurately counted

Now, of course, they did not have millions of people in our country illegally, so they didn’t give that a thought.  But they did have millions of permanent legal residents who were not citizens whom they believed should not be counted as equal to a citizen.  Should we assume that illegal residents should be counted equally as citizens when considering a state’s representation in Congress?  The clear, obvious answer is no.

But what about within a state?  A number of states don’t really care how many permanent non-legal residents it has.  Why?  Probably the biggest reason is that the federal government gives money to the states based on population.  Illinois has been losing residents for years.  It wants the tally of those who are in this country illegally included so it can get more federal money. 

So whatever happens with the census, Illinois has no intention of following the example of the U.S. Constitution.

2. COMPLY WITH FEDERAL AND STATE VOTING RIGHTS ACT

One of the goals of those who oppose gerrymandering is to get rid of districts that are clearly drawn to get a desired political end.  These districts are generally contorted strange shapes that shout ‘manipulation’ even to the most casual observer.  Under Fair Maps, this practice will continue.

Under Fair Maps, districts must be drawn “to create majority-minority, coalition, and influence districts.”  So those who draw districts apparently won’t know who is Republican and who is Democrat, but they will know every other possible demographic, and then they will decide which ones are important enough to create coalitions or which qualify for majority-minority status. 

The obvious main groups will be Hispanics and blacks.  But what about Polish, Greeks, Germans, Muslims, Jews, evangelicals, Koreans, and Chinese?  Now blacks have been noted as being heavily Democratic, as well as a number of other demographics.  A Democratic legislation couldn’t draw a more partisan district as Fair Maps is providing, though all under the guise of voting rights.

Gerrymandering also uses a tactic where in one instance it may try to put as many of its opponents into as few districts as possible to minimize their representatives.  In other cases, they might divide their opponents into as many districts as possible, again for the same reason.  It all depends on how many ‘opponents’ they have and where they are situated.

When it comes to minority representation, I think it is a mistake to assume that it is always in their best interest to put as many of them as you can in one district, thinking this will guarantee a minority representative.  That community might be better represented by having a sizable minority in a number of districts rather than a majority in one.  They might have their one representative, but they might need more voices to get anything done.

But what does voting rights even mean?  It means you have the right to vote, if you are a citizen.  It assumes too that the election is not rigged, where the district was drawn where one political party has a decided advantage.  To say that a district must be draw so that a particular ethnicity will win the election is not a voting right.  And if certain ethnicities strongly tend to vote one party, then how is a Fair Map better than a gerrymandered one?

3. COMPRISE AND UPHOLD A NON-PARTISANSHIP PROCESS

This process will rely on mapping consultants, software, and diverse decision-makers who reflect a broad range of viewpoints.

These people will create districts according to their vision of what an ideal district should look like.  They may not be elected Republicans or Democrats, but we should not think that they don’t have strong beliefs in how things should be done in our country or in our state.  Their districts will be as contorted as the ones they replace.  Will they be better?  I see no reason to be confident of that.

4. MAXIMIZE VOTER CHOICE, ELECTORAL CANDIDACY AND COMPETITIVENESS

So what exactly would this look like?  On the one hand, they have already said that they want majority-minority districts so they can elect these same minority candidates, so if you live in those districts and are not of that minority, they’ve already stacked the deck against you, assuming, of course, that each ethnic group has its own unique needs that only another person of that same ethnic group recognizes, understands, and will fight for. 

There are still some communities left that are somewhat homogeneous, like some of Chicago’s wealthier suburbs or parts of Chicago itself.  Will Fair Maps divide those communities up and share parts with other districts to make them more competitive?  Will Fair Maps recognize a community as all or majority white and keep them that way or will that be considered unfair? 

What is the goal of a competitive district?  An equal number of Republicans and Democrats. so at any time half the residents will not feel like their representative represents them?  A competitive district, as in an equally divided one, invites corruption, because you will get closer races, and the temptation to do more to win will always be there.

If a district is drawn to be non-competitive, like my Congressional District currently is, which skips a few towns to include a town on the other side of them, then we agree, that is wrong.  But it is equally wrong to take an area like an entire town and divide it up for the sake of being competitive.  Rural areas tend to be conservative, and urban areas tend to be Democratic.  Will they divide up a Democratic city like spokes of a wheel to include a enough conservative suburban voters to make it competitive?

5. RECOGNIZE AND PRESERVE COMMUNITIES OF INTEREST  “The process should give consideration to true communities of interest. To the extent possible, but secondary to the protection of voting rights, populations with common social, ethnic or economic interests and/or shared political and geographic boundaries should have unified representation.”

This doesn’t make sense.  How can having “populations with common social, ethnic or economic interests and/or shared political and geographic boundaries” with unified representation somehow be contrary to the protection of voting rights?  The definition of voting rights here is essentially rigging an election as much as a gerrymandered one.  The fact that it’s a person’s race that is involved instead of a political party doesn’t make it any less nefarious.

6. ACCURATELY INCLUDE PERMANENT RESIDENCE OF ALL ILLINOISANS

I don’t see how this is related to the matter of a fair map.  It looks more like something that was added to help the passage of this amendment.  Illinois wants to have the largest possible number in the census both to protect the number of Congressional representatives the state has as well as the amount of federal money that will come back to the state.

7. COMPRISE AND UPHOLD A TRANSPARENT AND ACCOUNTABLE PROCESS   “The process must be transparent and accountable. Meetings of decision-makers, and their legal, political and mapping consultants, must be open and accessible to the public to the greatest extent possible.”

So how is this helpful?  How many people are going to take off work to sit in on a meeting here?  How many meetings will they be able to attend?  How will they even know what is going on?  Will every member be wired for sound? 

8. PROVIDE FOR OPEN, FULL, AND MEANINGFUL PUBLIC PARTICIPATION  This, like the last point, is of limited value.  However they do it, only a very small handful of the public will participate.  All the more reason that the principles behind the project be right.  And I would say that they are not.

Any demographic, whether it be age, education, income, employment status, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sex, or sexual orientation, can be used to draw a voting district that can favor one political party over another or even certain impending legislation or societal trends. 

When we start thinking that all these demographics have competing needs and political agendas, then I think our government has gone too far in micromanaging the people.  We have lost the unity our country was built on: E pluribus unum.  Out of many, one.  Now we would be: ex unius multi.  Out of one, many.  We would be many countries trying to live in the same place.  The end result of this remains to be seen, but Fair Maps will not help us either in uniting our country or solving the problem of political redistricting.

Why the Chicago mayoral election is important even if you don't live in Chicago

As I write this, it was not known if the turnout for the 2019 Chicago mayoral election was the lowest turnout ever or if it was just abysmally low. 

But I think we are losing sight of something that nobody has even talked about. 

Both Lightfoot and Preckwinckle got less than 1 out of 5 votes in the first election.  That means that more than 4 out of 5 voters didn’t vote for them.  We don’t know if that means that they weren’t the voters first choice, or if the voters didn’t like them at all.

The city did well by having an electoral system that gave them such an abundance of candidates.  And it was right to have a runoff to ensure that the winner got more than 50% of the votes. 

What the city did not do well was to ensure it had candidates in the runoff who truly reflected the will of the people. When there are more than 3 candidates running for the same office, you need to have a system of ranked voting to accurately determine the relative strength of each candidate. 

I applaud Lori Lightfoot on her victory, but to be honest we don’t really know the extent of her support among voters.  She certainly has more support than there is for Preckwinckle, but we cannot assume that she would have had more support than Daley, Mendoza, Wilson, or any of the other candidates.  The current electoral process doesn’t give us that information. 

Why Pritzker’s Tax Proposal is a Bad Idea for Illinois

Pritzker is trying to sell his new tax proposal by telling everybody that 97% of everybody would get some tax relief.  In other words, if you want to see lower taxes, just vote to raise the tax on that small group of people over there.

What that 97% doesn’t understand is that they are handing over to the politicians the same rope that will be used to hang them later on.

 

When the state has a flat tax rate, then any changes in the tax rates affect everybody; politicians are accountable to everybody.  When everybody pays a different rate, which is what this is actually about, then politicians are accountable to nobody.  Changing to a graduated income tax will make it a lot easier in the future to raise anyone’s taxes. 

When the federal income tax was first proposed, it was also just meant for the rich.  That didn’t last long, because the government cannot get enough money to spend.  They will give you a little now, so they can come back later for more.