What Kind of Year Has It Been?

Let's just say it has not been this kind of year.

(Apologies to Aaron Sorkin.)

Don't Worry, Be Happy - The Debbie Downer Election

Shiny Happy Presidents Having Fun.

Any list of the most popular politicians in American history would include:

• Teddy Roosevelt,
• FDR,
• Dwight Eisenhower,
• JFK,
• Ronald Reagan, and
• Bill Clinton

I Declare War on Not Declaring War

The structure of our constitution is what has made it work so well.  I believe we are due for some structural work on our constitution, but in one area we just need a refresher course on what's in the Constitution and why.  War is one of the areas where the Constitution is doing just fine.  The problem is that we aren't following the Constitution.  

We have evolved from a clear form of conflict: war, as declared by Congress and executed by the President... to an executive-driven, slippery-sloping set of never-ending "police actions," conflicts, and coalition engagements.  The end result has been that our nation views the decision to go to war as an executive decision, and there are many, many reasons why the Framers did not want that to happen.

The Framers were right about giving the power to declare war to Congress.  And Congress needs to take back that power.

One of the frequent arguments in favor of our current, executive-driven form of international action is that the Framers lived in a world in which time was experienced very differently than we experience it today.

The Battle of New Orleans

Example: The battle for which Andrew Jackson is best known - The Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 - happened 2 weeks after his side had already won the war, but word hadn't gotten to Jackson yet.

And that's the type of time the Constitutional Convention was thinking about when it gave the power to declare war to Congress.

Decisions today can be made with communications links between the situation room and the field, directly.  That speed and alacrity with which a Commander-in-Chief can now respond to outside threats is important, but it's not what a declaration of war is about.  And that's not what the slide towards greater executive authority, particularly in the realm of foreign policy, is about.

Partisanship Is the Problem

Washington, warning against parties in his Farewell Address.

I'm a partisan, and it's an election year so I'm mentally inclined to be uber-partisan this year - but I can still see that partisanship over patriotism is the one of the biggest problems with America today.

2026 Book Club

This post series is here to talk about some of the books I'm reading as I think about the project and study up more on the original framers' ideas, how our government has worked over time, and suggestions people have for changing our government.


Right now, I'm reading:

Who Can Vote?

Voting Good.

I respect the Founding Fathers, and I love the leap they took for humanity when they created America.  But when they wrote things like "All Men Are Created Equal," they weren't talking about me.

Congress Isn't Working: The Productivity Problem

By the numbers, this Congress, the lucky 113th Congress is "the least productive Congress in history."

A Premise

The Constitution was not the first guiding document for the United States of America.

In 1787, the system was broken.

The shape of the Articles of Confederation (our first attempt at a federal government structure) meant a federal government hobbled and utterly incapable of responding to problems.  (More about this in a later post.)