One-Party Rule Does Away With Transparency

Maybe it's just because she is the first female speaker of the house...who knows -- but Nancy Pelosi's wardrobe has been getting a ton of attention of late with most of the discussion revolving around her signature strand of South Sea Cultured Pearls, which are estimated to cost around 80k!! Caption and Image Credit: diamondvues.com

One-Party Rule Does Away With Transparency

Be afraid, be very afraid – Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Party Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, fearing nothing in terms of expense to political capital or a push back from a Democrat Political Party controlled Executive Branch when Barack Obama take office on January 20, 2009, will seek to dispense with a few of those pesky openness and legislative transparency rules that govern the law making procedures that currently guide the way our elected representatives in the House of Representatives do their business.

What this means is that many of the processes that were once open to scrutiny from the public (you and me … voters), rebuttal from factions with a different viewpoint, and those just plain caring for more democracy and debate rather than less will have less influence upon how things get done in our government.

In the most simple of terms, Nancy Pelosi plans to reduce the freedoms of a majority of Americans making the processes in the 111th session of the House of Representatives one where the Nation of citizens serves the acts of the House of Representatives as opposed to the concept that the House of Representatives serves for the acts of the Nation of citizens.

America the free will turn a corner where this is no longer a nation by the people, for the people …

In Article I of the U.S. Constitution, "all legislative powers" were "vested in a the House of Representatives of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." The House of Representatives has the responsibility to debate and create the laws under which our country operates. Image Credit: crapo.senate.gov

This excerpted and edited from U.S. Constitution Online –

Constitutional Topic: The Preamble
This Topic Page concerns The Preamble. The first paragraph of the Constitution provides the context for the Constitution - the "why" of the document.

The Constitution was written by several committees over the summer of 1787, but the committee most responsible for the final form we know today is the "Committee of Stile and Arrangement". This Committee was tasked with getting all of the articles and clauses agreed to by the Convention and putting them into a logical order. On September 10, 1787, the Committee of Style set to work, and two days later, it presented the Convention with its final draft. The members were Alexander Hamilton, William Johnson, Rufus King, James Madison, and Gouverneur Morris. The actual text of the Preamble and of much of the rest of this final draft is usually attributed to Gouverneur Morris.

The newly minted document began with a grand flourish - the Preamble, the Constitution's r'aison d'etre. It holds in its words the hopes and dreams of the delegates to the convention, a justification for what they had done. Its words are familiar to us today, but because of time and context, the words are not always easy to follow. The remainder of this Topic Page will examine each sentence in the Preamble and explain it for today's audience.

We the People of the United States

The Framers were an elite group - among the best and brightest America had to offer at the time. But they knew that they were trying to forge a nation made up not of an elite, but of the common man. Without the approval of the common man, they feared revolution. This first part of the Preamble speaks to the common man. It puts into writing, as clear as day, the notion that the people were creating this Constitution. It was not handed down by a god or by a king - it was created by the people.

[not elite leaders who seek less openness in the way the transact their daily business]

in Order to form a more perfect Union

The Framers were dissatisfied with the United States under the Articles of Confederation, but they felt that what they had was the best they could have, up to now. They were striving for something better. The Articles of Confederation had been a grand experiment that had worked well up to a point, but now, less than ten years into that experiment, cracks were showing. The new United States, under this new Constitution, would be more perfect. Not perfect, but more perfect.

establish Justice

Injustice, unfairness of laws and in trade, was of great concern to the people of 1787. People looked forward to a nation with a level playing field, where courts were established with uniformity and where trade within and outside the borders of the country would be fair and unmolested. Today, we enjoy a system of justice that is one of the fairest in the world. It has not always been so - only through great struggle can we now say that every citizen has the opportunity for a fair trial and for equal treatment, and even today there still exists discrimination. But we still strive for the justice that the Framers wrote about.

[Pelosi’s move seeks to make this process less transparent, less fair, and strives for less justice in the process of the House of Representatives]

insure domestic Tranquility

One of the events that caused the Convention to be held was the revolt of Massachusetts farmers knows as Shays' Rebellion. The taking up of arms by war veterans revolting against the state government was a shock to the system. The keeping of the peace was on everyone's mind, and the maintenance of tranquility at home was a prime concern. The framers hoped that the new powers given the federal government would prevent any such rebellions in the future.

provide for the common defence

The new nation was fearful of attack from all sides - and no one state was really capable of fending off an attack from land or sea by itself. With a wary eye on Britain and Spain, and ever-watchful for Indian attack, no one of the United States could go it alone. They needed each other to survive in the harsh world of international politics of the 18th century.

promote the general Welfare

This, and the next part of the Preamble, are the culmination of everything that came before it - the whole point of having tranquility, justice, and defense was to promote the general welfare - to allow every state and every citizen of those states to benefit from what the government could provide. The framers looked forward to the expansion of land holdings, industry, and investment, and they knew that a strong national government would be the beginning of that.

[by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE - not billions of collected tax money by the government, for the government to expand its holdings in industry, investment in junk mortgages, and land - as in houses]

and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

Hand in hand with the general welfare, the framers looked forward to the blessings of liberty - something they had all fought hard for just a decade before. They were very concerned that they were creating a nation that would resemble something of a paradise for liberty, as opposed to the tyranny of a monarchy, where citizens could look forward to being free as opposed to looking out for the interests of a king. And more than for themselves, they wanted to be sure that the future generations of Americans would enjoy the same.

[The House of Representatives seeks to become more tyrannical and less open]

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America

The final clause of the Preamble is almost anti-climatic, but it is important for a few reasons - it finishes the "We, the people" thought, saying what we the people are actually doing; it gives us a name for this document, and it restates the name of the nation adopting the Constitution. That the Constitution is "ordained" reminds us of the higher power involved here - not just of a single person or of a king, but of the people themselves. That is it "established" reminds us that it replaces that which came before - the United States under the Articles (a point lost on us today, but quite relevant at the time).
Reference Here>>

The Preamble according to the new, 111th House of Representatives:

We, the House of Representatives, in order to promote ourselves over the scrutiny of the common man, dispense with these rules of openness in procedure and debate so that we can grasp even more power (with less shared power and input), as we seek to establish a ruling class without the insight and rancor from the masses. We do ordain and establish these changes in our rules for the Democrat Political Party to the detriment of all other points of view and justice for the common man ruled by this governmental body.

Thank you Democrat Political Party and it’s Majority Leader, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

Kiss liberty and the pursuit of happiness here, during this time of one-party rule / Carter's Second Term, GOODBYE!