Dear Mr. President:

Congratulations on becoming the 44^th President of the United States. I wish you the best of success in that most difficult office. As you familiarize yourself with the White House I hope that you will take the time to read (re-read I hope) the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to remind yourself of the full burden that you are about to undertake.

Mr. President, these documents, which you spoke of so highly in your inaugural address today, deserve and require more than lip service. Much of what you spoke of in your speech is diametrically opposed to the ideals set forth in those documents. Freedom is not provided by government. It is not the government’s responsibility to help people find jobs or homes or medical care. It is the job of the government to stay out of the way, and to make sure that others stay out of the way, of each individual’s God-given freedom to make their own way in the world, powered by their own innate skills and abilities.

Mr. President, God has given us conscience and the desire to help those who cannot help themselves. Government has taken that desire away and impersonalized it, removed it from the American psyche so that now we view a homeless person and see it as a government problem, not a problem for us to deal with as individuals.

Mr. President, when we look at the world and see countries where the citizens are trapped in poverty and opportunity is denied, we cannot help them by simply sending money to their captors or extending an open hand hoping that they will unclench their fists. We must help them by opening free trade and opportunity, showing the people and their governments that the strength of any nation comes from the individuals that make up its citizenry. Those individuals, each pursuing his or her own brand of success and satisfaction, are the people that truly benefit the “common good” for as each one achieves more, they also share more, either via their purchases, their gifts, or their good works.

Mr. President, when you penalize the most successful in our country, the pain will be felt most by the least among us; for they are the ones whose jobs will be lost; they are the ones who will no longer be building homes, yachts, cars, or anything else.

Mr. President, the Declaration and the Constitution lay out these values clearly and precisely. The Constitution places sharp restrictions on the authority of the government. Although these restrictions have been honored mostly in the breach over the past 76 years, they are critically important. If you follow those restrictions and move government out of the way by reducing spending and reducing ALL taxes you will be amazed at what this country can do.

Mr. President, I pray for your success in office, I pray for the future of our nation. Please bring your capabilities and strengths to bear to ensure that our nation is more free in 2012 than it is today, that my daughter will grow up in a country founded on and still based upon individual freedom and responsibility.

God Bless you and God Bless America,

James W. Hunt

It seems to me that most people, both in America and elsewhere, think that the United States is a democracy. Even our politicians routinely refer to this country as a democracy. But the fact is that the United States is not now, nor has ever been, a democracy and our founders would be horrified if we were to become a democracy.

The United States is a republic. Every school child should know this: “…and to the republic for which it stands…” For those of you with a public school education, note that this is not about the Republican and Democrat parties, but is about our form of government. A democracy is a form of government where the people rule by popular vote; in a “pure” democracy all laws require the vote of all the people. Some countries have “representative” democracies, where the government is elected by popular vote. That is not the case here.

During the 2000 recount fiasco, we often heard the phrase “one man, one vote.” Well that is not part of how our government works and certainly not part of electing the president. Part of the genius of the form of the government our founders selected is that it is built to avoid one of the great traps of democracy: the tyranny of the majority. They avoided it by making sure that our government was structured to be responsible to all the people, not just the majority. They created three branches, of the three branches, only ½ of one them would be elected democratically. The House of Representatives is the ONLY democratically elected body in our government. In fact, it was not until 1913 and the passage of the 17^th Amendment that Senators were elected by direct vote of the people. But note that even with that change, the United States Senate is not a democratically elected body. Each state, regardless of population or size, has two Senators. Therefore people living in a more populous state are under-represented in democratic terms.

The federal judiciary is appointed, not elected. No democracy there. But what about the Presidency? Every four years, millions of people cast ballots to elect a president and vice president, or do they? In reality they do not. The President of the United States is not elected by popular vote. In fact, there is no requirement for a popular vote for President in the Constitution. The Constitution instead sets up the Electoral College which is defined in Article II Section 1.

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

While all states have decided to appoint electors by means of popular vote, it is NOT a requirement of the Constitution. It is entirely legal for the legislature of any state to decide that the Governor shall appoint the Electors. Why did the founding fathers set it up this way? Is it now irrelevant and obsolete since all 50 states have decided to use the popular vote to select electors? (Note that on election day, despite what some ballots say, votes are NOT cast for individual candidates, but rather for a slate of electors committed to those candidates.)

What is the purpose and benefit of the Electoral College? It is one of our firmest and most enduring defenses against the tyranny of the majority. Notice the makeup of the body, each state has one member for each Representative and Senator. This has the effect of giving the small states slightly more power (proportionally) than the large states. This only works in a “winner take all” scenario which is used in 48 of the 50 states. This difference is enough to prevent New York, Florida, Illinois and California from electing our president every four years. It means that candidates MUST campaign in the so-called swing states because they must carry more than just the population centers.

Abolishing the Electoral College would fundamentally destroy the delicate balance of power that founders struggled so hard to achieve for our great country.

God Bless America

However, the habit of adding or deleting parts of the Constitution to suit the whim of the reader is regrettably not limited to one political persuasion. This particular columnist, a representative of the National Center for Constitutional Studies, found a Constitutional requirement to protect marriage: “The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family, therefore governments have the responsibility to foster and protect its integrity.”

I went online and pulled up the text of the Constitution and did some searching. Nowhere did I find any reference to the words marriage or family. The closest reference to anything of the sort is in the First Amendment which I am afraid people only know in abstract.

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.

The first clause of this amendment is about religion. It says that there shall be no state established religion (the “establishment clause”) AND that there shall be no laws prohibiting the free exercise of [any] religion. Nowhere does it say or even imply that there should be a wall separating church and state. Nor does it say that the state has a responsibility to protect people from religion. In fact quite the opposite, the people who call for banning prayer at football games and graduations are clearly “prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.  

To me, the establishment clause and its qualifier emphasizing that not only can Congress not create a state religion but that it also cannot limit the free exercise of religion, are very clear. They also tell me that laws prohibiting polygamy and homosexual marriage are clearly unconstitutional limitations on the free exercise of religion. I am not commenting in any way about the morality of polygamy or homosexual marriage, that is a religious and personal issue, not a subject for government intervention. In my view, the Constitution makes it clear that individual rights are paramount and what happens between consenting adults is not a matter for government.

The entire issue of marriage as a function of government seems absurd to me. It has only become an issue for government since the tax code began to be used to manipulate societal behavior. Marriage should be purely an issue for religion, the only place government would become involved is the enforcement of the civil aspects of marriage which are simply a contract between individuals. As is the case with any contract between individuals, when a dispute arises it is the purview of the civil courts to resolve that dispute. This is a state and local function not a federal function.