Some of the crowd around the Fire Ring at Refuge Farm were wearing shorts. The Lady in Red on the flatscreen in the bunk house had done an ominous turn in her weather reporting, saying that the relatively cool Spring was going to transition into a weekend with temperatures in the 90s.
Splash was wearing an aloha shirt and cargo shorts. He shivered a bit, since it started cool this morning. The rest of the circle was moderate in approach, wearing jeans and sweaters that could be shed as the temperatures increased.
DeMille, our de facto production chief, waved his phone around. “I got a note from Amanda that she had tested negative and would return to support compliance with acceptable publishable material next week. Since she is still out today, and it is likely to get warm, I propose we get something topical and mildly ironic out before the sun gets much higher.”
There was general agreement. Splash wanted vigorous discussion. Loma, the former bombardier-navigator, wanted to do some decent planning to ensure our literary targets were clear. Rocket, the F/A-18 pilot, wanted to talk about the new ‘Topgun’ movie that seems to put book-ends on his flying career. Melissa was concerned about how things were supposed to work on her carefully-crafted retirement portfolio. She said she lost $9,000 on Thursday, and hoped there would be enough left in her 401k to get through the weekend. Agnes started a crocheting a new blanket with Fall colors.
“OK, let’s just be specific about the things we are not going to talk about skeptically,” said DeMille with a scowl. “That would include: the Weather. Inflation. The Border. The National Debt. Cancelling student loans. Energy policy.”
Melissa is logical, and she had some issues. She was concerned some apparently really important stuff had been allowed to happen because of things done by-and-to people who have been arguably deceased for as much as two hundred years.
“Let’s face it,” she said firmly. “The Administrative State is not elected, and has been producing rules and regulations without legislative input for decades. I read that there are something like Federal 5,000 regulations in place, and all of us could be found in violation of at least one of them every day.” She glanced up at one of the Turkey Buzzards that soar over The Farm, graceful in flight and ugly as sin in person. They are unmolested since they are protected by the Migratory Species Act.
Splash laughed. “That is US Code, passed by Congress, and we could always put up a windmill to get rid of them.”
“Under EPA regulation, it would be a renewable way of dealing with that problem,” said Rocket, also thinking a low pass at mach speed in a Hornet jet would serve the same purpose. If he could afford to purchase and maintain one.
Economist Buck drained the dregs of his Cock Full O’ Nuts from his generous thermal mug. He became more relaxed once we got away from jets and buzzards. “We have often talked about the Administrative State and all the stuff it seems to do all on its own. There is an argument that this should be done in a manner consistent with the Constitution. That means we should talk about what has been done to end-arounds to our founding documents.”
“There has been a lot of discussion about the First Amendment and the proposed Office to control “Mal-Dis-Mis” in DHS. It would seem to be a clear attempt to control disagreement in speech by calling it something else.”
“Yeah, but the reaction to what was called the Ministry of Truth stopped it.”
“The word used was ‘paused,’ which isn’t exactly the same thing as “stopping.”
“Yeah, but they made that lady stop singing about it. So, that is the 1st. The 2nd Amendment is pretty clear. It says “shall not be infringed,” which is pretty simple. Some folks claim there are 20,000 Federal, State and local laws that infringe on it.”
“You forgot about the well-regulated militia part. There are only 300 Federal laws on the books.”
“They might want to enforce some of them. What about the 4th and that thing about people’s papers and stuff being protected? The Ad agencies can follow you around wherever you travel on the web. They can record what you look for and what you comment on. The Feds can now just buy that data without the warrants they used to have to get. And of course they buy it with our money.”
DeMille smiled a little sadly at the litany. “You don’t even get to the 10th Amendment. That was the Framers attempt to sum up that any power not specifically mentioned as being given to the National government is reserved to the States and the People. They aren’t ‘taken away’ from the Feds, since they were never empowered with that power in the beginning. That right comes from somewhere else.”
“OK, so what caused all the confusion? We have had more than 33 Amendments proposed to change the Constitution and 27 of them have been passed. All conformed to the Constitutional process.”
“And the 18th was passed and repealed.”
“What was that one?”
There were smiles all around the Ring. Buck summed it up nicely. “Prohibition essentially enabled the creation of an illegal means of producing and distributing alcohol at vast untaxed profit. It enabled the Mob to go from local to national. So, that was an inadvertent result of a well-intentioned attempt to deal with a social problem.”
Since the group was in favor of possibly indulging in exactly that social problem soon after lunch, we decided to avert discussion on that matter.
Buck summed it up nicely. “The problem is the abbreviated congressional work week. Due to the increased requirement to generate funds even for ethical campaigning, many members of Congress have to return to their Districts to raise cash almost every week. Even with longer legislative terms, many of their work weeks in DC only run Tuesday-to-Thursday. There are too many things that require rule-making to take the time to ensure they are fair and impartial.”
“So they outsourced all that to unelected people in the Executive Branch.”
DeMille raised both hands to signal a halt to the morning deliberations. “See? Our government is so vast now that we have unofficially established an Administrative State with oversight partially entrusted to a part-time Congress and a rigorous and objective journalistic establishment.”
There was general laughter at that idea and Splash rose to signal his departure. “I need to go saddle up for the two-day ride up to Washington,” he said. “It is almost seventy miles away. And that will mean a stop at Belmont Farms to stock up a couple bottles for the trip. I intend to read about the 18th Amendment on the way to see if they could have done Prohibition just by Executive Order.”
Loma frowned as he got up, pausing to give a courteous bow to Melissa. “You can just imagine how a Constitutional Convention to get things straightened out would turn out these days.”
She smiled at the very idea. “That might be how we got where we are.”
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