Sent: Monday, June 20, 2016 1:01 PM

Subject: Fixing our nation

These days it is easy to send one piece of depressing news after another.  I am getting sick of that—as I am sure your are—and of course sickened by what I see in the news on a daily basis that is destroying our nation.

The more I study the events that have led and continue to lead to the destruction of our nation, the more I am convinced that the root cause for our national demise is the failure of the church in America to be the watchman, be a the local town hall, and the educator to see that the congregations and hence the public understand the necessity of the Constitution to protect their freedom of religion—while also educating them to the lies the enemy is using to undermine those freedoms, as well as what must be done to repair it and protect it.

If you are not a Christian, then you probably cannot agree with the above statement regarding the responsibility of the church.  However, as a Christian, it is my belief that the wisdom of man always will lead to negative unintended consequences…in other words, a person or people operating without the wisdom and direction of our Creator will simply make one short-sighted mistake after another until we have made a shambles, an absolute mess of a situation.  And, that is what we now have in America—a real mess. 

Like Humpty Dumpty—all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again.  If we want to restore this nation, it is going to take a combination of people acting in the wisdom of God and it being the will of God to restore this nation.

Below is a short bulleted list of what used to be and is rapidly being destroyed:

· Our Constitution – adherence to the integrity of its original intent as a federalist system of a limited federal government with sufficient protections and safeguards to avoid government abuse.

· Without imposing a state religion, maintaining a basic respect for Judeo/Christian values, which provided the generally accepted moral standard for society.

· Melting Pot – multi-cultures are expected to embrace American values and assimilate into the common culture.

· To be a land of opportunity with minimal laws as necessary to avoid anarchy and reasonable protection of the public and natural resources, while providing the opportunity for religious, educational opportunity, use of private property, free enterprise, and freedom to flourish.

· A sense of national integrity, self-respect for American values with a healthy sense of national pride and unity.

· A basic respect for the rule of law and practices that maintain the fairness of the law.

· A healthy realization and caution that other nations and peoples do not necessarily respect or share similar values to those that allowed for the freedom and opportunity available in the United States of America—thus we must exercise caution on our foreign involvements and with those we allow access into our nation.

I strongly recommend that you take one hour to view or listen to the speech by Rafael Cruz regarding church involvement:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeytBEmYEoE  It is powerful, and needs to be said.

Though I am repeating myself somewhat, I believe every church in America needs to educate its congregation in the importance of our constitution and how it protects our religious freedom—and provide ongoing instruction in how the enemy is corrupting it and what needs to be done to fix it.  Perhaps, with God’s will and our submission to His will, the national trend towards destruction will be reversed. 

I optimistically believe that that if churches do this—without trying to impose Christianity as the federal religion on the nation—that  their pews will soon be filled with a public eager to embrace a positive direction and implementable plan on how this nation can be saved. 

In my opinion’ it is going to require a very extensive use of creativity in the dramatic film/video industry to educate and turn on those light bulbs in the public mind—for our society to both recognize the source of societal destruction and what needs to be done to fix it.  With the garbage coming out of Hollywood these days, a huge vacuum exists for high quality dramas that entertain, excite, awaken, and ultimately motivates and invigorates the audience towards both the problem and the solution.  In developing media, I am not referring to your typical Christian, documentary, or Pollyanna type films that are currently being produced…but films geared to the masses, the millennials, and the 47% Romney referred to—a public hungry for entertainment, who feed on the real nitty gritty, no holds barred reality, such as our Bible provides…the unvarnished truth. 

I believe that (though it will take a miracle) a united grass roots in America could reverse the trend, and set our nation on a path to correct itself, and confront and combat the enemy—who wants power over us—in a single election cycle. 

Below is a rough draft of some things that I believe necessary to fix our nation at the federal government level. States and local governments are another issue, but you can only go so far in repairing government without first fixing the feds.  Any feedback would be appreciated.

Fixing the federal government:

America must decide whether it wants a government where We the People have self-government, as envisioned by our founders when they framed the U.S. Constitution, or whether they want the corrupted version as we have now, where with minor exceptions, big money and special interests govern in ways that are contrary to the general welfare and contrary to the will of the people. 

Most of what needs to be done can be fixed by a clarification of the original intent of portions of the Constitution and a strict adherence to original intent.  Fixing the Congress is a biggee, and one which will require two Constitutional Amendments, one to repeal the 17^th Amendment (which destroyed the Senate’s ability to enforce the 10^th Amendment or represent the people) and the passage of an Amendment similar to Article the First, which was the first of the 12 amendments approved by Congress in 1789 (10 of which comprise what we refer to as the Bill of Rights).  All 12 were sent to the states for ratification.  Article the First was meant to bracket the size of a congressional district such that for every 50,000 people in the nation we would have one representative—possibly because it was so critical to the concept of self-government by We the People, it was sabotaged and did not get ratified.

50,000 (as approved by the House) or 60,000 (as approved in the Senate version) represents a practical maximum for a congressional district population if we want to provide reasonable assurance that the local citizens can adequately select and elect representatives known to them and which represent the local community interests—and be fooled by propaganda and special interests.

If such reasonably sized districts are enforced at the federal and state level, and the 17^th Amendment repealed, then the legislatures at each statehouse will be accountable to the people and thus tempered in their selection of a Senator, and House members will be accountable to their local district.  Of course big money and cunning will still be in the loop, but the people will be able to protect themselves much better from such influence. 

Graph showing how the population size of House Districts have grown over the years.  The sudden change upswing since 1911 is the result of Congress freezing the size of the House membership to the current 435 members.

If we do not shrink the population of congressional districts back to a manageable size, then we cannot be a self-governed people, as large districts make it impractical for the public to actually know the candidates—or even select them—other than to vote from a list of what is submitted to them by the powerful interests that have the capability to control big government operations. 

Everything suggested below as possible fixes could be accomplished in a single election cycle if the general public bought into it, we selected and elected representatives committed to its implementation.  Some clarification (restoration of original intent) to the Constitution is required as with the repeal of the 17^th Amendment and the passage of a new amendment to replace the original amendment (Article the First) approved by Congress in 1789, but not properly ratified by the states due to a clerical or intentional error.

• We the People – We need to understand that not just does the status quo with regard to the election process and lawmaking process not work in America, what we have is not what our founders envisioned via the Constitution. We the people must have the power and ability to not just select candidates of our choice, but also be the instigators of what is needed in regard to new law.  This is a necessary ingredient to promote self-government and inhibit money, propaganda, and special interests from controlling the outcome selection and election process of representatives and forcing special interest laws down our throats.
• General Welfare – does not include catering to special interests.  At the federal level all law and justice must be geared to assure the general welfare is promoted, which would include prohibiting State and local law that discriminated against opportunity for certain segments of society.  To accomplish this would include phasing out all federal welfare programs while mandating the reopening of doors of opportunity in regard to work, free enterprise, private property rights, and education.
• First Amendment – Religious freedom – acknowledge that Secular Humanism is as much a religious perspective as any competing belief system and that federal government cannot play favorites by excluding traditional Judeo/Christian values while enforcing Secular Humanism (which is simply a secular belief system) on the public. 
• Bracket the size of Congressional Districts (pass something similar to Article the First) so that districts cannot continually expand in population size but be limited to something in the range as approved by Congress in 1789 (50,000 to 60,000 or something in a similar range).  Granted, this will mean 6,000 or so House members, but that can easily be made workable and via modern technology they can mostly reside in their home districts to remain accountable and vote and discuss via computer technology.
• Repeal the 17^th Amendment to restore the original intent by our founders for the Senate to represent the interests of the states.  And, for the benefit of the States repeal the Supreme Court decisions (Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims) of 1962–1964, which was an un-Constitutional federal overreach and interference in State management of its internal affairs.
• Restore original intent of the Commerce Clause—which was to prevent the individual states from hindering interstate commerce; it did not provide for federal control over industry, agriculture, or to create price controls.  We need to repeal all law and federal agencies resulting from this unconstitutional corruption of the Commerce Clause—this will render minimum wage laws and much of the federal bureaucracy as unconstitutional.
• Emphasize that the Constitution does not provide for life tenures for federal judges, only for good behavior (Impeach and expel from the bench any and all judges that either try to legislate for the bench or demonstrate a disregard for maintaining the integrity of the Constitution)
• Correct the misconstruction of the 14 Amendment, Section 1 that the provision for citizenship only pertains to children born of U.S. Citizens, not visitors or illegal aliens.
• Reference the enumerated powers of Article 1, Section 8:  Repeal all law and disband all federal agencies that exceed those specifically prescribed in the Constitution as a federal responsibility.
• Immediately repeal specific recent laws and Supreme Court decisions that exceed federal jurisdiction, to include Obamacare, Dodd/Frank, Roe vs Wade, and the recent ruling on marriage.
• Establish a sunset law for all laws passed since 1900 that continue to impact government operations or society to the present day, with the caveat that any similar bill be reintroduced to congress based on grass roots support by various congressional districts or state legislatures prior to being submitted as new legislation for Congressional approval. 
• Restore Congressional control over the valuation of our currency and stop the feds from devaluing our currency an average of 3% or more each year.

Additionally, we need to educate public to the following aspects and create appropriate law to enforce it:

• Public education via taxation—the sole function of the federal government in regard to education should be to insure that states and municipalities do not tax the public to generate money for education and then force feed its particular brand of education on the taxpayer’s children.  A pro-rated share of the tax revenue should be available (void of strings) to allow the parents to use it as tuition at a school of their choice.
• Gerrymandering—this is a corruption of the districting process and needs to end.  A formula (undoubtedly a computer software application) should be developed and implemented that would develop the boundaries for congressional districts during reapportionments that takes into account population densities, city and county boundaries and would be independent of political manipulation.
• Lobbying government officials and elected representatives independent of a public forum should be considered a crime.  Government officials and elected representatives must be at all times accountable to the people.  If special interests want to lobby for something, it should be done in a public forum with the people involved and with their approval.  Representatives cannot be free agents to act independent of the public they represent.
• Representatives are not free agents—but subject to local districts regarding stance on any proposed legislation.  Proposed legislation must either be proposed or thoroughly vetted by the public from the district of the Representative.
• House and Senate rules not prescribed by the Constitution are subject to revision and for a start, it would likely be a good idea to scrap it all and start afresh. 
• Once we have realigned the federal government with the original intent of the Constitution, there should not be that much domestic legislation needed on a regular basis at the federal level and that most legislation would be at the state or local level—and preferably and the most local level possible.

· Promote the idea that all representative districts, not just federal, but also state and local should be of small enough size that the forces of big money or special interests cannot unduly influence the public in selecting representatives known to them and who share similar values—thus the idea that a number like 50,000 to 60,000 population being a max size for a representative district should be promoted as a necessary ingredient for a society where We the People maintain a self-governing capability.

• While private sector employees have the right to collective bargaining and formation of unions, the situation with government employees is different as the employer is the tax-payer, not the elected representatives or bureaucratic agencies.  Public sector unions—unless the actual labor agreements are vetted and approved by some ongoing process by the general public—should be construed as unconstitutional.  This would include the public sector teacher unions. 
• People really need to be educated to the fact that it is not the responsibility of the federal government to provide actual funding or resources to needy groups of people, but to help assure that on a national and local level that fair opportunity exists for people to live without crushing government interference in limiting opportunities for education, use and development of private property, or community values, or the right of individuals to sell their labor on the open market without imposed price controls, and engage in free enterprise.
• I have no idea how we are going to get rid of the national debt, but by as quickly as possible reducing the size of government, phasing out federal welfare programs in conjunction with opening opportunities for the poor to get a decent education, develop private property they acquire without undo government regulation, and free themselves from labor price controls and undo regulation that hinder entrepreneurship—we can grow our workforce and simultaneously reduce the cost of living. Of course private charities and the church needs to expand its involvement (once government backs off) to help people in need get on their feet. A good source of information on the history of the dichotomy between government and private involvement in helping the poor is a book by Marvin Olasky, THE TRAGEDY OF AMERICAN COMPASSION.

This is simply a draft of some ideas on what I believe needs to be done to fix this nation.  Please offer me your thoughts and ideas—including your disagreements.