Talk:Saving South Sudan

Discussion of the proposed UTSS Constitution in General

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Discussion of Specific Parts of the UTSS Constitution

Arranged in order, with links between the section of the Constitution and this Discussion

Preview #11 Freedom of Religion & Speech

(11) to protect freedom of religion, which means there can be no federal law, passed by Congress, forcing anyone to attend, give to, agree with, or pay taxes to, any religious organization.

Nor any law that limits the free expression by any citizen or government official of any religious view, but especially these principles found exclusively in Christianity: abhorrence of slavery, of torture, of war (except in self defense), of less than equal protection of the laws for the most vulnerable (women, children, orphans, immigrants), of bribes, and of sexual violence.

However, federal laws may restrict speech – even religious speech – which persuasively calls people to commit crimes as defined by the laws of Congress, (which represent the majority of South Sudanese voters), on communication platforms which cross tribal boundaries.

Discussion

1. 11 says what the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution was originally understood to mean.

There was a problem in early America that is like the problem in South Sudan today with Christian and Moslem tribes trying to live side by side under the same laws. In Christian tribes today, slavery and many things done to women are crimes, and it is a crime to even promote them, while in Moslem tribes they are religious obligations which they can’t avoid promoting when they read their scriptures in public! How can they live together in peace?

From 1789 to 1860, the Southern states held slaves – some captured from Sudan by Moslems – which was a serious crime in the laws of the Northern States. Both sides stood on the same Scriptures! So the division then should have been much easier to resolve than the division today. But the division was supported by violently different claims about those same Scriptures.

Then there was war. Four years. The war that produced the most casualties of any war in U.S. history, 750,000, and the only war in world history fought by free men, to free slaves.

The war didn’t stop when the troops went home. The bullets stopped, but the lawyers started. In the United States, the 13th Amendment was enacted in 1866 to outlaw slavery except for conviction for a crime, so the Southern states simply passed laws against what everybody does, that applied only to blacks. Blacks “violated” these “laws”, and then were “sentenced” to slavery.

So the 14th Amendment was enacted in 1868 that made states give everybody “equal protection of the laws”. There could be no laws that applied more to blacks than to others. This was the first time, since the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1789, that the federal laws and courts had jurisdiction over what states do within their own borders.

Although it is very good that slavery was finally outlawed throughout the United States, jurisdiction over the internal affairs of states has been evil.

For example, based on that same “equal protection of the laws” clause of our 14th Amendment, our Supreme Court has ordered all states to allow mothers to kill their unborn babies, for the past 44 years. And now courts are using it to force states to certify sodomite (homosexual) “marriage”.

It took a bloody civil war, and the irregular passage of Constitutional Amendments without letting Southern Congressmen even vote, to finally outlaw slavery in Christian America. It may be much more difficult for the UTSS to force Moslem tribes to give up slavery and subjugation of women, where those crimes are embedded and honored in their religion!

So this will be a choice faced by South Sudanese: do you want a government that will force all tribes to give all their citizens “equal protection of the laws”, the way the 14th Amendment does for the U.S.? Do you want to force all tribes to apply its laws equally to all people? Or do you want the federal government to let such tribes alone, to live by whatever religious values they choose?

In other words, do you want to outlaw Sharia?

In other words, where you have a Moslem tribe, do you want to make it a condition of joining the UTSS, that they outlaw slavery and subjugation of women, and all the rest of their Qu’ran-honored crimes? So that if they refuse, they may not join the UTSS but will become their own sovereign nation, like a Native American tribe, within South Sudan’s borders?

Federal jurisdiction over the equality of laws within tribes will place a considerable burden on federal courts.

Unless the UTSS Constitution clearly asserts such jursidiction, Federal laws will have no jurisdiction over laws any Tribe may make concerning activity within its borders. Congress may pass only federal laws.

For example, a Moslem tribe may choose to retain slavery. However, if its slaves were captured from across its borders, federal laws have jurisdiction. If people are held by a tribe who never wanted to be members of the tribe, and who have not been lawfully convicted of any crime, that is kidnapping across a tribal border and a federal matter.

Perhaps there is value in permitting evil to continue among those who choose it, as a reminder to the rest of the land how ugly it is. But a federal Congress with jurisdiction over “man stealing” across borders, may establish extradition agreements to free people forced by a tribe to join it, or to be Moslems.

As for visitors to a tribe, they are subject to its laws while visiting, just as visitors to another U.S. State, or to any other country, are subject to its laws while visiting. It is only a small problem in the U.S., where the variation is not nearly so dramatic as between Christian and Moslem laws. The federal government may certainly issue warning bulletins for tourists.

Governor Abbot of Texas wants to pass a Constitutional Amendment to “1. Prohibit Congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one State.” That’s what the U.S. Constitution did, before 1868. Its collision with “equal protection of the laws” may need more discussion of how they can operate side by side in America.

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1-1 The House

The Legislature of the United Tribes of Southern Sudan, consisting of a Senate and House of Representatives, is the only body authorized by this Constitution to create laws. Adapted from Article 1, Section 1, U.S. Constitution

Discussion

In other words, neither the President nor the Supreme Court can pass laws. The President can veto laws, thus forcing Congress to pass them by a 2/3 majority rather than just a “simple” majority (over 50%). But the President can’t pass a law. Today, our president’s cabinet writes “administrative laws” authorizing bureaucrats to swarm across America writing rules, levying fines, and seizing property, and our Supreme Court sometimes overturns laws and writes new ones, but these powers are not in our Constitution.

Here is a choice for Sudanese: should the UTSS legislature be called “Congress”? How about “Parliament”, or simply “Legislature” – meaning the body that legislates, or passes laws?

“Parliament” means where the executive, the Prime Minister, is elected by the legislature from its own members; in a “Congress”, the President is independent and is elected directly by the people. There are a few other differences.

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1-1-1 Composition and Election of Members

(Article 1, Section 1, Clause 1) Members of the House of Representatives will be elected every two years, from each tribe, by the adults of that tribe, by secret ballot. Candidates must be as qualified as leaders of their Tribal Council. The President has no legal power to appoint Representatives, remove Representatives, or to influence elections by any exercise of law. Adapted from Article 1, Section 1, Clause 1, U.S. Constitution

Discussion

Tribes, or States? A choice to consider is whether the subdivisions of the South Sudan government should be tribes, or the current system of 32 “states”, increased recently from the 10 created by the 2011 Constitution.

When you tell people where you are from, do you say “I am from ____ state” or “I am from ____ tribe”?

What authority settles issues within a tribe or between tribes: the state governor, or the tribal council?

What political subdivision has been constant for generations, with boundaries everyone has known for years: tribes, or states?

Divisions by tribes are natural, fixed, and familiar. Self government within tribes is centuries-old habit. Tribes may be a more stable foundation of government than the new “states” whose number changes about every two years, led by governors not elected by the people they govern but appointed by someone from another tribe.

This will be a choice for South Sudanese. Perhaps states will continue to be the choice. Meanwhile these proposals will proceed as if Tribes will prove the preferred subdivision.

What others say about the importance of tribal authority:

The Brookings Institute recommends: “Integrate traditional institutions into conflict resolutjion mechanisms. Ethnic groups in South Sudan, like in other parts of Africa, have long employed traditional institutions (e.g., village or tribal councils) to resolve conflicts. As part of the nation-building project, South Sudan should carefully examine these traditional institutions and incorporate them into its constitutionally mandated legal and judicial institutions in ways that are consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and other international treaties and conventions.”

Sudan: Behind the defiance, a whirr of diplomacy - May 7th 2009 - Violence in south Sudan - Old problems in the new south - Southern Sudan is becoming bloodier than Darfur - Jun 2nd 2009 Middle East and Africa “Tribal councils come together to make what we Dinka term “the good decision.” 

When conflicts arise or situations present themselves, the people, led by their chiefs and their elders, will sit in a circle to discuss what needs to be done. This is the traditional way, and it apparently has worked over many, many generations.” Seed of South Sudan: Memoir of a ‘Lost Boy’ Refugee by Majok Marier and Estelle Ford-Williamson, pub. McFarland, p. 168,

These sorts of tribal fights over access to the best grazing lands have been at the heart of many of Sudan's bloody wars. Up to the 1980s, such conflict was well managed by local inter-tribal councils. Such forums used to resolve how far the nomadic tribes, or pastoralists, would be allowed to bring their cattle through the lands of settled farmers. The marauding herds would cause a lot of damage as they passed through the farmers' fields; but inter-tribal councils worked out the compensation that the nomads had to pay to the farmers as a result.

This system, however, broke down in the 1980s after the terrible drought and famine of the early 1980s, during which some nomadic tribes lost as much as 80% of their livestock. Furthermore, many of the Arab tribes were now armed, for their own political purposes, by the Islamist politicians in the central government in Khartoum. This made the young nomads much less inclined to use old peaceful arbitration methods; now the armed nomads could just shoot their way through.

But it is dispiriting that these clashes still happen, and on the scale of the past few weeks. In recent years the UN and international NGOs have tried to revive the old tribal arbitration systems, even demarcating the seasonal migration routes with clearly marked poles. Yet still the fighting continues, in the south, in the centre and in Darfur.

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1-1-3 Apportionment of Members and Taxes

(Article 1, Section 1, Clause 3) The populations of the Tribes will determine how many Representatives they have in Congress, and how much tax each Tribe owes directly to the UTSS. Adapted from Article 1, Section 1, Clause 3, U.S. Constitution (That clause from the U.S. Constitution matches from here through the end of the following chart.)

Refugees in the Bush and in refugee camps, who do not pay taxes to the Tribes, and do not participate in elections, will not be counted as part of the populations of the Tribes.

The Census, which shall record only the NUMBER of eligible voters – not names, addresses, or children – shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United Tribes, and every 10 years afterwards, as Congress directs by law.

There will be one Representative for every forty thousand population, using rounding to establish the number. Until the first census is conducted, the following chart shows the Representatives allowed each tribe. Representatives of tribes numbering less than 10,000 will have 1/2 vote and 3/4 the expense account of other representatives; representatives of tribes numbering less than 5,000 will have 1/4 vote and 1/2 the expense account. Their tribes may make up the differences, and their representative will have the same right to speak as others, or may combine with other small tribes to reach a total 10,000 population and elect someone to represent them.

Discussion

Originally the U.S. federal government did not collect taxes from individuals; thus the federal government had no reason or excuse to keep everybody's name and address, or to track the movements of every citizen. “Direct Taxes” meant taxes paid directly by states to the federal government.

In the fiscal year 2015-2016 the GRSS collected a PIT, Personal Income Tax, of 1.138 billion SSP, or $69 million USD, less than 10% of its total revenue. There are several reasons to abolish this tax, just as it was in America before our 16th Amendment created our personal income tax.

Income Tax creates a government record of every individual, making it easy for tyrants to find and identify its victims. There is no good reason for a national government to track all its citizens. There are many bad reasons. See Revelation 13 and 14, and compare Numbers 1 with 1 Chronicles 1 and 2 Samuel 24. Or see “Why the ‘Mark of the Beast’ Matters” or “E-verify too close to the Mark of the Beast for comfort” or “E-verify’s Fatal Problems”.

It forces individuals to spend considerable time counting money which would be better spent making money.

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1-1-3b Apportionment of Members and Taxes

(Article 1, Section 1, Clause 3) ...The Census, which shall record only the NUMBER of eligible voters – not names, addresses, or children – shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United Tribes, and every 10 years afterwards, as Congress directs by law.

Discussion: 

Although the U.S. Constitution doesn't specifically limit the amount of information which census workers can record, it was understood then that a government able to monitor its citizens is a tyranny, so the first Census recorded only last names and how many in each county had that same name. Exodus 30:12-16 attaches grave importance to conducting a Census so it is not only accurate, but so that not even names are recorded: every citizen gives a fixed sum of money, and only the money is counted. In each region, every citizen walks through a line and drops his money, too quickly for any scribe to record his name.

His chief is there, who will know if anyone is missing. The federal government doesn’t need to know. The chief is motivated to get everyone there because the more people they count, the more representatives the tribe has in Congress; but the chief is not motivated to get more representatives by emptying his own purse into the pot to create fictitious voters, because the sum of money required to significantly increase his power would make him poor.

God placed so much emphasis on this system that He said the money actually constituted “a ransom for his soul, that there be no plague among them”. A “ransom” is something which buys freedom for someone in captivity, and certainly this system “buys” safety from dictators.

It was more of a burden on the poor than on the rich, because everyone paid the same amount – it equaled about a week’s salary. But the poor benefited more than the rich, because tyrants pick on the poor more readily than on the rich.

Perhaps, back then, as it would probably be done today, those who really had nothing to pay were given the payment by friends or even by their chiefs.

In The Sudan today, it is unlikely that any census done any other way will be accurate, because people will not come out of the Bush to give their names, lest their political enemies find them and kill them. But they will give something of value, if they have it, if they remain known only by their own chiefs, in order to give their own people representation.

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1-1-3c Apportionment of Members and Taxes

This discussion is of the Chart showing populations and names of tribes, and how many representatives and senators that should give them:

Discussion:

The challenge of this paragraph is to come up with a formula that won’t fill our meeting hall with 10,000 Congressmen. The United States presently has 425 Congressmen meeting in a single hall. As U.S. population has grown, the population required to authorize one Congressmen has been raised, so that now states have one Congressman per about 600,000 population.

In the U.S., even the smallest state has one full Congressman and two Senators. But no state ever had fewer than 20,000 people. [In 1770, Georgia had the smallest population: only 23,000, not counting slaves. New states were not admitted until their population reached 60,000.] One practical problem with giving a tribe with fewer than 1,000 people a full Congressman, is that larger tribes will be tempted to split, in order to get more representation and more expense accounts! That trick could give very small tribes equal representation with very large tribes!

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1-2-5 Speaker, other Officers, Impeachment

(Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5) The House of Representatives shall choose its own officers. Only the House has authority to initiate an “impeachment”, which means to charge the President, a federal judge, a Senator, a Representative, or a department head, for noncriminal offenses. The House cannot convict, but only “impeach”; it is the Senate which must then hold trial, with the power to convict and remove from office. Adapted from Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution UTSSdiscussion 1-2-5

Discussion

When Bill Clinton was impeached, people said impeachment should only be for criminal offenses. But this paragraph proves otherwise. It says only the House of Representatives can Impeach. Well, if impeachments were only for criminal offenses, that wouldn't be true, because as we saw in 1999, not even Presidents are immune from prosecution, in ordinary courts, for felonies. But the purpose of impeachment is to remove a politician from office for actions which are not quite crimes, but are scandalous enough to tarnish the work of Congress.)

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1-3-2 Classification of Senators; Vacancies

(Article 1, Section 3, Clause 2) Senators shall be chosen by the Tribal Councils of the tribes they represent, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. No part of the federal government has any legal authority over any part of the selection of any Senator. Adapted from Article 1, Section 3, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution (That section of the U.S. Constitution corresponds to this and the next paragraph.)

Discussion

An equal voice. There are 78 tribes total. 35 have at least 40,000 population. 13 have between 10,000 and 40,000. 29 have fewer than 10,000. The population of one is unknown.

The U.S. Constitution provides two senators for each state, which means 100 Senators for our current 50 states. This gives an equal voice to every state, regardless of size, in the Senate, while the House gives an equal voice to every voter.

This was reasonable in the U.S. because there were never any really tiny states. In 1770, Georgia had the smallest population: only 23,000, not counting slaves. New states were not admitted until their population reached 60,000.

But will Sudanese choose strict equality with tribes with as few as 300 souls? If so that will make the above paragraph simpler; 2 senators per tribe. (The U.S. wanted two rather than one, so that if one got sick the state would still be represented.) The above is suggested in case Sudanese choose to give small tribes a more equal voice, but not a perfectly equal voice, with their numerous neighbors.

Appointment by Tribal Councils. A later Amendment caused U.S. Senators to be elected by the people directly. But American experience throws doubt on whether that was a better idea. We see how the candidate, in order to become known to that many more people, requires that much more money for transportation, literature, and other communication, which means he is more vulnerable to bribes. And it is more likely that he will receive campaign funding from outside his state.

In the original system, people elected their own state legislators, who were local men they knew; and their legislators had a better opportunity to get to know, and to discern, who would best represent their state in Washington. Not only did they have more opportunity, but they had far more interest in voting wisely than the average citizen. In South Sudan, the Tribal Councils know the candidates well, without the necessity of an expensive campaign.

A candidate can more easily confuse millions of citizens who barely know him, than a few dozen sharp leaders who know him intimately. One wins support of millions with his wealth; one wins support of a few wise men with his reputation.

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1-6-1 Compensation and legal protection

(Article 1, Section 6, Paragraph 1) ...During sessions, and while traveling to and from sessions, they shall be immune from arrest for any crime except disturbing the peace, or any felony [serious crime]. (While at home they may be arrested and prosecuted for minor as well as for major crimes, just like anyone else.) They may not be interrogated, by any other government official, for any position they take during a session. They may be arrested for treason (for fighting, helping, or encouraging enemies of all the Tribes) but must be released if the House does not vote within 10 days to pursue impeachment proceedings.

Discussion

The less stable a government is, the easiest it is for a president to falsely accuse a leader of “treason”, and to then imprison him indefinitely. A 10 day limit is suggested to discourage this.

If there were no immunity in the U.S. Constitution, it would be easy to falsely charge a Congressman with, say, “spitting on the sidewalk”, and get him arrested just in time for an important vote.

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1-6-2 Independence from the executive

(Article 1, Section 6, Paragraph 2) No lawmaker may take any additional government job. Nor may he later take any government job that was created, or whose salary was increased, while he was a lawmaker.

Discussion

This is to avoid creating an incentive for a lawmaker to use his influence to create a job with a fat salary, in anticipation that he himself may later take it. Return to UTSS Constitution

1-8-1 Section 8: What Congress CAN Do

(Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 1 of the U.S. Constitution) Specifically, the power of Congress is limited to the following:

1. Taxes.The Congress (the House & the Senate) shall have power to tax factories, natural resources, imports, and Tribal Councils in proportion to their tribal population. Tribal Councils will administer collecting the tax from their tribe; the federal government will have no authority to collect a Personal Income Tax – PIN – from individual citizens. The only lawful purpose for collecting taxes will be: to pay federal debts, to supply military forces during war, and to help tribes do together what they cannot do alone. All tax rates shall be uniform throughout the United Tribes, including the tax per person levied against tribes, which pay proportionate to their population but the rate per person is uniform. Taxes shall not be “graduated” according to income.

Discussion

“Taxes, duties, imposts and excises”, says the U.S. Constitution. Duties is another name for imposts, as far as I can tell. “Taxes” appears to be only a general name for the other three. So apparently only two distinct taxes are meant here, which are the only two kinds of taxes that the U.S. federal government collected for over a century: tariffs, also called duties, or imposts – a tax on imported products; and Excise Taxes. The U.S. government relied mostly on tariffs.

The Wikipedia article, “Excise Taxes in the U.S.”, tells us that for its first century, the government’s only income was tariffs [taxes charged on imports] and excise taxes [collected mostly from producers of alcohol, tobacco, and sugar].

Those are treated today as “sin taxes”. They are justified both to raise money and to discourage their use. Then, no one knew either one of the three were harmful.

The three items God recommends be taxed are basic necessities. God’s model government takes 10% of income for local government – church and the judiciary combined, Ezekiel 44:24, and less than 1% for national government functions, Ezekiel 45:13-16. (Actually, only 1/60th of the wheat and barley, 1% of olive oil, 0.5% of sheep, and nothing else.)

If the UTTS government would submit to a budget of only 1% of South Sudan’s GDP, along with stopping its encouragement of war, the economy would explode! (In the good way!) Yet that would still pay its leaders and employees a hundred times more than average citizens get.

The U.S. federal government could not tax individuals until 1913 with the 16th Amendment. Before that, federal taxes were collected directly from state governments, besides taxing factories and imports. ["lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises"] When the U.S. Government got the right to tax individuals, it acquired a constantly updated database of every citizen’s address and personal business, and the ability of state legislatures to boycott federal waste was lost. Now our federal government makes thousands of rules the states must follow in every detail of their work, and there is very little the state governments can do on their own. Likewise in the Sudan, if you let the President collect taxes from each citizen, you will give him the power to become your dictator; but if you make him take his money from your tribal councils, your Tribal Council will remain the primary government over its own people, and your Tribal Council will remain politically strong enough to stand against federal abuses of power.

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1-8-3 Uniform Regulations

(1-8-3) To negotiate uniform standards governing trade with foreign nations, trade that crosses Tribal borders, and trade with refugees in Refugee Camps and in the Bush (although Congress will have no jurisdiction over trade, or transportation, or any other commerce that takes place within a Tribe’s borders). The only legitimate purpose for regulations is to encourage technology, and make it available to all, with simple, uniform standards that make it easier for providers to provide it, for users to use it, and harder for monopolies to drive out competitors. Unnecessary, complicated, inconsistent, confusing regulations only strangle technology. A petition from half the Tribal Councils are sufficient to create a regulation, or to repeal one, unless that is then overcome by a vote of 3/4 of Congress.

Discussion

This is the infamous “commerce clause” which U.S. judges have twisted into authority for the Federal government to become a dictator over the states.

Originally the Founding Fathers wanted Congress to only do things like build roads and canals that crossed state lines. Later came railroads, telegraph lines, and radio. Air traffic controllers are an example of a legitimate Federal function, since planes take off in one tribe and land in another, and therefore need uniform ground communication procedures. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is another example, since there are many more radio and TV stations that would like to transmit, than there is available air space, and since radio and TV signals cross state lines. The FCC decides who may go on the air, and under what rules. When railroads began, they made tracks of several different widths, so that a locomotive built for one could not operate on another. Congress set a uniform width for the coast-to-coast railway after the Civil War.

But regulations can strangle development.

A modern example of commerce which crosses state lines which develops its own standards far better than had Congress intervened, is computer languages. Better standards are developed by just letting the engineers and investors experiment until they come up with the best combination. Can you imagine where America would be today, if while Edison was trying to invent the light bulb, Congress had told him what material he needed to use for a filament?

What more legitimate area of FCC involvement could there be than telephones? They certainly cross state lines, and uniformity of standards is required for all states to benefit. 50 years ago the FCC regulated not only standards, but rates. It caused so many problems that Congress finally “deregulated” the industry. As soon as they did, creativity was released. The industry immediately started planning new inventions they weren't really free to do much with before. Cable TV, the Internet, and cell phones rose from that freedom which would likely have come much later or never had the FCC remained in the business.

Federal involvement in state internal matters trickled in until 1932, when President Franklin Roosevelt illegally opened the floodgates. He did it by adding Supreme Court justices beyond the 9 which had been America's tradition, until he had enough justices willing to approve the radical expansion of federal government powers which he had bullied through Congress. Let me just list a few of the types of unconstitutional programs he created, so you can see the choice before you: do you want a government like America has now, or would you prefer genuine freedom?

First is Social Security. Before that, elderly people had much lower property taxes so they could better afford to live in their homes. Those that couldn’t could move to “County Homes”, nursing homes paid for by counties.

Now our total average tax burden is about 31% from at least 97 different taxes that Americans pay. What are taxpayers getting back for all their money? About one fourth. For example, in the case of welfare, about 3/4 of the federal welfare budget goes for “overhead”, leaving about 1/4 for those in need. Although overhead is only one measure of a charity’s efficiency, generally, if a charitable nonprofit had that much overhead, it would be shut down by the government!

Which system do you want for Sudan? Do you want Tribes to care for their own poor by whatever means they think good? Or would you like the federal government to take that money out of the Tribal economy, waste 75% of it, and then be a combined Scrooge and Santa Clause to your grandparents? Another invention of Roosevelt was the Farm Program. Before Roosevelt, farmers lived off the land and sold their surplus. In good years, when the supply exceeded demand, prices were lower, but since overall expenses were low, farmers survived. In bad years, farmers suffered and waited for good years. One of the first things Roosevelt did to change this was to preside over how banks recovered from the 1929 Depression. Many banks went bankrupt because when people came to draw money out of their savings and checking accounts, banks didn't have enough.

Of course, people who had borrowed from the same banks still had those loans to repay. Other banks would “buy” those outstanding loans from the bankrupt banks, but courts excused them from repaying the debts owed BY the bank! What a system!

So if a farmer had a $1,000 loan, but also had $1,000 in a retirement account, the farmer lost his $1,000 savings, but still had to repay the loan! After a few years of this, much of America’s farmland was now owned by banks! (My source: the stories of my grandparents, who lost their farm during that time.)

As this was going on, Roosevelt was busy taking America off the Gold Standard. Before that, paper money was backed by gold; in other words, there was a dollar's worth of gold or silver stored by the U.S. for every paper dollar printed, or no more was printed; and it could be exchanged for gold or silver, which had a stable value, so that America suffered virtually no inflation or deflation from 1800 to 1930. Roosevelt made it illegal to own gold! He seized it all! And gave us paper dollars unbacked by gold. That way he could print as many as he wanted, which created dramatic inflation.

In order to create some token restraint on his printing of paper money, he decided to “back” the money with the value of the farmland owned by the banks! (Don't ask me exactly how THAT worked.) Well, about this time farmers were in debt up to their eyeballs, trying to pay interest on their new loans with the banks, at higher rates of interest because of inflation, and there were a couple of bad years, so Roosevelt decided it was time to “help” the farmers. He created the Farm Program. In the Farm Program, the problem Roosevelt meant to attack was the problem of oversupply – too much food, which brought the price of food down. What a problem!

If there wasn’t enough food, he reasoned, then hungry people would be willing to pay more for food, and then farmers would make more profit on the portion they sold. So Roosevelt’s Farm Program literally paid farmers to keep certain acres idle! This program has gone through so many changes since then that merely growing crops and cows is an insignificant part of the work of farmers today. They need a Ph.D. in government programs and the Chicago Board of Trade. They need to stay in debt for ever larger tracters so ever fewer farmers can cultivate ever more acres, because the profit margin is too low for a small farm to support a family!

Taxes are through the roof because taxes are based on the resale value of the land for “development” (building houses and shopping malls), not on the profit made from the land, and certainly the taxes don’t drop in bad years when there is no profit!

Well, I apologize for trying to cram nearly a century of political frustration into a page, and perhaps not doing justice to the issues in the view of many, but this is a choice for Sudanese. Which system do you prefer for Sudan? The original U.S. Constitution? Or “Roosevelt's Constitution”?

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1-8-5 Money, Measures

(1-8-5) To mint gold-backed currency, regulate the value of money, fix the rate of exchange with foreign money, and standardize measurements of weight and distance so they will be uniform for all tribes;

Discussion

Would you like to have a currency that the whole world uses? Forget paper money. Use gold and silver. Back transactions with gold and silver. You won’t have inflation. The whole world will start trading in SSP’s.

Sudan has gold, lots of it, so how dumb is it to sell it to foreigners below its value, and then print paper money which plunges in value? Sudan has more opportunity than most countries, to trade in real gold, and in certificates backed by gold (where Sudan stores gold and prints only enough paper money to equal the value of the gold, so that anyone might at any time exchange their paper money for an equivalent value of gold). Doing that would make SSP’s the most reliable currency in the world!

But no backing of money would make much sense in Sudan unless it could include cows. But with gold-backed paper money, you could “make change”. That is, for example, you could have paper money in small units, such that 200 of them, for example, might be exchanged for one cow. In that way you could buy and sell, with accuracy, things much less valuable than an entire cow. Maybe you could call them “cowbills”.

When the U.S. was on the gold standard, it could not circulate more paper money than it had enough gold to cover it. In the same way, if Sudan prints paper money backed by cows, the UTSS will have to own many cows to equal the value of the paper money. It may not be in Sudanese interest to go heavily into the cow business.

Another alternative, practiced for centuries before the U.S. issued gold-backed dollars, was for banks to issue “gold certificates” equal to the value of the gold they held in their safes. In that way, people could conveniently exchange money without carrying heavy metals about with them all the time. Individual farmers could do this. They could be authorized to issue certificates equal to the value of their cows, yet would keep the cows in their possession until someone wants to exchange his paper for a cow. This would be a way a farmer could sell all or part of a cow, while keeping possession of the cow for breeding or milking until it is redeemed. But what do you tell the certificate holder, when his cow dies? Well, maybe gold is more stable.

But what if one farmer sells certificates worth half a cow, and his neighbor does the same, and one man has both certificates and wants to redeem them for a cow? And what if the farmer doesn’t want to sell? I’m just trying to be creative here in the absence of any knowledge of any human experience in this, but perhaps the law could say that any farmer who sells certificates for part of a cow is required to exchange one cow in exchange for other certificates totaling the value of one cow. But after that, he is not required to sell any more, although of course if he did he would receive valuable certificates in exchange.

U.S. money, today, is backed by nothing but everybody's faith that it is worth something. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve is appointed to a 4-year term by whoever is President when the last one steps down, with the governors under him appointed to 14 year terms, and their principal power over the economy is to adjust the Prime Lending Rate, the rate at which the Federal Reserve will lend money to banks. This indirectly controls how much paper money will be added or taken to the U.S. money supply, which determines whether we will have inflation or deflation.

The Chairman has this enormous power over the U.S. economy, and yet he is accountable to no one! He may not be removed from office by the President, Congress, or the Courts! Though most of the rest of U.S. Government is a Republic (a representative government under the rule of law), the Fed Chairman alone has the power of a King for 4 years!

News reporters generally treat the current chairman as if he is absolutely trustworthy and extremely wise, but no one knows how much this may be out of fear, since it does little good to complain about your King.

There are three great dangers with this system: (1) the Chairman might not be absolutely trustworthy. He might not like the current president, so he might hurt the economy just before he faces re-election. Or he might tell his financial friends when he is going to change rates again, so they can sell or buy stock accordingly and make fortunes. (2) He might not always be extremely wise. He might even be human, on occasion. Even with the best intentions, he might make decisions that hurt the economy. In fact, he might become consistently foolish, and there is nothing for the nation, and the rest of the world whose economies rise and fall with the U.S. economy, to do but go into worldwide depression!

By going off the gold standard, and yet desiring stability in a paper economy, we now have an extremely complicated, and extremely vulnerable, economy. It was not that way in the original U.S. Constitution. U.S. money was backed by gold until about 1933, when Roosevelt actually made it a crime to own gold! U.S. money was the most stable in the world, there was nothing complicated about it, and there was no inflation or deflation.

Even today, though most of the world’s currencies are paper with no backing, there are traces of sanity. Israel has, or is moving towards, a money backed by the ancient silver shekel. Russia has taken a step towards an intent stated long ago to displace the U.S. Dollar with its own gold standard. With cows already an established medium of exchange in Sudan, and the discovery of lots of gold, it may be the most natural thing for Sudan to establish a currency with real backing, rather than worthless paper.

Greedy politicians prefer worthless paper for their money, because they can have many clever devices for controlling it. So everyone else in the world who wishes their country would return to a currency backed by something of real value, is laughed at by their politicians as if it were “controversial”. But in Sudan, it may be that a stable currency backed by items of real value may be the least controversial policy the UTSS could take.

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1-8-12 Arming Soldiers

(1-8-12) To raise and supply armies (only when war is declared) consisting of full time soldiers; but no appropriation of money for the army shall supply them longer than two years.

Discussion

This is one of the clauses that keeps the U.S. army under civilian control. An American general cannot take control of the civilian government, because he would run out of money in two years. He has no efficient means of collecting taxes without the civilian government. Were he to attempt to wage war against civilians, the economy would hopelessly crumble; but worse, he could not win, because Americans are armed, thanks to the second amendment; and if he committed so great a crime as a takeover of civilian government, Americans would fight. (We hope.)

And even if the President and Congress tried to use the army to take over America, the people could vote out Congress in less than two years. Even if Congress were to cancel elections, this provision of the Constitution is a valuable aid to the People, because it would prevent Congress and the President from a gradual takeover. Being forced to cancel elections would be like being forced to declare war: it would serve notice to Americans that the time to fight has come, if they are to remain free.

Of course, a government that lawless would not be embarrassed to simply ignore this little guard in the Constitution! But even when government is too corrupt to be ashamed to violate the constitution, the value of a constitution short and simple enough for most people to understand is that when it is ignored, everyone knows it, who is not too zoned out playing games on their smart phones to care. And the more people who know how their government should behave but isn’t, the less people will tolerate misbehavior, and the government knows it.

Notice this provides for “raising” armies. In other words, not just increasing troop strength, but raising an army where there was no army before. This wouldn't make sense if there were always a standing army even in time of peace; but it was assumed that armies would only be raised when war was declared, and they would be disbanded when peace returned. Meanwhile, the only forces available in an emergency were the state “militias” - that is, all the armed men able to fight, but who work their regular jobs when there is no war and only come together for periodic training, as our National Guard does today.

When the constitution was written, it was a principle accepted by all that an army which remains on duty even in time of peace is a giant step towards dictatorship. That's why the preceding wording about appropriations no longer than two years implies that armies were regarded as temporary.

The following provisions explain that the part-time citizen militia would be the first called to repel invaders, because they would be already prepared; while a full time army would take time to train. In other words, it is the part-time citizen militia upon which the nation fundamentally relies for protection; but when additional forces are needed, a full time army can then be raised. Presumably the army would consist largely of militia members who simply transfer from part-time status as militia troops to full-time status as army troops.

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1-8-15 Tribal Militias

(1-8-15) To provide for deputizing and arming tribal militias, consisting of part-time soldiers who prepare for emergencies, to enforce laws, stop rebellions (of UTSS citizens), and repel invasions (of foreign troops).

Discussion

in the Second Amendment we are reminded that the “militia” consists, not of a standing, taxpayer-supported army, but of well-armed citizens. In other words, the scenario is not of full time forces which a dictator is able to pay to put down a popular uprising, but of soldiers who would never attack their own communities because their soldier pay is only temporary and part time – their principal income is from their own communities! So although “stopping rebellions” is a legitimate role for a tribal militia, the only possible scenario is of law abiding citizens uniting against a few criminals.

Dictators, with full time troops they can pay, can control the majority of people who don’t want dictatorship; but when a president doesn’t pay full time troops, it is easier for the majority of the population to correct their government peacefully, under this Constitution.

Notice it is not the President which can call forth the militia to put down an insurrection, but Congress.

Give one man a gun, and he can shoot in any direction without shooting himself. Give 600 men a gun, and they will take greater care where it is pointed.

In the same way, a President with an army can be a dictator. But Congress, with an army, would take so long to agree where to send it and who to shoot, without hitting any of their friends, that the army would be “sitting ducks” for its enemies.

That is why the President commands the army, because he can make strategic decisions quickly and secretly. That is also why only Congress can commit the army to the President’s leadership for a war. The decision whether to go to war should always be made carefully; but the details of how to fight should be made as quickly as fighting conditions change.

Today, war can begin too quickly for a Congress to meet, debate, and vote. So in the United States, Congress provides the President with emergency powers and funding, but retains the power to limit serious, long-term funding and war authority.

A national defense founded on part-time militia rather than full time army troops helps guarantee freedom. Full time troops, whose only paycheck comes from their superiors, can more easily be pressured into terrorizing their own neighbors, at the orders of a would-be dictator, than part time militia who receive most of their pay from their civilian jobs and who, by obeying a dictator, would be attacking not only family and neighbors, but employers and customers who give them their paychecks! Israel demonstrates how effective part-time citizen forces can be, if the success of U.S. forces isn’t persuasive enough.

One of the many accusations against fighters in South Sudan today is that the government authorized them, as part of their salary, in the absence of money of which the government had little, to rape as many women as they pleased. This is an example of what tribal militias would be far less likely to do than government-paid troops! What tribal militia, on duty for a few days before they have to go back home to their jobs, would just as soon rape their own women as be paid?

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1-8-16 Uniform Standards for Training Tribal Militias

(1-8-16) To provide rules for organizing, arming, and disciplining a part-time citizen militia, and for commanding those serving the United Tribes. But the individual Tribes retain all authority to appoint officers of their own troops, and to train their own troops, by standards ordered by Congress, using weapons supplied by Congress;

Discussion

It is in the interest of every tribe that Congress sets training standards, because troops from different tribes cannot serve side by side if they have been trained very differently. But notice the structure which prevents tyranny: the federal may "hire" some of the citizens, but the Tribes appoint the officers! The federal may specify the type of training, but the Tribes conduct the training! In other words, the careful wording of this paragraph guarantees that the federal army can never use the militia to fight the Tribes! This also guarantees that a federal general cannot stack his forces with officers from his own tribe.

Not only that, but the UTSS supplies heavy weapons, according to the previous section! What dictator would want to give his best weapons to armed citizens who would stop him from misusing power?! No dictator can survive such a system!

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1-9-2 Right to Trial

(1-9-2) Congress can't suspend the right of every person to a fair and speedy trial, before he may be held in prison for longer than necessary to process his trial, except when rebellion or invasion makes the calling of witnesses, and the assembling of jurors, unsafe.

Discussion

“Habeas corpus” means “produce the body”. It applies when no reason was ever given for arresting a man; or when a man rots in jail way past the time he should have been given a fair trial. In that case, others can intercede for him by telling a judge to “bring this body” into the court to see why he is still there, and to give him a fair trial.

Habeas Corpus was suspended during the Civil War, 1860-1864: both sides had Prisoner of War camps where soldiers could not be released because they would just go back to their own armies and start shooting again. They couldn’t exactly have a fair trial, because the witnesses would have to come from opposing armies still engaged in battle. The South had a prisoner camp where conditions were so terrible a book was written about it by the name of the town where it was: “Andersonville”.

It is dangerous to say Habeas Corpus can be suspended for any reason, because a would-be dictator can look for excuses to suspend it. He can interpret minor protests as major “rebellions”, for example. Of course suspension of habeas corpus certainly is required in the midst of a major invasion, so I don’t know how this language can be improved upon; but understand the dangers, and don't weaken this protection even a little.

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1-9-3 Attainder, Ex Post Facto

(1-9-3) Congress shall never pass a law ordering someone to be punished who hasn’t been found guilty in a fair trial, and Congress shall not pass any law which punishes what people did before the law was passed.

Discussion

“Ex post facto” means “after the fact”. Because of this clause, a legislature can’t pass a law against some action, and then arrest people who did that action before the law was passed. At least that isn't supposed to happen. But if you are from an unpopular minority, or you are a prolifer trying to stop abortion, you know it is routine to be arrested and charged for actions which no one in the world would have imagined was a crime, until the policeman saw you doing it and wanted some reason to arrest you.

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1-9-4 Certain kinds of Taxes

(1-9-4) The only tax collected directly from all individual citizens will be a fixed amount per person, to be paid in each tribe by its voters who are gathered by their tribal leaders to pay and to be counted on the same day. Each person, whether rich or poor, will pay the same amount. A UTSS representative will be present to count the money, whose total will double as a census, but not to keep a record of names, addresses, photos, or any other identifying information.

Tribal leaders are the only ones who need to know all their people. They will be motivated to get all the young men to report for the census, because the census will be the basis for how many Congressmen they will get. There will be no “graduated” federal taxes based on a tribe’s wealth or on any person’s wealth. No tribe shall pay more, or less, per person, than any other tribe.

The UTSS does not need to see in everyone’s wallet. Neither does it need a national database to help track everyone. It does not need everyone’s name and address so it can go confiscate weapons, or call up troops to battle directly, without going through tribal leaders.

Discussion

This combines the original U.S. tax collection with tax collection under Moses. Numbers 1 specifies a uniform payment collected from every man aged 20-60 with a census. Every man paid a half shekel. Men stood in line in their tribe for a single day to hand over a single coin. There was no time to record contact information; at the rate of about one person per second, all day long, there was only enough time to stack the coins, while the tribal leaders were there to make sure everyone showed up. The census was also the basis for the size of districts for their elected judges, Deuteronomy 1:13, just as the U.S. census is the basis for how many Congressmen states get.

Under Moses’ laws, the census tax is the only tax collected by the national government – not just a flat tax rate, but a uniform payment by everyone. But the payment to local priests – whose duties included duties today’s local governments handle, from inspections of meats and molds and disease to trying criminal cases – was proportionate to income: a flat 10%.

In the U.S. Constitution, a capitation was a uniform amount paid per person, which could much more easily be collected from the state’s leaders than from each individual. Two other kinds of tax fall under the definition of “direct taxes” in American law: on property, and on products. “Only three taxes are definitely known to be direct: (1) a capitation [a uniform amount paid per person], (2) a tax upon real property, and (3) a tax upon personal property.” - Murphy v. IRS, 2007.

But I can’t imagine how any tax on property or products could be proportionate to population alone and not to their value. That difficulty, plus the fact that the only kind of direct taxes that were mentioned were never collected, in America’s early years, by the federal government, indicates even less interest in the other two kinds.

[The phrase “direct tax” meant charged against a person or his property, as opposed to an “indirect tax” on his purchases or sales, which he can avoid by not making those purchases or sales. See Wikipedia.]

It is better for the Tribal Council to collect federal taxes, than for Congress to send its own tax collectors out door to door. The Tribal Council is already close to its people, already knows where they are. It is good for the Federal Government to never learn where individuals are, so that it may never have a good opportunity to conquer or absorb the tribes.

It was very important to God that Moses’ census be done in a way that made impossible any national database of contact information. God even specified that the system of counting money instead of writing names was essential to the prevention of disease widespread enough to skew the census results!

America’s censuses do not collect money, you may have noticed. In its first census, only last names were recorded, with a number beside it if there were several with the same name. But after that, the database just grew and grew. Until now, Republican conservative Christians are demanding the fast tracking of Mark Of The Beast technology – a national “E-Verify” requirement of all job applicants, without sensing any danger, and even defensive when the earthly and eternal danger is pointed out.

Sudanese will do well to avoid that mistake. Especially when Sudanese do not need to peer into the future to imagine a tyrant ready to misuse national tracking information to control the people.

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1-9-5 Tariffs

(1-9-5) No tariff (tax on imported products) shall be taxed on products exported from any Tribe.

Discussion

This clause made America economically strong. There is free trade between all the states. If no export from any state can be taxed, then all imports FROM other states cannot be taxed. Exports were thus encouraged; while only imports from foreign countries paid customs duties, and those rates were small enough to not discourage trade or start tariff wars.

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1-9-8 Lifetime Appointments

(1-9-8) No title of nobility [ie. king, queen, knight, ayatollah] shall be granted by the federal UTTS: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any foreign leader.

Discussion

At the time of the U.S. Constitution, America was alone, in the world, in rejecting the concept of hereditary, lifetime authority over other men; that is, royalty. Then, people around the world were proud of their dictator/kings and were skeptical whether America’s Freedom could ever work.

Since then, representative government – which we call “Freedom” - has spread around the world to the extent that no one is proud of their dictators. Dictators today must conceal their worst crimes to salvage their legitimacy before the world’s councils. At least until ISIS.

It may be that some Sudanese tribe will choose to pass down leadership by heredity, but this paragraph would not prevent an individual tribe doing anything its majority likes; it would only prevent the federal “coalition” government from creating hereditary lines of authority over the Tribes.

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1-10-1 Contracts

(Article 1, Section 10, Paragraph 1) No Tribe shall sign a treaty, or become an ally, with a foreign nation. No Tribe shall commission citizens or agents to satisfy wrongs committed by citizens of another nation. (Although they may do so to negotiate with other tribes.)

No Tribe shall print paper or mint metal money, go into debt, allow debts to be paid by paper money unbacked by silver, gold, or cows, ornpass a law that cancels contracts involving people outside the Tribe.

Discussion

The U.S. Constitution, in this section, prohibits states from granting titles of nobility, or passing bills of attainder, or ex post facto laws. This proposed Constitution lets tribes do anything that doesn’t affect people outside their tribe.

Do you think the federal government is qualified to be the conscience of the Tribes?

If your answer is “yes”, then by all means, add this prohibition on the power of states to the UTSS Constitution. Along with a whole truck load of other terrible things the Tribal Councils should never be allowed to do to their own people.

It could be worded something like this: “No Tribe shall pass a “Bill of Attainder” (a law that applies only to certain named persons and puts them in jail without a trial), or pass an Ex Post Facto law (applying to what people did before the law was passed).”

But if your answer is “no! The Federal Conscience is about as pure as downstream from a cattle herd! I don’t want my little daughter to even know that cr___, much less have to swim in it!” then you probably will doubt how South Sudan’s constitution would benefit from this.

These two kinds of laws are certainly horrible and are incompatible with justice and freedom. But this sticks the federal government’s nose into the business of what tribes do within their own borders. If you want the national government to force individual Tribal Councils to be more just than they want to be, I would think other topics would be at the top of your list ahead of these two. Like slavery. Or forced female circumcision.

But the U.S. Constitution makes only these two kinds of laws the only limit on what states can do within their own borders.

Certainly if you think the federal government is qualified to be the conscience of the states, you wouldn’t want to leave these two laws off your list of nasty laws. England was famous for passing these laws against Americans during the Revolutionary War, which is why our Constitution mentions them, Wikipedia says.

A “Bill of Attainder” is a law that applies only to a person named in the “law”, and puts them in jail without a trial. “Attainder” is defined in United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 (1946) as a law that 1) Specifically identified the people to be punished; 2) Imposed punishment; and 3) Did so without benefit of judicial trial.

The only purpose of such a law is to punish political views. Such a law would never be passed to punish an ordinary crime, because there are already laws to punish for ordinary crimes. The only way an entire legislature could even know what the poor guy did that they don’t like, would be if what he did was done very, very publicly. So what is done very, very publicly, that isn’t a crime, but that makes lawmakers very, very mad? Why, that would be expressing political views.

An Ex Post Facto law punishes people for breaking the law, before it was passed – back before it was against any law.

Justice Story, in 1833, wrote that Attainders and Ex Post Facto laws were issued a lot during the Revolutionary War, mostly by the British: “During the revolutionary war, bills of attainder, and ex post facto acts of confiscation, were passed to a wide extent; and the evils resulting therefrom were supposed, in times of more cool reflection, to have far outweighed any imagined good.”

A “Bill of Attainder”, in other words, punishes people for who they are, instead of for what they have done. Prohibiting such laws is similar to prohibiting laws that do not give everyone, equally, “equal protection of the laws” - the phrase in the 14th Amendment that ended slavery. The phrase is called the “Equal Protection Clause”.

The two prohibitions are similar enough that the Supreme Court had to explain that they are at least slightly different.

The 1868 “Equal Protection Clause” stopped slavery because it said a state can’t pass laws that protect some people more than others. Everyone has to have equal rights. The only legal basis for taking away rights is for what people have done, not just because of who they are. The 1789 prohibition against Attainder did not stop slavery because it only prohibited unequal laws that list the names to be punished.

With the 1868 “Equal Protection Clause”, the U.S. Supreme Court has jurisdiction to be the conscience of all the states. How did such a fantastic Clause – better than the Attainder and Ex Post Facto prohibitions combined – wind up such a disaster, turned by the nimble fingers of the Court into a constitutional requirement for states to let mothers murder their babies?

As bad as the conscience of the Southern States was, 150 years ago, to go to war rather than give up their slaves, it is unclear how much was gained by transferring Conscience Duty to the unaccountable Court. Especially since the war was largely against the Court then, too, which in 1857 had legally recognized black slaves as “property”.

There may be no better way to deal with the problem of human sin than to allow Tribal Councils to be just as unjust to their own people as their people choose, and not make sin, that doesn’t affect anyone outside their tribes, the business of the Federal government.

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1-11 Unconstitutional Laws - Remedy

[This provision has no counterpart in the U.S. Constitution:] Intent: No branch of any government of humans may be absolutely trusted with the final veto over any other branch. But at least this process, requiring a supermajority in one government to overcome another, and a sumpermajority of the other to rescue its laws, will generate sufficient controversy to inform the public of the issues, so that the whole population of voters, in their elections every two years, will exercise the final veto over any decision of their government.

When one third of either the Representatives or the Senators who are considering a bill state by petition, giving their reasons, that the bill is clearly unconstitutional, that bill shall be ruled unconstitutional and shall not pass.

When 1/3 of the Tribal Councils pass a resolution giving clear reasons, documented by constitutional authorities, why any federal law is unconstitutional, then enforcement of the law challenged shall be suspended for two years. After two years, the law shall be permanently revoked, unless before that time 2/3 of the members of the House and Senate approve a resolution to overturn the tribes’ finding, that gives clear reasons documented by constitutional authorities responsive to the arguments of the Tribes. Either the tribes or Congress may, during those two years, hold a hearing, and compel the attendance of the other, where the constitutional issues may be debated, and a public record made.

Discussion

An unconstitutional law has the same effect, while it is in effect, as a constitutional amendment. So there ought to be some legal way for citizens, through their tribes, to revoke it. Under the U.S. system, almost the only way a citizen can challenge an unconstitutional federal law is to violate it, thus becoming a criminal, and then go to court to challenge it.

It takes a 2/3 majority of the House and Senate to start ratification of a Constitutional Amendment. So when 1/3 believe a law is unconstitutional, (which has the same effect as if it were a constitutional amendment while it is in effect), then by definition, it lacks the 2/3 that would be necessary if it were an official Amendment.

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2-1-3 How Electors Elect

Intent: The same concern applies to selecting a president that guides the makeup of the House and Senate: it is despotism, to let majorities snuff out the voice of minorities; yet it is unjust for minorities to have an equal voice with majorities.

Discussion

Most Americans are confused about how their President is elected. Most think he is elected by “popular vote”, that is, by the majority of the votes cast by all voters. In every close election our news reminds that it is the Electoral College which casts the votes, in which the electors of each state cast all their votes for whichever candidate gets the majority of the popular vote in their state, even if that candidate got only 50.01% of the vote. This system is called “winner take all”.

The Constitution doesn’t specify this system. Nor does it use the title “Electoral College”. That is just a phrase made up later.

The Constitution lets each state (Tribe) decide for itself who it will select. Only a few decades ago, many states still selected its electors proportionately, so that if the winner had 51% of the vote and the state had 20 electors, 11 electors would vote for the candidate and 9 for his opponent. Today, 48 states are “winner take all”; only Maine and Nebraska let their electors vote proportionately to the popular vote outcome.

“Some states require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. These pledges fall into two categories—Electors bound by state law and those bound by pledges to political parties. ... Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of Electors have voted as pledged.”

The Constitution’s authors just wanted to make sure the elected state governments (Tribal councils) have the ultimate say in who is President of the US (UTSS). The original Constitution thus had US (UTSS) Senators chosen by state legislatures (Tribal Councils), the President chosen by Electors chosen by state legislatures (Tribal councils), and only Congress was elected directly by popular vote.

One benefit of this system was that voters paid much more attention to who they selected for their state legislatures, just as the leaders of Tribal Council are those most trusted by the most tribe members. Today most people barely know what “State Representative” means.

Today, with people directly selecting U.S. Senators, and virtually electing their President directly, and with the Federal Government so far exceeding its Constitutional authority as to become a dictator to states, there is much less reason for people to be concerned who serves in their State Legislature. But local government is a much better guard of liberty, because it is much easier for a few prophets to expose a corrupt leader of a million people, and for a million people to remove the corrupt leader, than it is for a few prophets to expose a corrupt leader over 20 million people.

Notice that if no candidate has a majority, Congress would select the President. In 2000 and 1992, no candidate had a majority of the popular vote. When there are only two candidates, then one of them will necessarily have the majority. But if there are three, it is possible for one to have, for example, 45%, another 40%, and the third 15%, so that none have a majority. But while neither President Bush nor President Clinton had a majority of the popular vote, they both had a majority of the “electoral college”, because no third party candidate won an entire state, so that there were only two candidates before the “electoral college”.

In other words, the “winner take all” system, in all but two states, makes it virtually impossible for any third party candidate, in the U.S., to get any electoral votes.

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2-1-5 Qualifications

(Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 5) No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United Tribes, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States. Adapted from Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 5 of the U.S. Constitution

Discussion

This is the requirement, in the U.S. Constitution, which is behind the 8 years of controversy over whether President Obama was a “natural born citizen”. The accusations that Obama was not, typically include the accusations that he is a Moslem – not at all a Christian, and those two facts help explain why he has betrayed America.

The Bible has a similar requirement, though not so legalistic as to require citizenship from birth:

Deuteronomy 17:15  Be sure that the man you choose to be king 
is the one whom the LORD has chosen. He must be one of your own people; 
do not make a foreigner your king. 

The evidence of God’s flexibility on the point is that Ruth, the woman from the nation of Moab whose story is told in the Bible book called “Ruth”, lived four generations after God told Moses that there should be no intermarriage with Moabites “until the 10th generation” after what Moab did (Deuteronomy 23:3). Yet she was the great grandmother of King David, (Matthew 1:5-6) who reigned 4 generations later! And her 30th generation descendant was Jesus Christ! (Matthew 1:5-16)

There are many passages showing that God looks way beyond genetics, to the heart. Just one familiar example: Romans 9:26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. (Quoting Hosea 1:10) Exodus 12:43-49 says once immigrants meet the qualifications of natural born citizens, they must be given exactly the same rights.

These verses, together with the fact that Deuteronomy 17:15 does not particularly focus on genetics but rather on how well you know the person, indicate that God's concern is for the heart, not the cells. On the other hand, it was important to God that Jesus, our King of Kings, be one of us, even genetically.

As a practical matter, it is much easier for 10 million people to confirm one's birth, than one's heart.

Unfortunately, for humans, another reason to make birth a criteria is how easy it is for human leaders to lose patience with others, and how easy it is for citizens to be suspicious of a leader, the farther away they seem from being "family".

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2-1-6 Vacancy, Disability

(Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 6) If the President dies, resigns, or cannot serve for any reason, the Vice President shall take over until the President can resume his duties or a replacement is elected. If the Vice President becomes unable to serve, Congress may designate a replacement until he can resume his duties or a replacement is elected. Congress may enact laws providing for such situations.

Discussion

In the U.S., Congress has determined that when both the President and Vice President step down, the Speaker of the House shall act as President. This actually happened in about 1974. President Richard Nixon, facing impeachment, resigned, so that Vice President Spiro Agnew became President. But within a few more months, the same scandal forced Agnew to resign too, so House Speaker Gerald Ford became president. One of Ford's first acts was to Pardon Nixon, even before he had been convicted, thus ending the investigations which were consuming the national attention. Ford’s pardon was a big reason he lost the election about two years later.

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2-1-7 Salary

(Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 7) The President's salary shall not be increased or decreased during his time in office. Besides his salary and legitimate office expenses, he shall receive no other gifts from the UTSS, or from any Tribe.

Discussion

The American president's salary includes an incredible expense account, including the most expensive personal transportation in the world, which is not fixed in its amount. But legitimate expenses of the presidency, which do not directly increase his “net worth”, are not limited by this paragraph. The point of this rule is that if Congress votes a salary increase, it can’t take effect until after the next election. Thus the President has little personal incentive to increase presidential pay.

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2-2-1 Commander in Chief

(Article 2, Section 2, Paragraph 1) The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army, the Air Force, and the citizen militia of all of the Tribes, but only when either of these are called by Congress into actual fighting for the UTSS.

Discussion

In the original Constitution, the President does not act as Commander in Chief except in time of war. In time of peace, there is no army or air force consisting of full time soldiers, and the citizen militia of each tribe is commanded exclusively by the officers appointed by each respective tribe. Of course, the preparation and discipline of the citizen militias is established by law from Congress, so the militias are just as prepared for a sudden, major war, as if there were regular, full time troops.

Actually there were a few full time federal troops all the time, but only enough to man forts, such as those on the frontier built to protect against Indian invasion, and along the ocean to respond to attacks by sea. Not enough to threaten armed citizens, which was the point of keeping the federal army small, with any large force temporary.

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2-4 Impeachment

(Article 2, Section 4) The President, Vice President, and any other top federal officer, shall be removed from office after being impeached (charged, or indicted) by Congress and convicted by the Senate of anything from treason to bribery to crime.

Impeachment is appropriate also for political offenses such as personal misconduct, gross neglect, usurpation of authority (acting beyond one’s authority), or habitual disregard of the public interests. Adapted from Article 2, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.

Discussion

When the Constitution was written, bribery was considered immoral but there were no criminal penalties for it; no laws against it. In other words, the Constitution does not limit impeachment to only two specific crimes, treason and bribery, but allows impeachments for the wide range of wrongs between those two extremes.

“High” crimes didn't refer to the greatness of the crime, but to the high position of the offender, according to Blackstone. Debate during the Constitutional Convention clarified that the intent of this word was to limit impeachment only to federal officials of high rank.

The examples added in the final proposed sentence are taken from Justice Story's 1833 “Commentaries on the Constitution” which explain what the authors of the Constitution meant by it. Story observed that in the impeachment trials to that date, not one was over an action defined by any law as a crime. (Source: “What rises to the level of an impeachable offense?” by Historian David Barton, wallbuilders.com)

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3-1 Federal Courts

The prosecution of federal laws shall never be by a President, General, or by Congress, but by a Supreme Court, and whatever lower courts (and court officers) Congress creates. Their judges shall hold office only as long as they remain ethical, moral, and just. Their salary shall not be decreased while they remain in office.

Discussion

Today in America, the Constitutional requirement of “good behavior”, in judges, has been trivialized to the extent that if they don’t stagger drunk into the court room, and don’t get caught in some lurid public scandal, that’s good enough behavior, regardless of whatever lurid indecency, or corrupt murders, they protected by their judgments.

Originally, righteous judgment was expected of judges. Judges were expected to be rational.

The last official dumbing down of judicial ethics occurred in about 1967, when the American Bar Association reduced its Canon of Judicial Ethics from 21 down to 7. One of the casualties was #18, which required that judges listen to the litigants, and read their briefs, and write opinions that address the issues raised, so litigants can at least feel their points were considered.

The Canon actually said: “...a judge should indicate the reasons for his action in an opinion showing that he has not disregarded or overlooked serious arguments of counsel. He thus shows his full understanding of the case, avoids the suspicion of arbitrary conclusion, promotes confidence in his intellectual integrity and may contribute useful precedent to the growth of the law...” In other words, the failure to do this, which is a very common failure in today’s courts, was considered unethical only a couple of generations ago. How much more, in ethical judgments, was demanded in a century at the end of which the Supreme Court in its 1892 Trinity case, established that America is officially a Christian nation?

When Bill Clinton splashed his perversion all over America, his defenders said what he does outside the office makes no difference; it's how he does “his job” that matters. Yet of judges, we say today that how he does “his job” is for his sainted perspective alone to judge; it’s only what he does outside the office that matters!

Both perspectives are equally absurd. Behavior matters, on and off the job. If a judge does not judge righteously, Congress needs the courage to impeach him. The Constitution already gives Congress the authority. Let Sudan’s Constitution likewise clearly give Congress this authority. Unfortunately a Constitution cannot legislate courage.

Many will object that if Congress is allowed to impeach for rulings it considers corrupt, what will restrain Congress from penalizing judges for rulings which are not corrupt at all, but merely politically incorrect? The answer: the people, who re-elect Congress every two years. If Congress thinks a judge is unethical enough to deserve impeachment, and the voters don’t turn the Congressmen out at the next election, then the judge probably was that unethical.

Keep in mind that the judges of U.S. state courts are elected. A century ago all of them were elected every 4 years, and you didn’t have to be a lawyer to run. Now most states’ governors appoint judges, but judges face a vote every 4 years whether they should be retained.

Only in Federal courts do judges face no election, but only the possibility of impeachment. America’s Founders never imagined that possibility would ever grow so remote! Nor did they imagine Congress would extend federal laws until they duplicate almost every state law! The original federal judges could not have faced voters, because the only jurisdiction they had was across state lines! Now federal judges face neither voters, nor impeachment: they are left absolutely unaccountable! No man may be safely trusted with so unlimited power!

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3-2-2 Original, vs. Appellate Jurisdiction

...When the Supreme Court reviews a case, it may review both the law (whether the law ought to be applied in the situation before it) and the facts (what really happened). It may also rule, but only tentatively, on the very constitutionality of the law, if it is a federal law. (If it is a tribal law, the Court may only review its constitutionality insofar as its effect reaches beyond its borders.) Otherwise a Supreme Court ruling applies only to the parties to the case; it has no force of law outside the case.

When the Supreme Court finds that a law violates this Constitution, its finding shall trigger no action unless 70% of the justices agree. If they do agree, then enforcement of the law challenged shall be suspended for two years, and then the law shall be permanently revoked, unless before that time 2/3 of the tribes, or 2/3 of the members of the House and Senate, overturn the Court’s finding with a resolution giving clear reasons, documented by constitutional authorities, that are responsive to the Court’s finding.

Either the tribes or Congress may, during those two years, hold a hearing, and compel the Court’s justices to attend, where the constitutional issues may be debated, and a public record made. Should any question arise whether attendance may be compelled, the nature of the hearing may be presented as to “show cause” whether impeachment is warranted for unconstitutional rulings.

Discussion

The idea that the unelected U.S. Supreme Court was authorized by the Constitution to “strike down” a law passed by elected Congressmen was a great surprise to President Thomas Jefferson, when the Supreme Court declared this new power for the first time in 1803, 14 years after the Constitution was ratified!

“The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches 
should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges 
the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, 
not only for themselves in their own sphere of action 
but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, 
would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.”    
—Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804

There was no question whether the Court could rule on whether the applicability of a law, in a case before it, fit with the Constitution. The new idea was that the Court’s ruling would apply to anyone other than the parties to the case before it.

If a constitutional scholar like Jefferson was surprised – the author of the Declaration of Independence who posed for the two dollar bill – perhaps we should be skeptical of the assumption of almost everybody in America today that the Supreme Court has constitutional authority to strike down laws beyond their own cases!

So the draft proposed here clarifies the Court’s power to do that, but also creates explicit limits to that power.

“We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action 
to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself. 
We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Constitution itself. 
We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution and not over it. 
In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men. 
“I want - as all Americans want - an independent judiciary as proposed by 
the framers of the Constitution. That means a Supreme Court that will 
enforce the Constitution as written, that will refuse to amend the Constitution 
by the arbitrary exercise of judicial power - in other words by judicial say-so. 
It does not mean a judiciary so independent that it can deny the existence of facts 
which are universally recognized.  -  President Franklin Roosevelt, radio address, March 9, 1937 

This proposal incorporates the solutions offered by many. In this proposal, an unconstitutional federal law can be overturned by tribes (see the end of the section on Congress) as well as by the Court, and an unconstitutional ruling can be overturned by tribes as well as by Congress.

The U.S. Congress could adopt the solution proposed here, if it had the political courage. The U.S. Constitution already gives them that authority, without the need for a Constitutional Amendment, where it says “with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”.

There have been many attempts to pass laws limiting the Court’s jurisdiction to review a law on a particular subject; those have all been very controversial, and have failed, from fear that Congress would merely replace the Court as the tyrant.

But there has been no controversy about the U.S. Congress’ authority, under this clause in the Constitution, to regulate jurisdiction in ways that are subject-neutral. The regulation proposed here is subject-neutral.

In fact, no Constitutional Amendment is required to implement these policies in the United States! The Constitution already gives Congress such clear authority to regulate jurisdiction, that these policies could be imposed by a simple law passed by a simple majority of the House and Senate.

In other words, South Sudan doesn’t necessarily need the proposals I make in its Constitution, to protect from unconstitutional rulings. All it needs is “with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make”, and that is enough for a UTSS Congress to pass the regulation later if it sees the need.

However, in the U.S., controlling the Court has suffered from lack of a vision how to do it, and lack of courage to propose an unfamiliar solution to an apathetic population. If those human conditions poison the U.S., I expect them to be a problem in South Sudan. Clarity from the beginning can solve this problem.

Sudan has suffered enough slavery; it does not need a Judiciary which will enslave it again. It does not need unbridled kings who will protect the murderers of unborn babies, tear out the Ten Commandments from public places, pull Bibles from Schools, and outlaw voluntary prayer in public! Sudanese need to understand the original place of the Judiciary, when it was created, and compare it with what it has become, to understand the importance of creating their own judiciary according to what it was, and not with what it has been allowed to become. Sudanese must understand the importance of limits to these unelected men, so that they may say without fear, with America's Founders,

“The judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution,,,.the judiciary is, beyond comparison, the weakest of the three departments of power. ,,,the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter.” - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, #78.

(For lots more analysis and quotes from Constitutional authorities, see “How U.S. Justice went South”)

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The idea that the unelected U.S. Supreme Court was authorized by the Constitution to “strike down” a law passed by elected Congressmen was a great surprise to President Thomas Jefferson, when the Supreme Court declared this new power for the first time in 1803, 14 years after the Constitution was ratified!

“The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” —Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804

There was no question whether the Court could rule on whether the applicability of a law, in a case before it, fit with the Constitution. The new idea was that the Court’s ruling would apply to anyone other than the parties to the case before it.

If a constitutional scholar like Jefferson was surprised – the author of the Declaration of Independence who posed for the two dollar bill – perhaps we should be skeptical of the assumption of almost everybody in America today that the Supreme Court has constitutional authority to strike down laws beyond their own cases! So the draft proposed here clarifies the Court’s power to do that, but also creates explicit limits to that power.

“We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself. We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Constitution itself. We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution and not over it. In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men.

“I want - as all Americans want - an independent judiciary as proposed by the framers of the Constitution. That means a Supreme Court that will enforce the Constitution as written, that will refuse to amend the Constitution by the arbitrary exercise of judicial power - in other words by judicial say-so. It does not mean a judiciary so independent that it can deny the existence of facts which are universally recognized. - President Franklin Roosevelt, radio address, March 9, 1937

This proposal incorporates the solutions offered by many. In this proposal, an unconstitutional federal law can be overturned by tribes (see the end of the section on Congress) as well as by the Court, and an unconstitutional ruling can be overturned by tribes as well as by Congress.

The U.S. Congress could adopt the solution proposed here, if it had the political courage. The U.S. Constitution already gives them that authority, without the need for a Constitutional Amendment, where it says “with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”

There have been many attempts and proposals to legally establish a power in Congress to balance the Supreme Court’s power to destroy America through unconstitutional rulings. The reason they have mostly failed has been the fear that Congress, given an unreviewable veto over the Court, would merely replace the Court as the tyrant, unrestrained from passing unconstitutional laws.

But there has been little controversy about the U.S. Congress’ authority, under this clause in the Constitution, to regulate jurisdiction in ways that are subject-neutral. The regulation proposed here is subject-neutral.

“...the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction...with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” - U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section 2, paragraph 2.

The regulation proposed here is not entirely subject-neutral. It permits Congress to overturn a Court ruling overturning a law, when Congress finds the Court ruling unconstitutional. But it does not make the veto unreviewable. It lets states strike down an unconstitutional finding of Congress. No Constitutional Amendment is required to implement these restraints on “Judicial Review” – the power of the Supreme Court to nullify a law by declaring it “unconstitutional”, since Judicial Review is not in the Constitution. The website of the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledges: “... the function of judicial review is not explicitly provided in the Constitution....” Much less is such power made absolute, subject only to a Constitutional Amendment.

In fact, no Constitutional Amendment is required to implement these policies in the United States! The Constitution already gives Congress such clear authority to regulate jurisdiction, that these policies could be imposed by a simple law passed by a simple majority of the House and Senate. In other words, South Sudan doesn’t necessarily need the proposals I make in its Constitution, to protect from unconstitutional rulings. All it needs is “with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make”, and that is enough for a UTSS Congress to pass the regulation later if it sees the need.

However, in the U.S., controlling the Court has suffered from lack of a vision how to do it, and lack of courage to propose an unfamiliar solution to an apathetic population. If those human conditions poison the U.S., I expect them to be a problem in South Sudan. Clarity from the beginning can solve this problem.

Sudan has suffered enough slavery; it does not need a Judiciary which will enslave it again. It does not need unbridled kings who will protect the murderers of unborn babies, tear out the Ten Commandments from public places, pull Bibles from Schools, and outlaw voluntary prayer in public! Sudanese need to understand the original place of the Judiciary, when it was created, and compare it with what it has become, to understand the importance of creating their own judiciary according to what it was, and not with what it has been allowed to become. Sudanese must understand the importance of limits to these unelected men, so that they may say without fear, with America's Founders,

“The judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution,,,.the judiciary is, beyond comparison, the weakest of the three departments of power. ,,,the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter.” - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, #78.

This solution accepts and, for the first time, codifies a role for the Supreme Court in limiting unconstitutional laws enacted by Congress, but also asserts a role for Congress, and for states, to limit unconstitutional rulings of the Supreme Court. In the spirit of the Constitution, it gives neither power exclusive authority over the others.