MINIMUM WAGES.

Politics being a principal source of entertainment for people of my age, I tuned in to the Republic debates last night. There were several quite stellar performances: Christie, Rubio, Fiorina all scored points.

I was, of course, disappointed that so little attention was given to the Constitution of the United States. I did hear the Tenth Amendment mentioned once, but that was about it.

Of particular interest to me was the discussion about the minimum wage. Ben Carson made the most memorable comment on the subject. He not only favors raising the minimum wage; he would index it for inflation. In addition, he would favor a two-tiered minimum wage, with a lesser amount limited to younger workers.

Of course raising the minimum wage is rarely a plank in the Republican platform. Devotion to the free market dictates that wages are a matter of voluntary agreement between employers and employees.

Still, nobody challenged Dr. Carson, and the subject was shortly abandoned in favor of more personal bickering with Donald Trump.

Ben Carson is a good and decent man, and I am sure that his support of a higher minimum wage is motivated by genuine concern for the folks on the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

Still, I have to say that I was disappointed not to hear anyone suggest that the Constitution of the United States does not empower the federal government to mandate a minimum wage that all employers must pay to all employees throughout the land of the free and the home of the brave.

For what it is worth, I want to weigh in with this thought: a national minimum wage is not only unconstitutional, it is preposterously unreasonable and unfair.

The U. S. Census bureau reports that in 2009, the average wage earner in Idaho made $34,124; in Mississippi, $33,847; in Montana, $33,762 and in South Dakota, $33,352. That same year, the average worker in Massachusetts earned $56,267; in New York, $57,739; in Connecticut, $57,771; and in the District of Columbia, a whopping $77,483.

A package of cigarettes that costs $5.25 in Virginia or Missouri goes for $11.50 in Illinois and $12.55 in New York.

The two major political parties compete almost exclusively on what they claim they will do for ‘the economy.’ Bill Clinton famously coined the phrase, “It’s the Economy, stupid.”

Truthfully, what is really stupid is the tired and phony notion that the political class in Washington, D.C. has the authority and the mission to control or significantly influence the economic decisions of more than 300 million free people.

America has not one, but fifty different economies. We make our money in the States, we spend or save our money in the States. We build or buy our homes in the States, educate our children in the States. We shop and save and invest in the States.

Twenty-nine States have minimum wage laws that are higher than the federal minimum; fourteen have state minimums equal to the federal law, two states have lower minimums, and five states have no minimum wage at all.

That’s the way it is and that’s the way it should be in a Democratic Republic.                                       

KIM DAVIS AND GOD

Kim Davis insists she is doing the will of God. I got to thinking about that and asked myself the question, Just what does God want Kim Davis to do?

The first thing that came to mind is that God surely wants her to keep the promise she made on the day she was sworn in as County Clerk. That’s what an oath is; making a promise and asking the Creator to bear witness to its sincerity. It is a commitment of conscience. 

What did she promise? Two things. 1) To support the Constitutions of the United States of America and the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and 2) Faithfully to perform the duties of the office of County Clerk according to the best of her abilities.

As an elected County official, Ms. Davis works for a division of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It tells her what to do, it pays her salary. Kentucky Revised Statute 402.005 requires her to issue marriage licenses only to couples consisting of one male and one female. It is her sworn duty to do so, and that means that it is her sworn duty to deny a license to same sex couples.

Wait a minute, you say. Didn’t the Supreme Court just say that the Kentucky statute and all others like it are unconstitutional? Yes, indeed. That was the opinion of five of the nine members of the Supreme Court. Acting on that opinion, the Court issued orders requiring the defendants in several cases to issue marriage licenses to the plaintiffs in those cases.

Aren’t all Americans bound to obey the Supreme Court? Are you kidding? Members of the military take an oath to obey the orders of the Commander in Chief, but nobody in the United States has ever taken an oath to obey the opinions of the Supreme Court. Federal Courts, like any court of law, have the power to issue direct orders to defendants over whom they have jurisdiction in specific cases, but they have no power to issue orders to the public at large.

An oath to support the Constitution of the United States is not a commitment to agree with every opinion rendered by the Supreme Court. Ms. Davis, like the members of the Kentucky legislature is oath bound to support the written words of the Constitution which is the Supreme Law of the Land.

The members of the Kentucky legislature didn’t think that Section 402.005 of the Revised Statutes was unconstitutional when they adopted it. They apparently don’t think so now. If the Court’s opinion in the Obergefell case hasn’t persuaded them to repeal or amend the law – the instructions they are giving to Kim Davis and all other County Clerks in the State – then those instructions still stand.

So what we have here, folks, is a difference of opinion about the meaning of the United States Constitution. It is not simply a difference of opinion between Anthony Kennedy and Kim Davis, although surely their opinions differ; it is a difference of opinion between oath bound public officials in Frankfort and other oath bound public officials Washington, D. C.

Judge Bunning can order Kim Davis to violate her oath as she understands it; he can demand that she do what her conscience forbids; he can keep her in jail until she disobeys the Kentucky laws she has sworn to administer, but neither he, nor the entire Supreme Court can force the people of Kentucky to change their definition of marriage or their honest belief in the domestic sovereignty of their Commonwealth as guaranteed and protected by the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 

Which is why I repeat my counsel to Ms. Davis: If you must issue same sex marriage licenses, print the following disclaimer on each one:

THIS LICENSE IS ISSUED IN VIOLATION OF KENTUCKY REVISED STATUTE 402.005 ON ORDERS OF THE UNITED STATES COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY.

KIM DAVIS AND MR. JEFFERSON

I have been favored by several emails comparing Kim Davis to Saint Thomas More, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, and Rosa Parks, and while I admire the Chutzpah being shown by the Rowan County clerk, I have to say that she is waiving the wrong flag.

It is certainly true that same sex marriage offends the religious beliefs of a great many Americans, and it may well be true that statutes defining marriage as a union of one male and one female are adopted by legislatures and supported by voters in large part because of moral standards endorsed and taught by their churches.

But when those beliefs have been duly adopted as public laws, they are no longer mere sectarian discipline; they are public law, and entitled to the respect and dignity due to the laws adopted democratically by free men and women in a free republic.

Kim Davis should be remembered not a Christian who stood against a court decision which violated her religious faith; but as an American who stood against a court decision which violated the right of the people of the Commonwealth of Kentucky to legislate on the subject of marriage.

More than half a century ago, John F. Kennedy addressed the Greater Houston Ministerial Conference. His speech ought to be heard by every boy and girl in every high school in America. And it wouldn’t hurt if the rest of us tuned in as well to:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/ALL6YEBJMEKYGMCntnSCvg.aspx

Here is what JFK had to say about the relationship of conscience and public duty:

But if the time should ever come--and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible--when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.

The sad fact is that the strategy Ms. Davis has thus far pursued is not only legally unsustainable, it is politically inept. Any lawyer worthy of the name will tell you that religious, conscientious objection is no excuse for refusing to perform the duties of a public office.

Redefining the duties of the County Clerk is a cockamamie way to solve the problem. It doesn’t challenge the Obergefell decision. It doesn’t protest the dictatorial judicial assault on traditional American culture and values.

The Kentucky Resolution of 1799, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, asserted that the Commonwealth has the inherent power to oppose and even nullify unconstitutional acts by the federal government.

Nullification can be accomplished in several ways. Merely to declare an act of the national government to be void and of no effect is unlikely to accomplish anything. Public demonstrations, however massive, simply lead to confrontation and violence.

The better approach is that made famous by Martin Luther King; civil disobedience. King wisely stated that protesting unjust laws, while willingly accepting the legal consequences, is the highest expression of respect for the law.

It is in this spirit that Ms. Davis should simply refuse to issue same sex marriage licenses unless and until specifically ordered to do so in each case by the federal judge. She should then issue a license which specifies that it was issued in violation of Kentucky law by order of the United States District Court.

That course of action allows her to continue protesting same sex marriage. It gives evidence to the usurpation of State sovereignty by the federal courts. I have no doubt that couples receiving licenses with that disclaimer prominently noted will not be happy. They will, no doubt, run to the federal courthouse seeking relief from the form of the marriage license.

This will bring about a new lawsuit, one which could very well go all the way to the Supreme Court. One can only imagine the convoluted logic that eminent tribunal will have to concoct in order to prohibit Kentucky clerks from telling the truth about the licenses they issue under duress. 

Thomas Jefferson would be proud.

MORE KIM DAVIS

Two thoughtful emails from very intelligent men and a long chat with my equally intelligent wife have persuaded me that my last blog needs more explanation.

First, let’s make one thing perfectly clear. A county clerk must obey the law. Conscientious objection on the basis of religious belief does not excuse a public officer from doing his or her duty.

Faced with such a conflict, the officer holder should resign. That was the gist of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech to the Protestant pastors in Texas.

The point that seems difficult for most people to grasp is the legal effect of a Supreme Court opinion. Everybody says that the United States Supreme Court “legalized” same sex marriage. The Obergefell decision was celebrated from the White House to the coffee houses by homosexual couples who perceived that they were now able to marry legally.

But the Supreme Court did not “legalize” same sex marriage.

Courts decide cases and controversies between plaintiffs and defendants. Courts do not enact, amend or repeal any law. When a court believes that a law is unconstitutional, it does not wipe that law from the statute books. It simply says that the law is unenforceable and decides the case as though the law does not exist.

Section 402.005 of the Revised Statutes of Kentucky defines marriage as a relationship between one man an one woman. That law is still on the books. It is still valid and it still defines the duties of county clerks.

When a same sex couple requests a marriage license, the clerk has two choices: either obey the statute or assume that the statute is unconstitutional and need not be obeyed. That choice was not created by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Obergesfell case. The clerk has taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. If she believed that the Kentucky statute violated the federal constitution, she would have been oath bound to ignore it, with or without a decision of the the high court or any court.

The clerk’s oath to support the Constitution binds her conscience. She has not sworn to obey the opinions of the United States Supreme Court. She has sworn to obey the Constitution, a document written in the English language, which she is quite capable of reading and understanding. The Supreme Court’s opinion in the Obergefell case is exactly that: an opinion. It is not a decree. It does not bind anyone except the parties to the lawsuit of which the Court has jurisdiction.

Courts change. Opinions change. A person cannot be punished for failure to obey a court order issued against somebody else. Ms. Davis’s case will be decided by a federal district judge. That judge, like Ms. Davis and the members of the Supreme Court, has taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. His oath, like that of the clerk, is a personal commitment of fidelity to the written words of the nation’s charter.

Typically and traditionally, lower courts follow the precedents of opinions by higher courts. But they are not bound by law or conscience to do so. Appellate court opinions are just that: opinions, and if a lower court judge thinks otherwise, he or she need not follow the example of the higher tribunal.

Of course, the trial judge who does not follow the opinions of the appellate court can expect to be reversed on appeal. But, obviously, that does not always happen. The Supreme Court has reversed its opinion many times, and the only way that can happen is if somebody has re-litigated the issue.

Lincoln’s words bear repeating and thoughtful consideration:

the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers,

The idea that opinions of the Supreme Court are the law of the land is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. The practice of substituting litigation for legislation is further evidence of the abandonment of our republic in favor of a dictatorial oligarchy.

We have only ourselves to blame.

TRUMP'S WALL

Donald Trump has made quite a splash with his proposal to build a two thousand mile wall between the United States and Mexico. He makes it sound easy enough. Heck, the Chinese built the Great Wall of China more than two thousand years ago. They didn’t even have bull dozers.

I got to thinking about Mr. Trump’s Wall, and quite frankly, I don’t like it.

It seems to me that walls are for prisons and dictators. I still get a warm fuzzy feeling when I hear a recording of Ronald Reagan’s famous speech in Berlin:

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!”

There is perhaps no more explicit definition of freedom or personal liberty than the ability to go where you want to go. The history of the human race is largely a story of migration. God gave us eyes to see the horizon and legs to get us from here to there.

The story of our nation is a tale of travelers; of pilgrims and refugees, adventurers and escapees, the ostracized and the ambitious.

The Statue of Liberty says it best: Give me your tired and your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free…

The Berlin Wall didn’t keep Westerners out or Easterners in. It just made getting in or out harder and more dangerous. People are going to go where they want to go. Somehow.

We used to call illegal immigrants from Mexico ‘wetbacks,’ the idea being that they swam across the Rio Grande to get into the United States. I puzzled about that. A couple of years ago, Polly and I vacationed with friends at El Cabo del Sol. We showed our passports and we were welcomed to Mexico. Can’t a Mexican vacation in California as easily?

So I Googled it. Not a very productive way to spend a morning. The Immigration Laws of the United States are a horrible example of the cancer of bureaucracy. ICE, ESTA, VWP, BCC, B1, B2, H1B, USCIS, OCC, INA, CFR, ELIS, I-90, I-539, SAWP, TFW, not to mention EP, VEE, CEM, APHIS, EP, DACA and USDA; the initials and acronyms are enough to boggle the brain.

The fact is that the border between the United States and Mexico is the busiest national border in the world, with roughly 350 million people crossing each year. The San Ysidro Port of Entry between Tijuana and San Diego alone recorded 8.4 million pedestrians and 12.3 million vehicles crossing in 2011.

Like the border between Detroit and Windsor, there are many people who cross daily to go to work or school.

Getting a Visa or a Border Crossing Card that will allow someone from Mexico to enter the United States is not difficult. The U.S. has issued over 4 million electronic Border Crossing Cards and continues to issue about 100,000 a month. They authorize the holder to enter our country for a short visit up to 30 days, the length of which is specified by the immigration officer when they enter the country. If they overstay the intended visit, the card will be cancelled and getting another one will be a problem.

Border Crossing Cards are good for ten years of short 30-day visits, but they limit how far the visitor can go into our country: 25 miles in California and Texas, 55 miles in New Mexico and 75 miles in Arizona.

Lots of people in Mexico want to come to America. Can you blame them? Our constitution requires the Congress to adopt uniform immigration and naturalization laws. It also requires the President to see that the laws are faithfully executed. If the President and the Congress do what the Constitution requires of them, there should be no great problem at our borders.

Immigration from Mexico, both legal and illegal has slowed in the past five years. Perhaps it is because of the economy, both here and in Mexico. That brings me to another pillar in Mr. Trump’s platform. Someone should tell him that if Ford Motor builds a plant in Mexico and provides a number of good jobs for the people who live there, fewer Mexicans will want to come to the U.S.A. in search of gainful employment.

Being a business man, he ought to know that a free enterprise economy is not a zero sum game. A rising tide lifts all boats.