We the People Don't Need a President's Plan

This article was originally posted on FEE.org. I think it is very well written and informative. The Constitution of the United States is one of the best legal documents ever written and it should be protected. All credit for this article goes to Barry Brownstein, professor emeritus of economics and leadership at the University of Baltimore. Enjoy!

We the People Don't Need a President's Plan

Hillary Clinton has a “plan.” I live in a “battleground state” so Clinton shared her plan with me in commercials, over and over and over again, through Saturday afternoon college football. Clinton’s plan is to spend more taxpayer money. Her spending initiatives include free college tuition for students in families making under $125,000 a year, universal preschool, and subsidized child care.

Delegated authority to the president is quite limited in the Constitution, but no matter. In our increasingly post-constitutional America, candidates, the media, and a majority of the public seem to believe that the president has powers far beyond those given by the Constitution. Do you remember Bill Clinton claiming his plan was building a  “bridge to the future”? “Building” plans are de rigueur for candidates. We have come to believe that the president has a problem solver’s job to fix a whole host of domestic and foreign issues.

Hillary tells us she is “fighting for us.” Since she is “fighting for us,” shouldn’t we be glad she has a plan?

What Does “We the People” Mean?
The preamble to the Constitution famously says: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

James Madison wrote, “Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”

But what does “We the People” mean? In this interview law professor Randy Barnett addresses that question as he talks about his important book Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People. He explains that today “We the People” is commonly interpreted as a collective of people who can vote their preferences into law by majority rule and then implement their will against the will of individuals whose rights are ignored. When judges rule laws as unconstitutional they are seen as the problem because “they get in the way of the will of the people.”

More and more Americans want to be taken care of by government; they want wealth to be redistributed by government too. They believe all that is needed to expand the role of government is a vote. The framers of the Constitution understood that democracy is no guarantee against liberty being usurped. In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison wrote, “Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”

Madison and the other framers of the Constitution had something very different in mind than being subjected to rule by an “overbearing majority.” Barnett looks to the Declaration of Independence as an essential document by which we can better understand the Constitution. He says the alternative reading of “We the People,” is “We the People as individuals, each of whom are endowed with the individual rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” Government’s role then is to “secure these rights.” Barnett points out that the Founding Fathers believed that “first comes [pre-existing and inalienable] rights, then comes government.”

You don’t have to look far to find support for Barnett’s position. James Wilson was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and was one of the six original justices appointed by Washington to the Supreme Court. Here, quoted by historian Brion McClanahan in The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution, Wilson explains what “We the People” of the United States means:

“We the People — it is announced in their name, it is clothed with their authority, from whom all power originated and ultimately belong. Magna Carta is the grant of a king. This Constitution is the act of the people and what they have not expressly granted they have retained.”

Wilson was no outlier in his interpretation of the Constitution. James Madison was the chief architect of the Constitution and in Federalist Paper No. 45 he puts it clearly: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.”
If the powers allocated to the federal government are “few and defined,” how could the president have a plan other than to defend the liberty of the people?

Rights are Retained by the People
So how do we keep government to a few and defined powers? Some founding fathers wanted a Bill of Rights as a bulwark against government. Others, including Alexander Hamilton, feared government would grow if the rights of government were itemized. In Federalist Paper No. 84 Hamilton argues against the Bill of Rights being incorporated into the Constitution:

"They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?"

In other words, as James Wilson puts it “a Bill of Rights annexed to a Constitution is an enumeration of the powers reserved. If we attempt an enumeration, everything that is not enumerated is presumed to be given.” Imperfect enumeration of powers would imply that government has powers it does not have.

There was no argument about the rights retained by the people; the argument was how to secure them. Madison’s solution to those objections was the Ninth Amendment. Placed in its historical context, the powerfully simple language of the Ninth Amendment is clear and unambiguous: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

What Madison couldn’t have anticipated is that the courts would virtually ignore the vital Ninth Amendment, citing it only in a few cases in the course of American history. Ignoring the vital Ninth Amendment has helped to allow government to expand unchecked. Randy Barnett’s edited volume The Rights Retained by the People is an essential guide to the Ninth Amendment.

The Powers of the President
The powers granted to government are “few and defined.” The Constitution grants the president only a few of those limited powers and, certainly, no power to propose grand plans. In his book The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution Brion McClanahan writes:

“The framers did not consider the president to be the chief legislator. He could not propose legislation and his primary domestic responsibility was to execute the laws and carry ‘the will of the legislature into effect.’”

So limited were the powers of the president that Charles Pinckney, founding father and signer of the U.S. Constitution, argued against the impeachment clause in the Constitution on the grounds that the president’s powers “would be so circumcised” by the Constitution that presidential abuse would be impossible.

If the president is not to make plans for us, then what? In my FEE essay There is No Such Thing as a Political Problem Solver, I put it this way: “Every day, ordinary citizens and entrepreneurs pursue opportunities. No one controls the myriad decentralized decisions and actions that, along the way, solve problems. We don’t need “problem solvers” to tell us the “winning plan.” We need planners and “problem solvers” to stay out of our way.”

In reality, Clinton’s plan is not the problem. Her plan to expand government only reflects the hearts and minds of American people who are ignorant of and no longer value our great founding principles. The analysis in this essay would be considered irrelevant by many Americans—who would say the Constitution must be interpreted in light of what society needs today. As for the rest of us, in Barnett’s words, “As long as the Constitution has not been repealed, we could appeal to restore it… We’re going to have to figure out how to keep the flame of liberty alive and how to keep the Constitution alive, at least in our thoughts, until we have a change in circumstances.”

A “change in circumstances” will begin when we change our minds about the role of government. When we no longer believe we need a president’s plan, candidates will stop offering them. We are the problem and we are the solution.

Barry Brownstein

Barry Brownstein is professor emeritus of economics and leadership at the University of Baltimore. He is the author of The Inner-Work of Leadership. He delivers leadership workshops to organizations and blogs at BarryBrownstein.com, and Giving up Control.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Vice Presidential Debate musings

The VP debate Tuesday night was the first full VP debate that I've seen and it did not disappoint me. Pence clearly won the debate because Kaine was on the defensive from the start. Kaine couldn't get himself refocused on policies and facts, which lost him the debate. 

Kaine interrupted Pence 72 times. Think about that for a moment folks, 72 times. Kaine's strategy seemed to have been this: "I'll interrupt Pence every time he speaks the truth and then Quijano will finish him off with tough questions." That's not a respectful way to debate, you should be polite enough to allow your opponent to finish speaking before you speak. I thought we all learned this in first grade: don't interrupt others, it's disrespectful and annoying. Kaine came across disrespectful and annoying.

In this election, the Clinton campaign has been attacking Trump's demeanor, but Kaine, during the debate, had a worse demeanor than Trump. It seems contradictory for the Clinton campaign to criticize Trump for his demeanor in light of Kaine's behavior last night.

Pence, on the other hand, mostly let Kaine finish his thought and then capitalized on Kaine's mistakes. I'm actually going to quote a Washington Post article, "Pence was the more comfortable of the two men on the debate stage. Pence repeatedly turned to the camera when he answered questions, making clear he understood that the real audience wasn't in the room but watching on TV. The Indiana governor was calm, cool and collected throughout — a stark contrast to the fast-talking (and seemingly nervous) Kaine." Pence does what Trump doesn't, and that is stay cool and collected. Pence was like a airplane pilot: even though there was turbulence, he wasn't nervous.

I'm not going to get too much more in depth or break down every little exchange in the debate because the media has that covered. (I think the media were sharpening their pitchforks during the debate in preparation for their post-debate criticism mob.) Anyway, I thought Pence did a great job representing the Trump campaign in the debate Tuesday. Trump could learn a thing or two from Pence on debating.

This isn't in Kaine's defense, but he was probably doing exactly what the Clinton campaign wanted him to, which was to sling mud. It didn't matter how much mud ended up on Kaine, the only thing that mattered was that more mud hit Trump through Pence. Kaine, according to some pundits, doesn't usually behave in such a behavior. That was the sacrifice he was willing to make for the campaign.

That probably says something about our political system, that some VPs are just there to be character assassins instead of an actual asset. That's a sad statement to make, one I wish I didn't believe. 
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In the words of Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."

The following article is originally from a website called The Conversation; I don't know anything about this website, but I found this article to be pretty interesting. So, all credit goes to Aradhna Krishna, University of Michigan and Tatiana Sokolova, University of Michigan. Anyway, enjoy the article.

How to vote for president when you don't like the candidates

Aradhna Krishna, University of Michigan and Tatiana Sokolova, University of Michigan

How do voters select a candidate when no one they like is on the ballot?
Behavioral scientists have studied decision-making – including voting – for decades. However, researchers usually give respondents at least one appealing option to choose from.

This led us to wonder: What do voters do when they consider all of the options bad? Do they fall back on party affiliation, or simply toss a coin? This question is especially appropriate in the current presidential election because the two front runners have the lowest favorability ratings ever.

When we did research to answer this question, we learned that in situations where all of the choices are bad, people tend to vote by rejecting the choices they didn’t like, rather than by affirmatively choosing the one they disliked least.

Imagine there are two undesirable candidates named Tilly and Ron. Given this “two bad choices” option, voters will be more likely to select Tilly because they reject Ron, rather than select Tilly proactively.

While the end result may be the same, the thought process that leads to this decision is quite different.
As behavioral scientists who study how people make decisions, we think this distinction could affect the upcoming presidential election. If people select between Clinton and Trump by using rejection rather than choice, then the information they use to make their decisions will be different.

In some ways, it may be better. Voters using rejection are more deliberate. They are less likely to be swayed by unimportant information about a candidate that they read or hear on radio, television or Facebook. They may pay less attention to rumors. In fact, conscientious voters may be well served to actively adopt a rejection strategy for their vote in order to make a choice more deliberately.

Choosing to reject

In a study we ran online in April, we showed people only Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the two candidates for president. Those who found at least one of them attractive were more likely to select by choice, while those who disliked both were more likely to select by rejection.

Having determined that people use rejection strategies to make their voting decisions in bad-option situations, we next wanted to test how rejection strategies would change the information people focus on.

In nine separate studies we conducted, some of which will be published in an upcoming Journal of Consumer Research, we found that when people use rejection strategies, they also become more deliberate in their decision-making. In other words, they pay more attention to all information they have – both good and bad – and don’t get swayed as much by one piece of information that sticks out.
In our research, we saw more deliberation in rejection decisions and less of a tendency to be swayed by emotional, in-your-face information.

For example, one of these studies determined that people were less likely to vote based on party affiliation if they voted by rejection, rather than by choice. Respondents also took less time to make their decision in the choice condition versus the rejection condition.

Revisiting an old favorite

We reached these results by revisiting a classic study known as the “Asian disease problem.”
The Asian disease problem was first proposed by the behavioral economists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1981. It is well-studied because of the contradictory choices people make, and is one of the many conundrums that Kahneman proposed which later won him the Nobel Prize.
In the standard formulation of the Asian disease problem, people choose between two programs to combat an unusual Asian disease: program A, which offers certainty; and program B, which involves a risk.

The original research showed that people change their preferences between the two programs depending on how the options are described.

People tend to select the more certain program A if it is framed as a gain. Specifically, 72 percent of respondents preferred (A) “200 people are saved out of 600” while 28 percent picked the riskier (B) “1/3 probability that 600 people are saved and 2/3 probability that no one is saved.”
That may seem rational. However, change the wording and the results also change – even though the theoretical loss of life remains the same.

Program A was preferred by only 22 percent of the recipients when researchers framed the choice like this: (A) “400 people will die out of 600” versus (B) “2/3 probability that 600 people will die and a 1/3 probability that no one will die.” With this wording, 78 percent choose the riskier option. This is because people tend to focus on emotionally salient information like “save” and “die.”

Emotional appeals less powerful

Our new research revisits this classic problem to study what would happen if the respondents were choosing which program to reject instead of which one to choose. Would people be swayed less by the attention-grabbing words like “save” and “die”?

When we asked respondents which program would you reject, respondents’ selections were affected less by the use of the emotional words. Program A was selected by 48 percent in the first pair and 43 percent selected it in the second. In other words, the decision between program A and program B was similar, whether “save” or “die” was used to describe the programs.
The study results indicate that wild in-your-face claims made by candidates will get less weight if people use rejection strategies to vote.

Princeton psychology scholar Eldar Shafir has also found that rejection makes people focus on negative attributes. Perhaps the candidates’ campaign managers know this already and that is why the negativity in this election has been so high. But, the point to remember is that this cannot be a shallow negative attribute like sounding bossy or having a spray-tanning habit. People voting by rejection will be more deliberate – and will look carefully at what makes a candidate bad. Emotional claims will not work. Voters will think carefully about why they want to reject one of the candidates.


Aradhna Krishna, Dwight F Benton Professor of Marketing, University of Michigan and Tatiana Sokolova, Post-doctoral Researcher, University of Michigan

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.