Public Policy and The Law
THE PUBLIC POLICY AND THE LAW
Introduction:
I live in a community where the majority of the prosperous people are direct
beneficiaries of monthly checks from the paymasters of the U. S. government: Most notable the military, the civil service, and the Social Security Administration. This is a famously conservative community in politics. Mr. Everyman’s favorite complaint is about the wasteful practices of government workers of all kinds– including elected ones.
It is my experience that these critics of government are well qualified to comment; and, it is my observation that, for the most part, they have a poor understanding of how the whole apparatus of government fits together and functions.
When you construct something big, one way to start is to fabricate the forms which will shape your edifice. Once the forms are in place, the character of the building can emerge. I think these are the 17 forms for the structure of our nation.
The purpose of this writing is to help clarify our understanding of that thing we refer to as Government.
I hope that we, the people of the United States of America, may make some
improvements. To start, I have listed seventeen fundamentals which describe the basis of the law as we “lay people,” citizens, know it.
The General Framework:
The “public,” means the people of the United States of America. They have made their most general government policy based upon the following:
1. We are a single nation with a single set of written assertions of authority and responsibility–nationally. This set is called the Constitution and the Federal Statutes.
2. The nation is subdivided, principally, into a number of states and each of them is established with a single set of written assertions of authority and responsibility. The pattern in the states is similar to the national one: a constitution and the statutes.
3. It is a primary definition by the nation that all of the authority and responsibility which is not asserted in writing as belonging to the nation, and not asserted in writing as belonging to the states, continues to be held by the people.
4. The government organization of the nation is formed in three segments or
branches. Each branch is intended to perform in accord with a specific array of statements of authority and responsibility. Each of the branches both assists and constrains the other two. This is often called “the checks and balances of government.”
5. Each area designated as a state is subdivided by the state into smaller, subsidiary areas for the purposes defined by the state. Most of these subsidiary areas are known as cities, counties, districts and authorities and each of them is an agency of its state.
6. Most of the states fix their government organization as three segments or branches in a manner similar to, and quite separate from, the national government.
7. The national government solely has the duty to conduct a relationship with another nation.
8. The national government alone has the duty to assure that each individual is dealt with equitably by any government activity within, of, by the nation.
9. Each state government has a similar duty to assure that each person is dealt with fairly by government activity of that state.
10. The written assertions of authority and responsibility, both of the nation and of each state, are published in the form of a long, numbered and indexed list simply called The Law.
11. For the most part, each item of The Law is initially asserted by the branch of the government called the Legislative (law-making) Body. The nation has one and each state has one.
12. The other two segments of government also contribute to the development of The Law, and to the definition of and changes in its meanings.
13. The Executive Branch of government often must prepare and adopt the rules by which a portion of The Law is administered. The Executive Branch also sees that the laws are administered.
14. The Judicial Branch is often called upon to determine the actual meanings of The Law; and sometimes to call upon some other branch to perform its duty.
15. The people of the nation govern their own personal behavior, most of the time, so that it does not tend to contradict or disagree with The Law of the nation or of the state in which their behavior takes place.
16. Most of the time people occupy themselves with activities which have little or nothing to do with The Law and simply guide themselves by their own personal experience and their anticipations of future events.
17. The unwritten rules of people’s lives are seldom a part of the analysis of public policy, though they are always in the background, as the U.S. Constitution reminds us.
They become a part of policy analysis when we need to assert more exactly the limits of the meaning of The Law.
We shall work with these seventeen, above, and perhaps a few others you know of.
We know we are not perfect. We have many problems with the results of this
governmental structure we have built. To illustrate that, here are three:
Three Problems We Share
ONE: The nation is unable to maintain its land borders in a manner which
excludes those people the nation desires to exclude. The nation does not permit the states to provide the needed services of exclusion.
TWO: The states that contain large cities cannot provide the children in the
central part of the cities the same quality educational facilities and services which they provide children in the urbanized suburbs around the central city. The nation does not acknowledge that the state discriminates unfairly among people because of the locations of their residence.
THREE: Most of the states as well as the nation use deliberative procedures to terminate the life of an individual who is found sufficiently deficient or in error. To date there is little recognition that the right to a natural death could very well become one of those which the people retain to themselves.
DISCUSSION
The three problems are examples. Others abound.
These are: capital punishment, discriminatory taxation, uncontrollable illegal
immigration.
One:
Illegal migration of populations is often caused by misery back home. The risks of the travel are death; to some, staying home is the same as death. The problem can only be dealt with at the source, not at the border.
Building a wall at the border is not the answer. Enabling those people to have a better life at home is the answer. Pity we do not know how to do that. Perhaps we could find out.
Two:
The central city people and the suburban people live within separate tax districts, governed by the laws of the state. The central city is poor and so are their schools.
The suburban city people live in separate and richer areas and their schools are wonderful. This is not a surprise: they went to the suburbs to have a better life, in the first place. To hell with the poor. Let their children buckle down and try harder.
This is a state problem. The nation tries to stay out of it. Not theirs to do, they argue. So far the nation has stayed out of it. Still, it is our problem. Bully! As Theodore used to say. Extremely short sighted. An extreme example of wisdom absent.
Three:
Punishing people by killing them is a traditional revenge. We used to do it personally. Government socialized it. Made it a government monopoly. No religious or ethical person in this country would dream of returning to the old “do-it-yourself” methods. At the same time, thoughtful people avoid using either their religion or ethics to explain the killing that governments perform.
A few elected officials say they like it, though they do not use their religion or their ethics to explain why. Now and then an unusual religious leader defends killing people. They are interesting to hear.
The best thing you can say is that killing someone is a cowardly way to deal with a difficult problem.
Some argue that to kill is not cruel and it is not unusual punishment. If it were cruel and unusual, of course, it could be found unconstitutional. Against The Law. For now, perhaps that means that it must be seen as a type of kindness.
SUMMARY CONCLUSION
These three little problems are ours. They are only examples. You could list many, many others.
We are starting a new century, a new millennium, a new
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