The Earth Belongs to the Living

The Constitution mandates the Federal government accomplish a single task, to “provide” for the defense of liberty for ourselves and our Posterity. Climate Change, resource depletion, and US Federal debt of $20 trillion are unequivocal metrics of our failure to defend liberty for Posterity.

Thomas Jefferson summarized our duty to usufruct in a Letter to James Madison, Sept 6, 1789, the Earth Belongs to the Living:

“Then no man can by _natural right_ oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the paiment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might during his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be reverse of our principle.”

“…nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19. years?”

Thomas Jefferson (Tayor Letter, May 28, 1816):

“the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

Madison, Federalist #62. Children are defenseless against a Tyranny of the Majority passing laws that deplete resources and mortgage their future labor for the benefits of a majority today:

Another effect of public instability (frequent changes in law, printing money, etc), is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the monied few, over the industrious and uninformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said, with some truth, that laws are made for the few, not for the many.

Debt is the tax on future labor. Debt beyond 19 years repayment is a tax on the labor of children imposed without consent, Taxation without Representation.

Usufruct Capitalism and the Constitution

Usufruct, to use for profit without harm, is in the mission of the Federal government.

“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.”

“…secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” mandates usufruct; we are at liberty to use whatever resources we deem necessary to profit and pursuit our happiness matched by the responsibility to restore those resouces to like use for our Posterity to pursuit their happiness. If we need a resource such as oil, fine. We are duty bound to restore it to like use, or better, by our children.

All costs of use and restoration to like use must be properly capitalized into the price of use, usufruct, to use without harm.

Within a Solar Budget:

America liberty was founded with self-reliance and a solar budget. The Constitution obligated those who govern to “provide” for the defense of liberty for ourselves and our Posterity.

Enough solar energy hits the Earth every hour of every day to power all human economies for a year. As Thomas Edison noted in 1910:

“Sunshine is spread out thin and so is electricity. Perhaps they are the same, Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy.”

“Do we use them? Oh, no! We burn up wood and coal, as renters burn up the front fence for fuel. We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property.

“There must surely come a time when heat and power will be stored in unlimited quantities in every community, all gathered by natural forces. Electricity ought to be as cheap as oxygen….”

Problem:

In violtion of the Constitution, the governing in America implemented socialism in power and transportation; Federal monopoly control of the means of production in power and transportation monopolies:

1913: Wanting to use the Federal government to increase coercion, the 16th, 17th, and in 1929, the 18th Amendments.
- 16th Amendment was to tax capital gains taken as personal income by the very wealthy, 5 times the typical wage. The Governing have since morphed this to confiscate at least 25% of the lowest wage earners value in the market. The original meaning of “income tax” needs to be restored as it was intended in 1913.
- 17th Amendment reduced the price of political corruption from buying half a state legislature to merely contributing to a Sentorial campaign. Senators now represent corporate interests, not those of the state they come from. The result is Climate Change, oil-wars, and other consequences of Federal oil/coal burning “internal improvements”. Link to 5 Presidential vetoes of why “internal improvements” are unconstitutional. Link to 8 Presidents calling for an end to dependence on foreign oil caused by unconstitutional Federal taxing to build “internal improvements.”
- 18th Amendment gave Federal police powers to keep people from selling a beer. This was repealed by the 21st Amendment, just as the 17th Amendment needs to be repeal
1919: Federal monopolizing/socializing communications, power and transportation.
1928: “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage” in the 1928 Presidential campaign underscores the shift the Federal policy from defending liberty to “bread and circuses”.
1935-1952: The Federal government taxed the people to provide welfare in building the electrical grid. Unintended consequences:

The booming distributed energy industry, small manufacturers who made and sold 400,000 water and electric windmills against the headwind of the Great Depression, were bankrupted as subsidized electricity removed self-reliance as a market force.
The Governing made coal the only source of energy.
The Governing socialized the costs of pollution tilting the balance of nature into Climate Change.

1956: Dr Hubbert forecast US Peak Oil in about 1970. Link to US DOE data on US Peak Oil in 1970.
1956: The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 taxed the people to build the Interstate Highways to facilitate the sale of cars and oil. A Tyranny of the Majority formed creating the defects of oil-wars, Climate Change, mortgaging the future labor of children with $18 trillion in debt, and subordinating America’s survival to the power of foreign oil. Interstates are 1.3% of US roads that carry 25% of car-miles. Interstate highways that are only within cities caused cities to sprawl, mandating that Americans buy cars and oil to be economically competitive. Americans who are to young, to old, or to poor to afford/operate a car are denied economic opportunities. Nearly half (120,000 miles) of freight railroads were abandon as highway policies removed efficiency as a market force. Freight railroads in the US average 476 ton-miles per gallon.

President Madison’s Mar 3, 1817 veto underscores there is no enumerated power for Federal taxing to build highways and canals:

Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled ‘An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,’ and which sets apart and pledges funds ‘for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses’ . . . I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives. The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers.

Link to five Presidential vetoes defending the libery against the powerful trying to use the power of the Federal government to benefit the sagacious.

1957: Admiral Rickover stated clearly the path to war of the Federal highway policy.
1970: US Peak Oil at 9.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) depleting to 5.6 mb/d today.

Oil imports increased from 20% to 50% of needs.
National debt increased from $0.4 to $18 trillion.
Wars, including “no-fly missions,” to protect access to foreign oil since 1990.

1998 to 2008: Gasoline prices increased from $1.03 to $3.30; family disposable income decreased about $2,000 as more and more families were forced to choose between paying their mortgage and their commute. In Sept 2008 foreclosure collapsed the banking system, exposing bad government policies and banker greed. Life requires energy. Less affordable energy, less life. Disposable Energy, people’s disposable incomes’ ability to buy energy is crashing indicates the economy based on cheap oil is going into depression.
1980 to 2012: Dramatic changes in Arctic multi-year ice indicates radical shifts in the balance of nature.
2012: Drought indicates that pollution consequences will impact the availability of food. July 2012 was the hotest month in recorded human history. Food inventories are already at record lows.

Life requires energy. Oil is finite. Life and nations based on oil are failing.

The Constitution mandates an enumerated nature and Divided Sovereignty:

With the Federal government having unlimited taxing powers for the limited sovereignty over issues of war, peace, and commercial actions that might result in war.
Individual American retain our liberty over every liberty not specifically sacrified in the Constitution to create the “general welfare“:
- Liberty so we have Wisdom from the Many: As noted in the book, The Wisdom of Crowds, the aggregate wisdom of all of use, with each of us acting in our own self-interest is wiser than the wisest of us at choosing between choices.
- Liberty is society’s tolerance for disruptive minorties. The offering of choices. And, there is no minority as tiny and disrutpive as inventors.

A Tyranny of the Majority borrow from Posterity to fund our consumption and push the consequence of our pollution into the future of our children.

Federalist #63:

“so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn.”

Democracy has two facets, one brilliant and one vile:

The brilliant aspect of democracy is Wisdom from the Many. The book, The Wisdom of Crowds, provides many examples of how the aggreated wisdom of all of us, with each of us acting in our own self-interest, is wiser than the wisest of us at choosing between choices.
The vile aspect of democracy is Tyranny of the Majorty. In America, this characteristic accounts for slavery, annhilation of the American Indians, Jim Crow Laws, and mortgaging the liberty and labor of every child in America to $59,734 (July 16, 2016) in Federal debt without consent.

Following is a 30 minute presentation on:

How the Constitutiion was written to use Wisdom from the Many while limiting Tyranny of the Majority.
How the 17th Amendment unleashed Federal consolidation of power and Tyranny of the Majority.
Civilization Killers created by violating the Constitution.
How the Constitution can be used to mitigate these Civilization Killers.