Sunday, June 2, 2024

We need better constitutions and laws

There’s an article in the Minnesota Reformer claiming we need a full time legislature. As I read through it the other day, I couldn’t find a clear explanation of how going from part time to full time would improve the quality of laws or related decisions. Meanwhile, the Kansas Supreme Court has found the "state constitution does not provide the right to vote.” Finallly, although I wasn’t there at the time, I don’t recall reading that the framers of the US Constitution were under time pressures when they decided the qualifications to be president to be limited to the following:

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, 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.

I believe the requirements to purchase and/or carry a firearm are considerably more stringent. Look at the situation we’re currently facing: a convicted felon, on 34 counts, is the presumptive candidate for president, expected to represent one of our two major political parties. Felons aren’t allowed to vote, why should one be allowed to serve the highest office? Don’t we think more of our democracy, and ourselves, than that.

photo of Hieracium aurantiacum (Orange Hawkweed)
Hieracium aurantiacum (Orange Hawkweed) invasive species
Photo by J. Harrington

At the state level, I’ve been looking at Minnesota’s laws defining invasive species. Although I am not a lawyer, they seem vague enough to be found unconstitutional, See what you think:

Subd. 17.    Invasive plant.

"Invasive plant" means a nonnative species whose introduction and establishment causes, or may cause, economic or environmental harm or harm to human health. 

  

Subd. 9a.    Invasive species.

"Invasive species" means a nonnative species that:

(1) causes or may cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health; or

(2) threatens or may threaten natural resources or the use of natural resources in the state. 

So far, I’ve not been able to find any description of a process or criteria to be followed in reaching a determination of the quantity and/or quality of “harm” that needs to be caused to the economy, human health or natural resources in the state for a terrestrial or aquatic species to be listed. 

The last time I checked, most educated, thinking people were familiar with and generally agreed with the  theory of evolution. That means ecosystems and their elements change over time. Then there’s the problem of human caused environmental pollution that’s causing massive amounts of economic and environmental and human health harm. I’m not holding my breath until the commissioner of agriculture or natural resources declares humans an invasive species but, if we look back far enough, I don’t think we fit the definition of native for this continent.

Don’t we need better laws to have better enforcement and attain the results we’d like? Do we really want to see a convicted felon in our highest office? Should our definitions of invasive species, and how they're applied, be more specific? How do we start to make that happen? We need to begin with better quality candidates and better defined issues!

Tomorrow I’ll share some questions I hope could help get a better handle on invasive species. Maybe we can work up to qualifications for president.


anti-immigration 


the black people left, and took with them their furious
            hurricanes and their fire-breathing rap songs melting
the polar ice caps. they left behind the mining jobs,
           but took that nasty black lung disease and the insurance
regulations that loop around everything concerning
           health and care, giant holes of text that all the coverage
falls through. the brown people left, and took with
           them the pesticides collecting like a sheen on the skins
of fruit. they went packing, and packed off with them
           went all the miserable low-paying gigs, the pre-dawn
commutes, the children with expensive special needs
           and the hard-up public schools that tried to meet them.
the brown people left, railroaded into carting off those
           tests that keep your average bright young student outside
the leagues of ivy-lined classrooms, and also hauled off
           their concentrated campuses, their great expectations, their
invasive technology, and the outrageous pay gap between
           a company’s c.e.o. and its not-quite-full-time workers. they
took their fragile endangered pandas and species extinction
           and got the hell outta dodge. the black people left and took
hiv/aids, the rest of their plagues, and all that deviant
           sexuality with them. they took their beat-down matriarchies
and endless teen pregnancies, too. those monster-sized
           extended families, the brown people took those. the brown
people boxed up their turbans and suspicious sheet-like
           coverings, their terrifying gun violence, cluster bombs,
and drones, and took the whole bloody mess with them,
           they took war and religious brow-beating tucked under
their robes. they took theocracy and their cruel, unusual
           punishments right back where they came from. finally,
the white people left, as serenely unburdened as when
          they arrived, sailing off from plymouth rock with nothing
in their hands but a recipe for cranberry sauce, a bit
           of corn seed, and the dream of a better life. there were
only certain kinds of people here, after the exodus, left
           to wander the underdeveloped wilderness in search
of buffalo, tobacco, and potable water, following old
           migratory patterns that would have been better left alone.


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