A Short History Lesson

When I was still involved in politics one of the things that I usually found myself arguing with people over were constitutions. People love the idea that it's possible to come up with a set of rules that can deal with any and all situations, and that if you just set them up so it's almost impossible to change them, you've eliminated all opportunities for wrong-doing. The problem with this idea---and which it was decidedly hard to convince many people about---is that it is pretty much impossible to predict all the different problems that any institution is going to face in the future. And in those situations all a constitution does is give people of ill-will the ability to stymie the ability of the majority to deal with those problems.

I've been thinking about this issue lately because I've heard a lot of constitutional fundamentalists in the media and in one-on-one conversations. To hear them speak, there should never be, is absolutely none, and, it is horribly wrong to even suggest that there should be any "wiggle room" with regard to any constitutional issue. Some of this has been raised vis-a-vis the Lavalin affair, some of it about the carbon tax lawsuit. There is some push-back, but I have yet to hear anyone defend the idea that this fundamentalism is an intrinsically bad idea. To that end, let me describe a couple incidents from history.

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Sir Arthur Currie, Painting by Sir William Orpen.
Public Domain Image c/o Wiki Commons

The guy in the painting about was Sir Arthur Currie, also known as "Old Guts and Gaiters", was acknowledged by almost everyone as one of the best Generals in WWI. He rose in rank during the war from being a "Gunner" (what most people know as a "private") in the militia before the war to being a full General after it---which would now be a "Four Star General" in popular understanding. He owed his meteoric rise in rank because he had the ability to figure out how to win battles without slaughtering his men---something all the armies involved had a hard time doing. (Here is a popular history video that explains some of the issues.

The important point I want to raise is that this guy was an embezzler who stole money from his militia unit. There is absolutely no doubt about it---he was guilty as Hell. Moreover, the government of Canada was absolutely sure about it. They discussed whether or not they wanted to keep him on as their top general. (I once read that the British Prime Minister actually said that if the war had lasted another year, he would have put Currie in charge of all the British, Commonwealth, and, Imperial armies---he was that well regarded.) But the cabinet decided that they didn't care about the "independence of the criminal justice system" or "the rule of law", they needed this guy in charge of the army to save the lives of Canadian soldiers and shorten the war. The scandal was hushed up. 

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt, official Presidential Portrait
Public Domain Image, c/o Wiki Commons

I hope that this portrait is a little more well-known than Arthur Currie's. It's FDR, the author of the "New Deal" that made the lives of so many people easier to bear during the horrors of the Great Depression and WWII. He wasn't caught committing any crimes---like Currie---but he did do something that would and did make most constitutional fundamentalists head's spin. When the Supreme Court of the United States kept declaring key provisions of the New Deal "unconstitutional"---effectively vetoing them---Roosevelt successfully threatened the judges and forced them to back down. 

The way he did this was by having the Democrats in Congress introduce something called the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937.  The idea behind this was to "pack" the Supreme Court with judges who would support New Deal legislation and undue undo the veto power of the existing conservative judges. There were fundamentalists who were opposed to this legislation, and it eventually failed to pass through procedural delay. But the mere threat of this legislation, plus the enormous support that Roosevelt received from voters, was enough to get the judges to stop obstructing important legislation and allow Roosevelt to built the foundations of a welfare state in the USA.

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One of the reasons I decided to write this blog was because mainstream journalists have---by and large---lost the ability to put any story into a context. That is to say, they just repeat statements by leaders without any attempt to understand how well what is being said actually "jives" with reality. Part of this is probably because they are constantly rushing from pillar to post in order to keep their jobs. Part of it is also because they are taught that doing research and developing context are not "objective reporting", and that it is better to just write down what an important person says without trying to figure out if it actually makes any sense. 

Well we can all see how well that's served the general public---. 

Anyway, I am trying to do things differently. And if you have some disposable income, why not send some of it my way through Patreon or the Tip Jar? It sends a message to all and sundry that this is the news you like to read. (Thanks Sara for being so awesome!) 

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Constitutions do safeguard the rights of people. But it is profoundly naive to think that they are able to do this through some sort of magical legalism. There have been lots wonderful protections enshrined in the law that give people all sorts of great rights---that were totally ignored in practice. Blacks were supposed to be protected from lynching all through the Jim Crow era---but that didn't stop people from erecting scaffolds in town squares to kill them. Constitutions and laws are only as good as the general will of officials and ordinary people to live up to them. Moreover, they are only useful insofar as they benefit ordinary people. Far too often they are used as excuses to prevent long overdue reforms. And there are times when this is obvious to most people---like when a decision had to be made to promote or imprison Sir Arthur Currie, or, to abide by the Supreme Court or threaten it. But there are also times when the decision hangs in the balance and time is of the utmost importance. With the current court case over the legality of a federal carbon tax one of those situations faces us. If the judiciary decides in favour of the people seeking to sabotage any move towards avoiding a climate change catastrophe, this is one of those cases. If so, the government needs to punish any judges who stand in the way of preventing human suicide through ecological catastrophe. 

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Furthermore, I say to you---climate change must be dealt with!