The Harvard Reorganization Plan

George Rebane

Harvard has a plan to deconstruct our republic and rebuild it in their own image.  To launch a national dialogue on this initiative, the university’s prestigious law school has published ‘Pack the Union: A Proposal to Admit New States for the Purpose of Amending the Constitution to Ensure Equal Representation’ which we shall here call the Harvard Reorganization Plan (HRP).  For those unfamiliar, Harvard University is today perhaps the best endowed ($40.9B as of FY2019) premier academe of all things ideologically progressive and the fount of America’s leftwing thought.  For our liberals it is the mother temple of correct forward thinking – as declared in its motto ‘Veritas’, the institution publishes its works on stone tablets.

In the HRP, on their most recently issued tablet, their legal academics make an extensive and well-documented case for yet the most fundamental transformation, if not the complete abrogation, of what has been the United States of America.  This is a bottom up plan that will rip out by the roots our “republic, if you can keep it.”  The HRP proposes a devilishly convoluted route to replace our present form of governance with a pure democracy; using the leaks, holes, and soft-points of our otherwise carefully constructed Constitution to first create a minimum of 96 solidly leftwing new states out of what is now the District of Columbia – since DC is federal territory, this will require only a simple majority in the Senate to achieve.  Then with a newly constituted hard-Left Congress, the Constitution will be pro forma amended beyond recognition so that the result is the birth of a new United Socialist States of America (USSA).

On its first reading, HRP puts forward some very persuasive arguments for the founding of a new USSA.  But it is persuasive in a blindered and blinding manner.  And all of these arguments pivot on the siren song of “equal representation” - ‘one person, one vote’ - to be applied in a reorganized America to as many public policy decisions as possible.  The promise here is replicating the California template wherein cowardly politicians, rather than assume political risk and vote openly in the legislature, will throw the decision to a manipulable electorate so that the desired result can be credited to ‘the peehpul’.   Today the whole nation can see the fruits of that kind of a legislative dodge.

The purpose of this commentary is to invite readers to collect in one place their thoughts on the recommendations in the HRP and other similar plans that call for changing our democratic republic into a democracy.  In the sequel I list some numbered assertions, some of which I offer axiomatically, others as propositions, and perhaps a few as provable theorems.

1. The natural world (universe) has evolved over the billions of years to be an unequal, lumpy, more-here-than-there, highly discriminating, and therefore marvelously complex place that gave rise to equally unequal critters like Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
2. We are each identifiably unique in almost every dimension of being and doing that we can imagine. Therefore, if thrown into the same cauldron, we sort ourselves out very quickly as to those who can and will do what is the best, most, and/or quickest.  And we observe this as an attribute we share with all the more highly developed animals – the smarter the critter, the more differentiable it is from its fellows.
3. The belief in and the enforcement of unexamined and unqualified equality is unnatural, and gives rise to societies that cannot generate the wealth required to maintain a beneficial quality of life for any of its members, including the controlling elites.
4. Humans don’t know how to purposely manage large-scale, complex systems affected by random influences. While we can impact their serendipitous responses, we cannot beneficially control their behavior.  Mankind’s attempt to do so has always resulted in large-scale misery that precedes tragedy.  Central control of such systems requires much more knowledge than we have been able to assemble.  The eternal hubris of the Left is to ignore and/or deny this truth.
5. Nature’s answer to this conundrum is to distribute knowledge and control to the lowest levels (of agency found) in large systems. The leaf knows neither the nature nor purpose of the tree, and needs know neither to do a good job as a leaf, paying attention only to its immediate environment.  Even Rousseau and Marx caught a whiff of such an Elysian state of being in their philosophies.
6. Our Founders were astute students of human nature. They knew the histories of failed democracies, and to a man, sought to shield their new nation from a similar short-sighted fate.  Hence, the immortal words of Ben Franklin when asked what the Constitutional Convention had wrought – ‘A republic if you can keep it’, clearly indicating that future generations’ ability to sustain their bequest was to be western civilization’s Great Experiment of governance.
7. No reasonable person would argue that our Constitution is the perfect foundational document for a republic. Its flaws were already recognized when it was still being hammered on the anvil.  That’s why the Constitution was issued with built-in mechanisms by which it could be amended in a deliberate and orderly manner as new times would give rise to new values and thinking.  There is nothing deliberate or orderly in the manner HRP calls for rewriting the Constitution.
8. Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter – Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (2007) captured and quantified the recent experience in sustaining our Republic subjected to the vicissitudes of an electorate composed overwhelmingly of those who won’t or can’t grasp the issues about which they must choose. The results of this monumental study would not have surprised our Founders.
9. I submit that, were the measures outlined in the HRP to be initiated by the next Democrat controlled Congress, there would arise a spontaneous nationwide armed resistance to ‘save the Constitution’ and maintain the status quo. In short, reasoned national dialogue would break down in a similar manner experienced during the years before the War Between the States.

More later, based on our prolific and deep-thinking readers, and as other thoughts will undoubtedly arise in the fullness of time, I will add them to the list with attribution.

Comments

[Scott O]

Boy Howdy - that little 'proposal' is sumpin' else. The preamble is nothing but raw meat waved in front of mouth-frothing left wing haters.
To say it left out a few details is being kind. But when you want to fire up the Orcs, you don't go W. F. Buckley on them. I'd love to know who they found that could transcribe the original draft written in crayons and spray paint.
I got to this part of the proposal and had to stop for a while -

"Moreover, while it was at least plausible at the time to argue that the federal government was a creature of sovereign states, today the federal government is intimately involved with individual lives in a way that would have been unimaginable to those in the Founding era. If the federal government can levy personal income taxes, change the definition of marriage, and penalize the failure to purchase health insurance, shouldn’t the people whose lives depend on those decisions be entitled to equal representation?"

Again - "...in a way that would have been unimaginable to those in the Founding era."
Well no shit!!!!
In other words - 'we're so far off course now, let's just forget the original charted route and go somewhere else.'

And those of us on the boat that signed up for the original tour?
I guess we either go with the mutiny or ...?
I think what bothers me the most is how completely uneducated the author/authors seem to be. This isn't scholarly at all - it's just left-wing blather you can get from any high school student.
More later.

[fish]

Posted by: Scott O | 18 January 2020 at 05:39 PM

The funny part is them thinking the rest of the country would just watch what had transpired and say......Uh....Ok.....we have two hundred states and my vote means nothing now......we trust you to do the right thing with this new majority”

Morons......

[scenes]

It just read to me like some sort of silly local newspaper editorial. Fine grammar for some guy waving his little tyrannosaur arms about gun control or condoms in the women's restroom, but not what I'd expect from a law review, especially Ivy League.

I was poking around jstor.org looking at issues from decades past and felt reassured that articles used to be on rather arcane points of law, filled with unfamiliar jargon and cases. It appears that something has broken in the meantime.

Perhaps it's just that they get to throw off a trivial piece now and again as a treat for a favored member of staff.

It always struck me as a bummer that so many powerful political officials are lawyers, it's not like they've run things of any size or understand the history of matters. I think their tendency is to try to scale their ability in a highly specialized corner of knowledge to the rest of the world, especially mass human behavior. Thank God we don't elect generals or aerospace engineers.

[Scott O]

I don't for a minute think this is going anywhere.
What amazes me is...
Nope - actually shouldn't be surprised at all at what a couple of generations of ignorance has done to our so-called institutions of 'higher learning'.
If the dopes would just hang tight for a few more years, the inrush of illegals and the continuing brain-washing of the kids in schools will net them the mob rule mind set they desire.
Maybe they're getting nervous about how rapidly things are deteriorating in Cali. Might get the rest of the country to wake up and see what's in store for them once the woke-sters get control and make everything 'fair'.
Hell, even here in Boise we gots us a brand spanking new mayorette and she claims she's gonna end homelessness. She sounds like she's learned a bag of new tricks from the smarties in Frisco - and we all know how well that's working!!

[Bill Tozer]

Is Scott slipping into his own Private Idaho? Oh my.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAWF1OaMD8U

Could be worse. You could be living in a B Movie.

https://www.wweek.com/arts/movies/2016/10/11/a-portland-walking-tour-of-my-own-private-idaho/

[scenes]

re: new Boise Mayor "Her plan to help people who are homeless is to work to “get at the root cause and the systems that are creating the environment in which we’re finding ourselves.” She has asked city staff members to put together a proposal... " etc. etc. etc. (with apologies to Yul Brynner).

lol. Sweet. Same ol' same ol'. The next thing you know, the committees come to life.

My general theory is that it's not enough to choose a state to avoid this particular plague, but the right, and usually small, town.

[Bill Tozer]

Popular Vote? SUPREME COURT TO RULE ON FAITHLESS ELECTORS

“In the Washington Supreme Court case, the court upheld Washington’s statute. In the Colorado case, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, in Baca v. Colorado Department of State, held the state law unconstitutional on the ground that the U.S. Constitution grants electors the freedom to vote for whomever they choose.

Like most people, I dislike the concept of faithless electors, but in my view, the 10th Circuit’s reading of the Constitution is persuasive. If the Supreme Court affirms the 10th Circuit, we can expect to see many more cases of bribery, intimidation and so on in the future.

Meanwhile, a number of states have enacted the Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote, which is intended to effectively do away with the Electoral College. The Agreement will go into effect when states comprising the majority of electoral votes have subscribed to it, something that may happen in the near future. Under the Agreement, for example, if Minnesota were a signatory to the Agreement, and President Trump won the “national popular vote”–a journalistic construct, essentially, with no constitutional significance–while Minnesotans voted for Bernie Sanders, the state nevertheless would be required to instruct its electors to vote for Trump.”

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/supreme-court-to-rule-on-faithless-electors.php

[Scott O]

scenes 10:34 - I find it amusing that natives here claim they don't want Californians to 'bring their bad habits here' and then see that the natives are actually the ones dragging the left-wing crap into our state.
re your advice to choose a small town to live in - I did. And I'm not even in the city, I'm out in the country. And not in the same county (Ada) that Boise is in. Even the Ada County folk already have to pay extra vehicle reg fees for downtown transit 'plans' that will never do most of the rest of the county any good.
It's early days with the new mayorette. Hopefully, the cold weather and general hostility of the business owners to crap and litter on the sidewalks will be a check on her big plans. I'm sure she'll manage to get rid of a few hundred thou just to find out what anyone with a brain could tell her right now about the 'homeless'.

[odlaW]

...from Sandbox...edited...

20 states with the lowest population total 33.5 million people...and are represented by 40 Senators

20 states with the lowest population total 35 million cows

The rest of the country population total is 293 million...and are represented by 60 Senators

The rest of the country population total is 60 million cows...

Cows are more fairly represented than people in the Senate!!!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/16/are-cows-better-represented-senate-than-people/?arc404=true&utm_campaign=week_in_ideas&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&wpisrc=nl_ideas&wpmm=1

[Scott O]

odd-law 11:21 - Slept through civics class, did we?
The Senate is set up to make sure that the small population and rural states are as equally represented as the large population ones are.
If you think a handful of densely populated counties dictating over the whole rest of the nation is 'fair', the founders of our country were on to slow thinkers like you.
Getting rid of the Electoral College absolutely will lead directly to a major breakdown of our nation.

[scenes]

comma-man: some words on the Senate and representation.

Heck, just go for the endgame. Direct democracy for all matters, great and small.

It isn't like your average congresshuman is very smart. Even someone as well meaning (if something of a carpetbagger) like John McCain sounded about half bright. The Hank Johnsons of the world make you lose hope entirely, even if they're just voted in due to a hivemind.

In any case, if democracy is such a good deal, everyone gets to vote on everything.

Imagine the cool results. Run enough ads to the hoi polloi and you could outlaw dihydrogen monoxide or make all left handed people into slaves.

I'll make a deal on the Senate/electoral college thing. You can invent a more 'fair' system for how votes are sliced and diced, I get to choose how people qualify to be voters. Full citizenship might not be so easy to attain all of a sudden.

[scenes]

Scotto: "I find it amusing that natives here claim they don't want Californians to 'bring their bad habits here' and then see that the natives are actually the ones dragging the left-wing crap into our state."

If you're really lucky, Boise could go down the same route as Minneapolis. Hopefully there are enough church non-profits to pull off the same scam.

[odlaW]

,,,sorry boys,,,yer barking at the wrong guy,,,I just reported the news...I did not express an opinion...read the article...oh that is right you are afraid to open a link to the evil WP!!!! and as always LOL

[scenes]

I read a chunk of the article. It just looked like a comedy op-ed written by an intern. Closed the page.

Honestly, given the state of the newspaper bidness, there's not much point in referring to the things. Fox and the Washington Post suffer from the same lack of quality.

Hell, just look at our local representatives from news gigs, Paul and Pelline. I always thought that excelling at your profession was laudable, but that doesn't appear to be a universal trait.

[odlaW]

,,,yes Scenes,,,it was humorous but something to think about....

[Walt]

Does she EVER think about what she says? Guess not.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/01/19/elizabeth-warren-americans-vote-lies/
"Democratic 2020 candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Sunday questioned whether Americans want to support a presidential candidate who doesn’t tell the truth.

Warren, who has repeatedly struggled with the truth on the campaign trail, was asked during a press scrum whether it’s “disqualifying for a presidential candidate to lie to the American public about anything?”"

[scenes]

comma-dude: ",,,yes Scenes,,,it was humorous but something to think about...."

I like musing about what an optimal way to generate policy even is. There's no guarantee that universal suffrage, or even voting at all, automatically produces good results. For one thing, it's too early to tell.

You could probably install a King of Switzerland and have him appoint ministers and produce an heir and a spare and get better outcomes than democracy in much of the Third World. I think there's a tendency for people to confuse cause and effect in government systems.

[Steven R Frisch]

There seems to be some kind of Wordpress error on the Pack the Union paper at the HLR web site that is blocking both your link and the paper if one attempts to access it directly from the HLR web site.

[George Rebane]

SteveF 851am - Thanks for the heads up Steve, but that's weird because RR is on TypePad and NOT Wordpress. Have no idea how Wordpress gets involved or invoked. I am not able to pull up the cited article even through Google. Try this link, which does not work for me but may for you.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/yooo-harvard-law-pack-the-union.164178/

[Steven R Frisch]

Posted by: George Rebane | 20 January 2020 at 09:25 AM

Agree it is weird. I believe the HLR page is in Wordpress and that is the source of the problem. The resetera link takes you back to the HLR site and gets the same result, a Wordpress error.

[George Rebane]

SteveF 930am - You may be right about that, because from wherever you try to link to that article (i.e. other sites) you get the same error message. Here's one that gives a summary of the article, and also has a link to the article that doesn't work.
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/14/21063591/modest-proposal-to-save-american-democracy-pack-the-union-harvard-law-review

[Scott O]

Yeah - I just tried the link and got this error; "There has been a critical error on your website."
It did work earlier...

[George Rebane]

Administrivia - The link to Harvard's 'Pack the Union' article is broken due to an error at the source which appears to be a website powered by Wordpress as pointed out by SteveF. Other websites pointing to the same paper will give you the same error message. Therefore, until Harvard Law School get on the stick and works with Wordpress to correct its (HTML?) code, the cited paper will remain inaccessible. However, other websites have also picked up on the article and go into various descriptions of its contents that should serve in the interval. The link to the liberal Vox in my 937am is one such site.

[George Rebane]

All clear. It looks like Harvard Law fixed the link to its 'Pack the Union' article, and the link in my commentary now works. Everyone should read what the mavens of progressive thought have in mind for our country.

[Bill Tozer]

Where to put this? How about under #3

3. The belief in and the enforcement of unexamined and unqualified equality is unnatural, and gives rise to societies that cannot generate the wealth required to maintain a beneficial quality of life for any of its members, including the controlling elites.

Why Are Swedish Bureaucrats Channeling Their Inner Michelle Obama?

“From now on, the school’s vegetable buffet will be halved in size and Eriksson’s handmade loafs will be replaced with store-bought bread,” the story concludes. “Her traditional Easter and Christmas smörgåsbords may also be under threat.”

“It’s a bit of a humorous tale, but with more than a bit of a dystopian edge. And while it may just be a peculiar local-news anomaly – unrelated to broader trends in Swedish society – the city’s basic sentiment aligns rather well with many interpretations of the country’s basic ethos....

“When the romance of life is replaced by superficial notions of “equality,” culture is more often summoned straight to the bottom. But the best case appears to only scratch at the middle, requiring half-hearted freedom to fill in the gaps. If socialists are lucky enough to avoid gulags and mass starvation, “Mediocre Lunches for All” may be the realistic ideal.

As Falun’s localized effort at lunch lady equality confirms, a society that worships “fairness” above all else may, indeed, find a way to survive and succeed. But only fairly.”

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/why-are-swedish-bureaucrats-channeling-their-inner-michelle-obama

[odlaw]

,,,I wonder how the State of Jefferson fits in with the plan??? Time to start the Jeff State battle cry again???

If Jeff were created it would suck up a large contingent of former California conservatives making even more difficult to do battle with the Dem supermajority...

[George Rebane]

odlaw 333pm - And that's the entire objective of SoJ. Conservatives will have a state in which they have representation to get things done according to their lights. After SoJ, no one will give a damn how CA continues on its road to raw socialism. The thing Dems fear most is that allowing the Great Divide to start with SoJs will cause such a mass movement of entrepreneurs and wealth producers that what states they have left will turn into wholesale social cesspools. If they believed a tenth of what they say about the economic results of such a separation, they should want to promote the process at every turn. But instead, their opposition is just another leftwing Big Lie.

[odlaw]

,,,and here I thought it was about controlling the water...