Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

A quick comment on the twenty second amendment

The Seattle Times has an interesting article today in their Nation & World section on the role of the Vice Presidency. The article was originally published in the Washington Post by Joel Achenbach. As I was reading it, this jumped out at me…

[T]here is an active academic debate over whether the Constitution bars someone like Bill Clinton — now ineligible for the presidency — from being elected vice president.

I find the assertion in this bit (that Bill Clinton is ineligible for the presidency) to be incorrect. Of course the Constitution does not bar someone like Bill Clinton — who was elected to two terms as President — from being elected Vice President.

The amendment that apparently raises the question is the twenty-second amendment. That amendment reads…

AMENDMENT XXII

Section 1.
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2.
This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

Read it carefully. Nowhere in the text of the amendment does it say anything at all about the Vice Presidency. It specifically talks about election to the office of President. It does not prohibit ascension to the office in the event of the death or incapacity of the currently elected President. It does not say that no person who has held the office of president more for more than a term and a half is not eligible to that office either.

If that's the interpretation we must take, then Bill Clinton would not be eligible to become Speaker of the House of Representatives (if he should run and be elected as a Representative), or the President pro tempore of the Senate (if he should run and be elected as a Senator), or if Congress should choose some other method of succession in the case of the death or incapacity of both the President and Vice President, from the line of succession.

The statement in the article that Bill Clinton is ineligible for the Presidency seems to me to be wrong. The twenty-second amendment doesn't make him ineligible to hold the office, just ineligible to be elected to the office.

I can't for the life of me figure out why there should be an active academic debate over this, except that academicians obviously can't understand the plain meaning of words. Either that or they simply can't read.

Rambling thoughts

Observe the earth and you might notice that things change. Sometimes the changes are subtle and take a long time to become obvious, as with the raising of mountain ranges or their eventual erosion. Sometimes the changes are swift, as with the eruption of volcanoes or the ripping apart of the ground during an earthquake. The thing is though, everything changes, from the shape of the land to the position of the continents to the composition of the atmosphere and even to the climate.

Observe the works of man and you will notice that substantial effort must be applied to prevent decay. A house, once built must be maintained or it will eventually collapse, sometimes in decades, sometimes after a longer period of time. The same forces that, over millennia, tear down mountains eat away at bricks, mortar and wood. Only through the application of regular maintenance do the works of mankind last.

Communism just doesn't work. The first British colonists in America discovered that centuries before Karl Marx penned the Communist Manifesto. What they found did work was property ownership and capitalism. Is this perhaps why the socialist left doesn't want our kids to learn American history?

Where is there room for compromise between the following points of view?

1. Life begins at conception.
2. An unborn child may be aborted at any time prior to and including the moment of its birth.
3. A child that survives an abortion may (should?) be denied care and left to die to honor the mother's choice.

All human behavior has consequences. By the very act of breathing we increase the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere.

Charles Darwin did not come up with the concept of evolution by himself.

While people use symbolism all the time, not every expression is intended to be symbolic.

Defending yourself and others is not an aggressive act, although aggressors might perceive it to be one.

None of us is perfect. We all have flaws, whether they are superficial or deep, hidden or obvious.

We all set standards for ourselves, and probably none of us meet them. It is better to have high standards and fail to meet them (and thus be called a hypocrite) than to have low standards and also fail to meet them.

Failure to live up to high standards is no excuse not to try.

Sometimes an insult is intended to be exactly that. Claiming it's art when challenged doesn't change that — it merely demonstrates cowardice.

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Science cannot disprove religion, neither can it prove it, since it disallows religious arguments.

“Science”, when it tries to explain things that cannot be tested is simply another form of religion.

Politicians lie. We all know that. If lying were to be used as a criteria to exclude someone from holding public office only the anarchists would be happy because no one could hold public office. It's not important that politicians lie, rather it's important what they lie about.

Of course the media is biased. It always has been, even in pre-colonial times.