Israeli Government Contemplates Eliminating Conscription Exemption for Ultra-Orthodox Jews

Ultra-orthodox Jews are exempt from serving in the Israeli military.  The Israeli government is considering eliminating the exemption.  The other Israeli citizens are saying that it is unfair that they are forced to join the army while the ultra-orthodox Jews are not.  They are right that it is not fair, but it wrong for anyone to be conscripted.  In a free country anyone should be allowed to chose not to serve in the armed forces.  Otherwise the rights of conscience and religious freedom are violated.  Anyone should be allowed to refuse to participate in a war regardless of the reason why and regardless of what country you are from.  In the United States, we have the 13th amendment to our constitution, which forbids involuntary servitude.

The Right Way to Amend the Constitution, part 4

PARENTAL PRIMACY

This is part four of an ongoing series of articles containing proposals for amendments to the Constitution. For someone who claims so fervently to be a “Constitutionalist”, how is it that I can be so eager to change the Constitution? Well, there are several reasons. For one thing, I believe that after the Bill of Rights, much damage was done by some of the amendments that were added and the legitimacy of some of their ratifications are questionable. Secondly, the Constitution has been violated so much that the necessity of further amendments is needed to resolve the resulting problems. But this should be done extremely cautiously. These amendments are extremely unlikely to ever be introduced, much less ratified, but hey, I can dream, can’t I?

Before I get to this week’s proposed amendment, I want to point a correction to something that I had written (in regards to who should decide who is a U.S. citizen) last week. "Without the 14th, the states would have the legal right to decide that question, which is a much more appealing idea to me." This is not true, the Constitution does charge Congress with the duty "To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization" in Article I section 8. I have made the appropriate correction in the text of that post.

Here is my fourth proposed amendment (subject to revision):

Section 1: The liberty of parents to direct the up bringing and education of their children is a fundamental right. The United States shall not infringe upon this right.

Section 2: No portion of this Constitution or of any law of the United States shall be construed as a limitation of authority or responsibility that parents have over their children. Neither shall any treaty, international law, nor executive order be employed to supersede, modify, interpret, or apply to this authority.

Section 3: The thirteenth article of amendment of this Constitution, if rendered inoperable by a subsequent amendment, shall be again operable upon ratification of this amendment.

Commentary on this proposed amendment:

As I mentioned in the last post of this series, a parental rights amendment is needed not only because of the U.N. Convention On The Rights Of The Child, but because of flaws in our own Constitution. It’s possible that the Founders took parental rights as a given, and did not even dream of the day that we would have to worry about governments intruding on them. It is clear that in these cases, the authors of some later amendments did not intend these intrusions. Sometimes the courts recognize intent when interpreting the Constitution, but sometimes they don’t. It’s best, as much as possible, not to leave this for them to decide.

The 13th prohibits involuntary servitude. A straightforward interpretation of this amendment, without any regard for the Bible or God-given rights, would lead one to believe that parents are constitutionally prohibited from requiring their children to do chores. This is a perfect example why one must be very careful in amending the constitution—it can lead to an inadvertent usurpation of authority by government.

Similarly, the 14th amendment forbids States from denying “equal protection under the law” to any person within its jurisdiction. This would mean that all laws must equally apply to all people. So you couldn’t have, for example, statutory rape laws. If a parent sent a child to his room, this would be like sending a complete stranger to his room (kidnapping). It just isn’t a well thought out piece of legislation.

Even the 2nd amendment needs tempering with a parental rights amendment. Notice it doesn’t say that “the United States and the Several States” are prohibited from infringing on the keep and right to bear arms. It just says it “shall not be infringed”. But obviously parents should have the right to decide when or if their child should be allowed to have a gun and if so, what type, and to require supervision, etc. Notice that, unlike other parental rights amendments, my amendment forbids a limitation on parental responsibility by the Federal government. Thus, an irresponsible parent, leaving his or her child unsupervised with a loaded gun, would not be immune from prosecution (by his or her State) on the basis of the 2nd amendment.

There is a joint resolution in the Congress (H.J. Res. 42/ S.J. Res. 16) to introduce a parental rights amendment which you can read about at parentalrights.org. But it is much weaker than mine. They are trying to do too much with this amendment by restricting the States with the same language as Federal and multinational government. Their proposed amendment contains this exception:

Neither the United States nor any State shall infringe upon this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.

This exception is so vaguely worded that the courts would take it to mean anything (so long as it’s in THEIR interest). Obviously, local government should intervene in cases of child abuse. That is obviously the primary reason for the exception. These cases are difficult to define and shouldn’t be left up to bureaucrats in Washington or federal courts to decide. That is why I only limit Federal and international authority in my version. It is easier to get rid of a local judge who makes a bad decision on a child abuse case than it is a federal judge or an international tribunal.

I do, however, applaud the intentions of the authors, the sponsors, and the cosponsors of H.J. Res. 42/ S.J. Res. 16. It did call this issue to my attention and served as a starting point for the development of my own amendment.

To continue reading this series, click here.

The Right Way to Amend the Constitution, part 3

This is part three of an ongoing series of articles containing proposals for amendments to the Constitution. For someone who claims so fervently to be a “Constitutionalist”, how is it that I can be so eager to change the Constitution? Well, there are several reasons. For one thing, I believe that after the Bill of Rights, much damage was done by some of the amendments that were added and the legitimacy of some of their ratifications are questionable. Secondly, the Constitution has been violated so much that the necessity of further amendments is needed to resolve the resulting problems. But this should be done extremely cautiously. These amendments are extremely unlikely to ever be introduced, much less ratified, but hey, I can dream, can’t I?

Here is this week’s proposed amendment (subject to revision):

Section 1: Every article of amendment to this Constitution of the United States ratified after the year 1799 and prior to the year 1972, excepting the 15th, 20th, and 24th is hereby repealed.

Section 2: The certification of all articles of amendment to this Constitution shall be operable as if all ratifications thereof were proper and in accordance with this Constitution.

Commentary on this proposed amendment:

I will go through all of the amendments that would be repealed and explain why they are repressive, flawed, and/or unnecessary. Section 2 is necessary to put to rest the issue of the questionable legitimacy of the ratifications of the 14th, 16th, 17th and possibly other amendments.

12th Amendment. It is better for the Vice President to be the one who gets the second most electoral votes than for it to be the running mate of an elected President. Since the VP gets to break ties in the Senate, repealing the 12th would be a slight check on the power of a dominant political party. I also don’t think that it’s good to reduce the number of candidates from 5 to 3 that could be elected in case no candidate won a majority of the Electors.

13th Amendment. I would hate to see this one go, but its flaw is that there are cases in which forced labor is appropriate. The amendment itself has an exception, namely “as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”. This is a good exception, but I think that it should be clarified to include those unable to repay private debts. But the most serious flaw is that parents have the God given right to require their children to do chores. If an overriding parental rights amendment were added, then I would consider including the 13th among the other exceptions.

14th Amendment. Section 1 is the most contentious part of the 14th. The first clause, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States…” has also caused a lot of problems. What does it mean to be “subject to jurisdiction”? The authors of this amendment obviously meant that it shouldn’t include all people born in the United States, or else that phrase wouldn’t have been included. But everyone physically in the United States is in some way subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, because certain federal laws would be enforced with respect to such a person regardless of other factors. They should have instead written “born to another citizen” or left the phrase out altogether depending on what they really meant. Without the 14th, the Congress would have the unrestricted right to decide that question, which is a much more appealing idea to me.

Also the clause, “No state shall enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens…” is harmful because “privileges and immunities” are not well-defined—a better term to use would have been “constitutional rights” or else the desired rights to be protected should have been explicitly named. Because of this kind of nonsense, we have courts saying that this means that a woman has the right to an abortion and that we can’t have prayers in schools or Ten Commandments displays. Similarly, the word “liberty” is vague with respect to a right that one cannot be deprived of by a State.

Next, the phrase “nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. Pro-lifers like to use this to say that the unborn should always be included in any law against murder. And what about this idea with respect to other issues? To say that a child should have the same protection under the law as an adult conflicts with parental rights and disallows things like statutory rape laws.

I like section 3, but the 14th isn’t worth saving for the sake of that. Section 5 makes this amendment even more dangerous, giving Congress added authority to violate states’ rights. The content of the rest of the sections either have to do with slavery and the Civil War or are redundant and are no longer needed. The validity of the ratification of this amendment is extremely questionable.

16th Amendment. This gives the Federal Government the right to extort its own citizens for money. This renders all of benefits of the 13th and many other parts of the Constitution completely useless. No need to say more.

17th Amendment. This made the election of U.S. Senators dependent upon their ability to raise large quantities of money. That promotes corruption.

18th and 21st Amendments. The 21st has already repealed the 18th. So there would be no effect as far as these are concerned.

19th Amendment. I guess I’ll take a lot of flack for this one, but I think that the issue of whether or not a woman can vote should be left up to the states.

22nd Amendment. I am against all term limits. They place an undue limitation of choice on the voter, disqualifying possibly good candidates. If no efforts succeed to dissuade people from electing a corrupt President over and over again, then we deserve to reap the resulting destruction. In the years since this amendment was ratified, Presidents have become even more corrupt. A better solution is to change the way Presidents are elected.

23rd Amendment. It’s wrong that some citizens are not represented in Congress and that Washington D.C. gets a full three Electors in the Presidential election. Washington D.C. should not be made a State, but there are better ways to address the problems addressed by this amendment.

25th Amendment. The President should not be allowed to fill a vacancy left by a departing Vice President. The original contingency of appointment by Congress is much more prudent (see under 12th).

26th Amendment. The issue of how old someone must be before they can vote should be left up to the states.

Click here to read the next post in this series.