Politics and Blogging

Ever wonder why we have a two party system in our government? The reason we have a system as such, is because there are always going to be differences of opinion, and there needs to be a system in place to help resolve those differences. There will be on the one side, those who will have an opinion about something, and there will be an opposing view to that very same opinion.

Another point of view or way of looking at our system of rules and laws is through our process of law. Which is also basically a two part system. Whereas there are the lawmakers, who are elected to represent the people and make the "rules", and then there are the people themselves. Where the lawmakers state what the rule of law will be, and put it out for the people to follow, and then there will be the people, who are required to follow the new rule, and who either agree with it, or don't. When they don't agree they have a mediation process to resolve the differences, our court system.

The deciding factor in our governmental system when these disagreements occur is the Judicial Branch who are normally appointed for life, and will judge both sides, their positions, analyze both opinions, and then render a decision of which one we will follow as a rule of law. I am referring to the Judicial Branch of Government and not the State or Municipal level of the court system. This happens all the time in our society, and the courts make decisions on a regular basis to resolve these differences. But why does it work this way?

Well, when the forefathers who founded this country, they developed a system of rules, laws, and governing documents, such as the Constitution. The founding fathers were "learned" men, chosen by the people to represent their interests in developing this new and young country. Most, if not all, attended colleges both here and abroad, some were trained in English Law, or others got their learning here on the continent, by many means. You see in order to draft our governing documents they had to know something about the English rules of law. And in doing so they modeled our governments after the English hierarchy of government. Such as the King of England is similar to the President, but the president is not a monarch. You see, the founding fathers wanted a leader to carry the new country forward, but what they also did not want was a Monarchy, and a limited term for the new leader of our country. The law makers of England were the Parliament and the House of Lords. Our House of Representatives, and the Senate are models after that. The house of Lords were members of the Royal family, while Parliament was comprised by representatives of the people. It is Parliament who controlled the taxation and funding of the English government, similar to our own House of Representatives, who also hold the purse strings and funding of our government. For judicial matters, in England they were handled by the Kings Court, and our federal court system is modeled after that. Whereas in a Monarchy, the King himself can overrule any of his courts decisions, here in our form of government the President cannot over rule the courts decisions. The whole form of government here in the US was formed with a system of checks and balances. The only real power the President has in that area of over rule would be to grant pardons to offenders of law, but he cannot overrule or ignore any legal decisions made by the courts.

The men, who put this all together were very astute with their knowledge of law and other areas, which demonstrates why there is a difference between the educated gentleman and the common man. If you look at any one of the thirty-nine signers of the Constitution and check their biographies, you'll see clearly why the people chose them to represent them.

The two different systems that are pointed out herein, the US and England, as stated earlier, are very similar in nature. This is not to say that as a concept, either one is better than the other. But with an over powerful Monarch in place the people can be slighted, something the founding fathers surely wanted to avoid given their stare decisis' of previous rule. But when it comes to competencies, and the testing thereof, there is one branch that might be better than the other for addressing the given task at hand. This is also true when it comes to human interaction.

Now one of the first things that the founding fathers thought was so important to this newly formed document was a Bill of Rights, and some of them thought so strongly of this point that they refused to sign the new Constitution document because a bill of rights was not initially added, and was put forth later, after much debate and discussion. But when they did draft the Bill of Rights in 1789, they put as number one on their priority list (The Bill of Rights, New York 1789) the First Amendment which states as follows, and is commonly referred to as the right to freedom of speech, but it also states much more. Here is the exact wording:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech! What this basically means is that we, as Americans, have the right to say, write, or publish just about anything we want, whether you agree with it or not. When you disagree with it you have the right to do the same.

People have the right to their own opinions, they can write about it, they can state it, and they can publish it, period. But if you're going to disagree with something, and you make it personal, and your wrong about another individual, causing them harm, whether it be to them or their reputation or other, and it is proven in a court of law, you might be convicted or found guilty of committing an act of Libel, and you will be held responsible and accountable for it, and it could cost you dearly. There are some who use written media as a way to bully others. Presently there are many states that are enacting laws against this and a new term has been coined called "cyber bullying".

When this takes place it is one of the easiest ways to demonstrate the difference between a learned individual and one who is uninformed and in danger of committing Libel. The learned man would not use a public forum to brandish his bullying tactics. Ignorance of the law, is not a defense, and you could be charged, or sued in the courts for doing such. You need to walk a fine line when publishing your comments in a public forum.

So what is libel anyway? Libel is a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation of that person. When you say it in a public forum or write it down in a public forum, you can be held libel for it and you might have to suffer the consequences of your actions. It's a little different than slander. .

Now going back to the previous, were we stated that there were differences between the learned gentleman and the commoner, lets examine the following, because there are those who have issues with the learned person and lash out every chance they can to make that person feel inferior. It's just another form of cyber bullying. Here is an example of why we need the learned individual. If you went to the doctor because you were sick and to get a diagnosis, would you trust what the doctor says? Why? What makes him better than just looking it up on the internet? Why, you could do the research yourself, and self treat. But would that be the smart thing to do? Need some blood work? Why not do it yourself? Are you asking yourself why I am being so absurd yet? How about getting the neighbor to act as your lawyer at trial? Hey, why not bring in a big pile of law books and defend yourself? Remember the saying, only a fool has himself as his lawyer. How about medication, why not just go to the pharmacy, look at all the over the counter drugs, mix up your own concoctions and take them to relieve your ailments? Why get a prescription and use a pharmacist? Can you see where we are going here yet? We don't do those kinds of things because we trust the experts in a particular area of expertise to represent our interests to handle the matter, or treat us, or give us the proper advice.

How do we know one is an expert? How about that shingle they hang on their wall, demonstrating that they have pursued a course of study for their chosen field. Is that what most of us use as that measure of competence? People who are educated have specific areas of expertise in their fields. They studied real hard, attended schools, training etc., and learned everything they could about that subject matter. And because of those accomplishments they were awarded by a review board of their piers a Degree, Certificate, License, or Professional accreditation, which demonstrates they have completed a field of education in their specific field making them competent to practice in it. AND THEY ARE PROUD OF IT!

Now some of you might be saying, "That Degree does not prove anything". Might I point out the examples above again? Hello! Tell that to your Doctor, Lawyer, Pharmacist, Civil Engineer, Chemist, Dentist, Architect, Teacher, Accountant, Broker, Financial Adviser, etc. Keep telling yourself that it's OK if they never went to school or graduated or received their license or certificate to practice. After all it's just a piece of paper hanging on the wall. Shall I go on?

OK, lets go a little further. How about that truck driver, that carpenter, electrician, Nurse, Real Estate Broker, plumber, computer technician, computer repairman. Do they have Degrees? Some do and some do not, but for those positions, it is not a requirement to have the formal degree, but the proper training and certification and course of study, is required. And the resultant testing and licensing is the proof or award for that accomplishment.

But lets explore this further! To get a Bachelors Degree you need a minimum of 120 credit hours of study in specific areas. And the school has to be certified by the state it is located in. A three credit hour course of study is about 20 actual contact hours of classroom work. So 120 credit hours equates to about 800 hours of study. A hair dresser by contrast needs a thousand hours of contact work to be licensed. An electrician, it's a six year program of 40 contact hours for a Union worker per week to get the position of Journeyman (12 thousand contact hours), or they can go to school on their own, pass a state examination and be awarded a license to practice in that field. But it still has to be tested to prove that measure of knowledge and competency. Do you get my point yet? Just as some of us understand what it takes to "EARN" that degree and are proud of it, that non-degreed individual should also be just as proud of his accomplishments, and so should that Truck Driver who trained to get his CDL, or who just got his Hazardous-Materials endorsement. He should be just as proud. He now has increased his earnings potential. But neither of them should be trying to demonstrate any expertise when it is outside of their field. They are not trained in that area, and usually do not know what they are talking about. So when an Electrician as example speaks, we listen and we learn. When the carpenter talks, we listen and learn. We don't get personal, and contradict what the expert is saying. We don't have the training or knowledge to speak on the subject intelligently. It's kind of like building a house completely out of code because we thought we could do it better a different way, when we might not even know how to use a rafter square or other. If you do that then when it's inspected you fail, then you'll never get an occupancy permit, and will have to correct all of the errors, whereas the learned person in that field would have known how to do it right in the first place. So why? Why would you not want to listen to those who have more experience in certain matters, and why would you not want to embrace their input when it is offered. Instead some want to criticize it. But most of all why would someone want to make it maliciously personal in a public forum when they don't agree, or the person miss-speaks, or states the wrong facts and does not do it with malicious intent but does it out of being misinformed, and they are looking for clarity? Their errors are easily corrected by providing the correct information. But the unlearned one does not see this or understand it. He just talks and attacks. Why not just calmly and patiently get him aside and talk to him. Why do it in a public forum? Not much different than cyber bullying if you ask me. It is the non educated that resort to those kind of tactics, and because of that, they will make a public mistake and pay for it dearly, through the courts our founding fathers thought so seriously of putting into place.

In today's world where anyone with a computer and access to the internet, it happens all the time via blogs and other forums open to the public for reading and interactive posts. There was a recent case of a gentlemen in England who had a blog. One of his subscribers made a false statement on his blog about an individual in Canada. The blogger was sued for 50K. Because he did not retract it from his page. So the message here is you better be real careful with what you write, especially when it is in the public domain.