Re: Very clever what the Supremes did today.

[Bob Hurt]

Doctor Rivera:

I disagree with your numerous assertions that Congress must employ the precise words of the Constitution.  I write to explain why and to ask you to focus upon issues of real relevance, such as whether people swear an oath at all, and what we must do to obtain laws that punish oath violations.

You claim Congress changed the oath, but I do not believe that happened at all.  The Constitution (and we all know to which Constitution I refer, right?) does not contain quoted text for the oath of office.  That forever relievs Congress of the obligation to use its precise wording.

Instead, Congress can and does use similar wording with equivalent meaning.   An oath swearer, instead of using the Constitution's words "this Constitution", may point to the Constituion and say "the Constitution" or "that Constitution" without any inaccuracy.  We rightly should presume he means the Constitution for the United States of America last ratified on 1 March 1781. If we doubt the specificity, we should have Congress change the oath to refer to the National Archives registration number for the specific Constitution, or the date and location of ratification, so as to eliminate ambiguity.  Congress should then require the oath swearer swear to support that specific version of the Constitution.

You see the dilemma here?  Even if the swearer held up a document and swore to support "this Constitution," we would not necessarily know which document he held up or whether it constituted a Constitution at all unless we had inspected it beforehand and determined it as an exact, word-for-word duplicate of the original, ratified Constitution, with all ratified amendments.  Besides, as far as I know, the USA has only one written, ratified Constitution.  Which other Constitution could "the Constitution" mean?

For the above reasons I believe your "this" versus "the" complaint specious and irrelevant. If you want to complain about the wording in this instance, I think you miss the point entirely.  Instead, perhaps we should focus on these points:

1. We should worry more that "the Constitution" refers to some other version of the Constitution beside the version to which we think it refers.  
2. We should therefore demand appending "the Constitution for the United States of America of 1 March 1781" or perhaps refer to a registration number in the National Archives.  
3. We should worry that all the amendments did not receive proper ratification, and we should insist that Congress reverify proper ratification of all amendments and toss those that don't have it.  
4. We should worry that the oath swearer has actually read the Constitution, particularly the bill of rights, and understands both the meaning of the document and his "support, protect, and defend" obligations.  
5. We should worry that no law punishes violations of the Constitution other than the vague and somewhat ambiguous provisions of 18 USC 241 and 242, and demand that our Congress put some teeth in the loyalty oath.  
6. We should worry that oath swearers don't realize we depend upon each and every one of them to enforce the Constitution's guarantees of our rights, even to the limit of giving up their lives in that enforcement effort; to remedy that concern, we should require all public servants from janitor to president to take and pass a Constitution course.
   
7. We should worry that our Congress does not seem to grasp the reality that the requirement to swear an oath has a hollow ring without a requirement to live up to the sworn oath and a harsh penalty for violating the sworn oath.

After a couple of centuries of such worries, you'd think our Congress would act intelligently upon them, other than the milk toast of 4 USC 101 and 102 which incorporates 1 Stat 23 as later revised and the barely applicable 18 USC 241 and 242. Our elected and appointed officials routinely violate their loyalty oaths with impunity, not because of the use of "the" instead of "this" but because 

1. they don't know the Constitution, 
2. they don't know their obligations to enforce the enjoyment of rights it guarantees, and 
3. they don't get punished for failing to abide by the oath. 

We should ever remember that a law for which the Legislature imposes no penalty for its violation constitutes no law at all.

-- 
Bob Hurt
http://bobhurt.com
2460 Persian Drive #70
Clearwater, FL 33763
+1 (727) 669-5511
Donate here: http://bobhurt.com/lawdonation.htm
Study Jurisdictionary: http://www.jurisdictionary.com/index.asp?refercode=HB0002 
Join Lawmen: lawmen-s...@googlegroups.com
Free Downloads: http://groups.google.com/group/lawmen/files
Save fuel: http://www.fuelsaver-mpg.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=145_1_tlid_8_MailFoot

P.S.  If any of you recipients have not yet joined my Lawmen mailing list, I encourage you to do so now, using the above link. Discussions like this belong to a much wider audience than the limited one on the BCC list hereof.  I encourage you to share Lawmen postings with others and to encourage others to become Lawmen members.

On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 5:02 PM, rivera office <edri...@edrivera.com> wrote:

Members:

 

I would appreciate your opinions on what I have written.

 

George Washington is elected to the Office of President not Office of President of the United States on February 4, 1789.  The Office of President of the United States is an appointive office and there are qualifications or definite term for that Office.  The 14 Years residency requirement for the Office of President cannot be met until July 4, 1790, so George Washington appoints himself President of the United States and on April 30, 1789 takes that oath:

 

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

 

The proper oath is found in Article VI: "to support this Constitution."

 

The Articles of Confederation remain part of the Organic Law.  They can be found before Title 1 in every edition of the United States Code.   I have attached pages 1-23 of the Official first volume of the Statutes at Large and the following pages that show how Congress changed the Article VI oath.

 

Dr. Eduardo M. Rivera