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A Second Bill of Rights
By admin | November 6, 2009
I just finished watching Michael Moore’s new film Capitalism: A Love Story. He as usual brings up many questions about the economy and the way our country is so against socialism as opposed to Capitalism.
Anyway to make a long story short he brings up a second bill of rights that was originally proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Looking at these rights they are what I feel our country should stand for. They are rights that will drive the human race forward.
These evident rights are:
- The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation
- The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation
- The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living
- The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad
- The right of every family to a decent home
- The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health
- The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment
- The right to a good education
To quote a Roosevelt “America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.”…
I highly suggest the movie. It is an eye opener. How does a 3 page unaccountable 700 billion dollar bill was passed in days to save banks but we can’t get a 2000 page bill which has checks and balances in place to give health care to citizens.
Screwed up world I guess…
DL
Topics: History, Thoughts | 7 Comments »
November 18th, 2009 at 3:47 am
Lets see if one of these so called “needy, poor American Citizens” can give ya’all a little schoolin on how and what we think about all this gibberish that only ends up taking more than it could ever give (cause nothing is free). I’m just a layman and I’ll be speaking in layman’s terms, so don’t expect big words. I’ll probably ask more questions than anything. LOL
As I read down the list of “rights” that you posted here, I had to ask myself, “are you for real?” Alot of these ideas should not be considered rights at all. They are privledges, like driving a car is a privledge and not a right. Some of these ideas just won’t fly no matter how much we try to make them work. I’ll do my best to tell you why…
1) ■The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation
… There is no such thing as a right to a job. We have the right to seek employment, but the job itself is a privledge. If we mess up we are terminated. So much for the “right” to work wherever we want. Seeking employment and actually having a job are two different things entirely ( us poor and unemployeed should know, shouldn’t we?). The term “useful” could be defined a thousand different ways by a thousand different people, so just how is useful defined in this statement? It makes a big difference on how this right is implemented into society.
2) ■The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation
… Wouldn’t that be just another term for “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? As with #1 a job is a privledge and not a right. If we force companies to pay higher wages they answer back by outsourcing our jobs or raising the cost of the product/service so high that they go out of business alltogether. The term “adequate can be defined a thousand different ways by a thousand different people. Once again, just how is this term defined? It makes a difference.
3) ■The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living
… That sounds good and compassionate on paper, but honestly, would you pay $3.00 for one apple just because a farmer didn’t have a high yield crop this year? They have to charge according to what the “people” are willing to pay. For me, I’d rather grow my own apples and cut out the middleman all together. Again, the term “decent living” is defined in thousands of different ways, it holds a different meaning for every individual. How can we create a mold that fits thousands if not millions at the same time and still call it fair?
4) ■The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad
… What is “unfair competition”? This answer will vary depending on which side of the fence you’re on. The bigger the business, the more likely it will have “unfair” practices that can wipe out the smaller companies. Thats why we don’t have many Mom & Pop stores anymore.
As for monopolies, Consumer Votes decided that WalMart was better than Kmart. Its not WalMart’s fault. What is unfair about Consumer Votes? This is what happens in a Capitolistic country.
5) ■The right of every family to a decent home
… This one made me laugh. The term “decent” comes into question again. What you call decent and what I call decent are two different things. We won’t both fit into one mold and be happy. If there were no property taxes then we could actually own our home, that would be a form of “decent” to me. #5 mentions nothing about being tax free and belonging to us so that nobody can take it away. Maybe this is what they meant by “securing the blessings of liberty”. No property taxes.
6) ■The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health
… This would fall under the phrase “promote the general welfare”. We all have the opportunity to see a Dr. If my leg got broke tomorrow, I’d have a cast on it by the end of the day with or without health insurance. The term “adequate” comes into question here. What is considered adequate to the medical community may not be adequate to an individual, but we are told that the medical community knows more about adequacy in this area than the common idiot, so they get to define this term. That defeats the promotion of the “general welfare”. Instead, it promotes the welfare of the medical community in the name of the general welfare, but does very little for the poor slob that can’t afford health insurance and doesn’t get it from his place of employment.
7) ■The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment
… Again with the word “adequate”… What about Social Security? We had it till Clinton allowed our government to dip into it, now its gone. Medicare, and alot of other health insurance companies exist to help the aged and disabled, but may not be around much longer, if this “One World” Health Plan goes into action. Unemployment has its own paycheck. If it were fair and had the citizen in mind then anyone unemployed should get it no matter what the circumstances are and not just those that qualify under their red tape rules. If a job is our right then so would be the unemployment check when we are unemployed. This can’t work, its paying us to be citizens.
… Here we replace the term “adequate” for the term “good”. Again, just what is meant by “good”? We pay good taxes for our kids to get a good education at our public schools. Its not our fault that the school’s Administration takes 2/3 of it all. Congress says its ok though, and our kids are getting a “good” education. The Education System is not good only when its voting season.
9) “America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.”…
… “…for our citizens.” The only problem is, in a Capitolistic Society its business first, citizens second. If it truly were for our citizens we would all have adequate jobs and an adequate home and a good education while we enjoy our good health…….
Guess I asked more questions than anything. I see no holy grail within these words. Its all ramble to me. I want action. Its not up to me. Its up to our government with which we have given all faith and control to create these dreams of grandure for us.
My solution would be to cut all politician’s paychecks to minimum wage. We would insure that the minimum would be a liveable, adequate wage then. The next step would be to remove ALL Federal Income Tax from the private citizen and only charge the “Business Industry”. Then remove ALL Property taxes and give the people back the land they paid good and adequate money for. That would be a start….
November 18th, 2009 at 11:04 am
The problem which you bring up is capitalism. Not once in any of our founding fathers documents is the term or basis for the term used. We were never designed to be a capitalist society. Roger Moore’s new film Capitalism really covers this issue well. The constitution says we the people and promote the general welfare not one word mentions capitalism.
Really Niki, are you saying it depends on what the definition of is is?
Clinton did not let us tap into Social Security or Medicare. It was the republican congress that wanted us to put some of those funds in the stock market and it was Clinton that fought against them doing just that. Can you imagine if the conservatives had their way and SSI and Medicare went into the stock market? How bad off would those programs be now?
These rights were posed by FDR back during the depression when unemployment was at an all time high. Had they been passed then the world sure would be a different place.
Just as an FYI most people in the house of representatives make about $30k-38k a year. On the scheme of things this is a low wage for a job that requires a tie. It is because of this low pay that most of them work second jobs and most of them take kick backs from companies which want them to sway their interests. I could not support my family on that pay and there would be no chance of a college education for any of my children.
I believe that the government is here to take care of it’s people. I prefer my tax dollars go to support those less fortunate than to buy bombs.
Try to watch this with an open mind and then tell me if you think this country is still about “We the People”? Also tell me if you think it is the government that is running things or is it the businesses that are taking over and have no interest in helping anyone but their stock holders?
Capitalism: A Love Story
Medical Care and Education should be free to citizens of the United States. Our country would be better in the end and we would have a more educated society which would make the world a much better place for all.
DL,
November 19th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
It seems that we are saying the same thing with different words. Which proves that definations of words matter. Congress is always arguing the definations of words, this is how “loop holes” are created.
To make this response short, I’ll say that I think the businesses are running this world and they are bribing our congress/politicians to vote their way. This is happening in both partys, and not just one.
We are in complete agreement with the notion of giving back the country to the people. I did mention that they should remove taxes and tax the businesses. I’d especially like to see them tax the businesses that outsource our work to other countries. They should make it more expensive to outsource jobs than to hire right here in the good ole USA.
Call me whatever you want, my eyes are wide open. I AM one of the “Less Fortunate” that you’ve mentioned. I agree that buying bombs is far less important than caring for our own citizens, but we have been dragged into this world domination thing by our government, so we now have to defend our right to exist against the rest of the world that would love to take it all away from us.
Our founding fathers didn’t actually mention capitolism, but that is what we have become. Many people have argued that this is what is meant by “Freedom”. I’m not for monopolys, but they exist because of Consumer Votes.
Clinton may have fought against putting SS into the stock market, but he is the one that opened up the savings to the Government spending. This is why its gone. Before Clinton there was enough SS in its own account to support the retired citizens forever. The interest alone was a whopping amount saved away. I remember the news from that time. I remember being pissed at him for allowing the Gov to get their hands on it in the first place.
The fact is that both parties are in this mess. They have both done damage to our country with their kickbacks and underhanded dealings. The Government was put in place to care for the citizens, but it has obviously failed miserably… ALL of it!
At this time, I’m leaning more to a diluted form of Anarchy. I agree that we need some form of Government to control the masses and to protect our interests world-wide, but they need to get their hands out of our pockets, and give us back our country. I feel that each state should govern its own without the help of the Federal Gov. The Feds should stay out of the State’s business and deal souly with forign affairs.
Definations of words mean alot. Remember how they fought to define the meaning of the term “Sexual Relations” when Clinton was on trial for his sexual exploits? They are always arguing the defintations of terms, and usually to their advantage and not to the people’s advantage. Loop Holes… Loop Holes… They are created when something isn’t defined exact.
I stand by what I’ve said here. My eyes are wide open, and I am not loyal to either party, so I’m not going to be swayed one way or another. I see things from more of an open mind than most. People have their loyaltys and their hopes set on one party or another while I say that both are just as corrupt. They just have different goals.
Thanks for your time : )
November 19th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
It sounds like you should be supporting Ron Paul. He is fully for stats rights and knows the definition of the words in the Constitution. He also wants us to go back to the time of less government. He is a nut but makes a good case.
Sorry, I sure can’t find anything about Clinton opening the coffers for SSI or Medicare. Do you have anything to back up your claim? Article news story or whatever. I would love to read it because I sure can’t find anything he did to open SSI or Medicare to make those funds available to the government. There is not and never has been enough money in Medicare or SSI because of the population difference. It is real hard to take a small portion of the 100 million people working and make it pay for the 150 million baby boomers that are beginning to retire. It’s just not possible and this is why our national debt has increased so much.
I would also like to point out that our debt started with Nixon taking us off of the gold standard. It was then pushed even more into the hole by Reaganomics giving farms to big business. Then came our glorious Bushes which took us to war over oil and gave more money to the contractors like blackwater rather than the troops.
There are many programs out there which help the average Joe and they were all put into place by Democrats who believe in taking care of our citizens. Republicans are in it for the buck. What we need I agree is a happy medium.
Free education for everyone and universal health care for all I say
DL
November 19th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Clinton took the SS money through one of those bills that was passed with all the extras involved. It was an extra added on to something else. I remember it well because the Republicans were making a fuss and disclosing the actual amount of interest created by the SS in the bank. Since I’m not up on the actual bills passed, I couldn’t tell you which one. It was within the first 2 years he was in office though,if that helps at all. LOL
November 20th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Well, I did some searching of my own for that bill. My head is spinning from all of the “circular” talking.
The best I can come up with is the SS Indepencance Act signed Aug. 15th 1994.
On the one hand it sounds like he is fighting to save SS, but on the other hand, he gave it to an Independant group, and they did with it what they wanted.
I’m sure this is only the beginning, or maybe the middle of what I’m looking for.
If you understand that “Independance” thing, please fill me in. Untit then, I’ll continue to search for what I’m looking for. It has to be there hidden in the circles they talk in. LOL… I’m trying : )
December 5th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Ayn Rand.