Responsibility, Checks & Balances

Article Two of the United States constitution (balanced with articles one and three) lays out the powers and responsibilities of the President and the checks against that power. But despite these guidelines, those powers have been disputed and interpreted differently over time (Burns, 1963).

In Britain, the matter of oversight of the head of state's power became an exchange. The royal family would submit the revenue from the crown lands to the Treasury. In exchange they would receive a fixed sum to cover expenses in the form of the civil list. This tied the head of state's power to its dependence upon Parliament for money.

In Canada, the gaining of budgeting powers and responsible government were defining aspects of the country's foundations.

"...the keen fight has always been that of the right of the assembly to levy taxes and distribute it alone."      - Louis Joseph Papineau, 1867.

The civil list, in much the same vein, was a means of reining in the power of unelected bodies by ensuring that all matters of money came through the people's elected representatives - including a clear presentation of the funds to be spent - allowing the elected members to scrutinize and approve how the people's money is spent.

The latest efforts to reform this method of funding Britain's head of state, proposed by the Tory dominated government, became an act of parliament in the past month (BBC, 2011). It unites the sovereign's funds into a single grant, rather than several from different government department budgets. Yet the reform does little to ensure upfront disclosure of the way public money is spent, making it hard to see how cutting a cheque for a set amount (to be 15% of Crown Estate profits, in 2013 approx. £34m), represents much in the way of reform at all.

There are important reasons why this constitutional body must clear all of its spending with the taxpayer's delegates - explaining who is being employed, for what and for how much - before money is handed over not in the auditing process afterwards.

How to find a form of association which will defend the person and goods of each member with the collective force of all, and under which each individual, while uniting himself with the others, obeys no one but himself, and remains as free as before.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762.

If Rousseau's proposition is going to be the case, then those allowed to wield exceptional power - particularly the spectacular privileges royalty enjoy - must have definite checks against that power and transparency in the dealings that power enables; whether that power is invested in one body, like the US President, or a few like the US Congress.

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References:
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+ James MacGregor Burns' 'The Deadlock of Democracy: Four-Party Politics in America'; Prentice, 1963.

For more on the United States' founding documents:
Pauline Maier's 'The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States'; Bantam, 1999.

+ BBC's 'Royal funding changes become law'; 18 October 2011.

For more on the Sovereign Grant Act, that replaces the civil list:
HM Treasury's 'Sovereign Grant Act', under Consultations & legislation.

+ 'Speech of the Hon. Louis-Joseph Papineau before the Institut canadien on the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of this society'; 17 December 1867.

+ Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 'The Social Contract'; 1762.

*Correction: 15% elaborated to 15% of Crown Estate profits.

Constitutions & Enshrining Ideas

Anyone who reads the United States constitution, or any of the great documents of declaration; those that espouse high virtues of liberty and brotherhood; the commonwealth of mankind; anyone who peruses these texts with some little understanding cannot help but be moved by such grand ideals.

But is there a real danger in such reverence?

In the United States the constitution faced a major test early in its life in the Dartmouth Ruling. The 1819 ruling showed that the revered document was not an infallible vehicle of the popular will. In this case the courts found government interference with private education to be unconstitutional.

And last December the Virginia healthcare ruling (Tomasky, 2010) followed a similar course, effectively barring Federal government attempts to interfere in healthcare provision, on the grounds that it was unconstitutional and set up a supreme court date to resolve the matter (MacAskill, 2011).

But there are just as recent and much more troubling attempts to use the US constitution to prevent the federal government using its mandate to enact various socially progressive measures. Arizona Bill SB1433 has been described as all but secession (Montini, 2011), leaving people in Arizona angry at attempts to legitimise, after-the-fact, controversial legislation (Sullivan, 2010), such as Arizona's discriminatory immigration laws. That such a bill made it to the senate of Arizona all, let alone come as close as just six votes from passing (del Puerto, 2011), demonstrates the difficulties that documents like the US constitution face.

Here lies the difficulty of sovereignty. When the old authorities are cast down and republics set in their place, the way in which the people shape the world they share to the benefit of the community has to be very carefully laid out. In the case of the US constitution, it has become a battle ground for interpretation, much as Voloshinov described language in his works.

Whatever our words, we must never be careless in our use of them. Thomas Jefferson, the principal force behind the words in the Declaration of Independence and the Federalists behind the US constitution, held a duty not just to ideals, but also to clarity. Meaning is never so set that an author can be held entirely to blame for the reception of those ideas by an audience. But this shouldn't lessen the responsibility, on both author & audience, to be clear.

We must remain wary of reverence, lest we enshrine ideas to such a degree that we can no longer effectively scrutinise them and our pathways to opposing injustice become blocked.

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References:
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+ Michael Tomasky's 'Healthcare repeal votes and Democratic strategy'; in The Guardian; 3 February 2011.

+ Ewen MacAskill's 'Obama faces re-election hurdle as health reforms go before supreme court'; in The Guardian; 14 November, 2011.

+ E.J. Montini's 'Arizona to secede (without OFFICIALLY doing so)'; in The Arizona Republic February 2011.

+ Laura Sullivan's 'Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law'; on NPR.org; 28 October 2010;

+ Luige del Puerto's 'Senate says ‘no” to state nullification bill'; in Az Capitol Times; 2 March 2011.

Personality Politics

With the advent of leadership debates in 2010, the UK has seemingly accepted the inexorable rise of personality politics.

Mr Blair's New Labour project sparked a new era in 1997 and his success, both at winning elections and maintaining a strong majority for a full decade, forced a reaction from other politicians.

'I am the heir to Blair'

    -David Cameron (Pierce, 2005)

Mr Cameron has certainly been heir to a certain brand of Blair's populism, willing to go in directions his own party members dislike in order to ensure success (Kirkup, 2011). Satirical memes, such as 'Call me Dave' (Western Mail, 2006) have done little to slow down Mr Cameron's rise to the Premiership. But despite these memes tying this populism to conservatism, it is not just a conservative trend.

From 'Call me Tony', to Mr Obama the nerd, to Mrs Hillary Clinton drinking for the cameras, those who find themselves on the progressive side of politics are just as often drawn into these personality contests. A particularly uncomfortable example were the desperate attempts to make Mr Gordon Brown smile.

Mr Brown was still further forced to be a public personality, a role he never seemed comfortable with, which led the former PM to some unfortunately high profile mistakes (Greenslade, 2010).

It seems that the question in 2010 became whether Mr Brown's Premiership could continue if his private comments reflected his feelings about the British public. Yet was this relevant to his ability to do the job?

Do these matters of personality affect a person's ability to 'lead'?

Why would we seemingly want, why do we seem to believe, that the people best qualified for important roles, of trust and responsibility, are those who are best at imitating our good friends or better neighbours?

Is the person best suited to a task the one we like most on a personal level?

It seems unavoidable that we should use personality as a means to measure the potential of others. But if we are to do this we must always be clear about our subjectivities: what qualities we look for, what they mean to us and why.

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References:
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+ Andrew Pierce's 'Horror as Cameron brandishes the B-word'; in The Times; 5 October 2005.

+ James Kirkup's 'EU referendum: David Cameron "loses control of backbench" in biggest Conservative rebellion'; in The Telegraph; 25 October 2011.

+ Western Mail's 'Labour in shambles over leadership, says Cameron'; from Wales Online; 29 September 2006.

+ Roy Greenslade's 'It's all over, Gordon - how the press greeted his disastrous "bigot" gaffe'; in The Guardian; 29 April 2010.

The Allure of the Rebel

Rebels have long held a special place in our hearts. From Han Solo & the Rebel Alliance to Mal Reynolds & the Independents, these rebels are often the protagonists and most loved characters.

But what is it that we like about these rebels?

Starting from a new perspective on Asch's experiments, Moscovici began a line of study looking at the effect of minorities upon majorities (Gross, 2005). These minorities are often the source of pioneers & innovators, of new angles & new perspectives, which usually leads them into conflict with the status quo.

This provokes an alternative question. Why might we dislike the status quo?

From the perspective of protagonists like Han Solo and Mal Reynolds, their enemies are usually tyrannising minorities; in Star Wars the rebellion fights against an empire founded upon a small religious cult and a military-industrial complex; in Firefly the Independents oppose the alliance of wealthy core worlds that seeks to impose its rule on the poorer and wilder fringe worlds. Both were rebellions seeking to free individuals from the establishment's deeply conservative attachment to an idea of societal order.

Has an aspect of this meme been transposed to our real world perception of authority?

There certainly seems to be something to the idea that a government, from a certain perception, is always (regardless of mandate) a separate minority ruling over the majority (Fulcher & Scott, 2003). If this is the case, it certainly casts our favourite rebels in a different light. Rather than favouring them for their individuality or as outcasts, we instead identify with them as an embodiment of the majority. The 99% who wish to be out from under the influence of a minority.

This leads us back to the earlier forms of these characters - the noble barbarians - Aragorn, Conan, Othello and treatment of semi-historical figures like Arminius & Calgacus by Tacitus. What tends to elevate these protagonists, whether through charisma & personality or effective leadership techniques, seems to be a perception of them as being positive & pure examples of our ingroup identities.

We are however, it is worth remembering, somewhat prone to generalisations. And it is something that makes the romanticised notions of rebellion difficult when applied to the real world - in situations like the American Civil & Boer Wars - where the politics & ideologies of both sides make such simplistic notions as 'rebels are good' and 'authorities are bad' seriously problematic.

What can be salvaged is that the rebel is an aspirational character, representing elements of what we hope that we & the majority could be - independent thinking individuals who justly question authority and maintain a constant vigilance.

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References:
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+ Richard Gross' 'Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour'; (5th Ed); Chp 26, Conformity and Group Influence; pg 446-449; Hodder Arnold, 2005.

+ James Fulcher & John Scott's 'Sociology'; (2nd Ed); Chp 19, Politics, Power and Protest; pg 783-784, Elitist Theories; Oxford University Press, 2003.

Remember, Remember

When lighting your bonfire or fireworks tonight, please remember these old words:

'Remember, remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason, why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.'

And as you dwell on them, keep in mind its message of resistance to tyranny - opposing the use of terror & violence as a means of getting what you want. Take care of yourself & your pets tonight and have a safe 5th November.