Presidential Disqualification by 14th Amendment

As of 9 September 2023, should Donald Trump be disqualified from running for President of the United States of America (U.S.) in 2024 based on the 14th Amendment, Section 3, which is written as follows:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Let’s focus this discussion on the part that says, “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”  Who determines whether someone has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” for the purposes of Section 3?  I, like many other registered voters that make up We the People (WtP), believe his actions following the election of 2020 should disqualify him, but should my personal belief or say so be enough to disqualify someone from running for public office?  Or, should the disqualification be determined by individual States, the State or Federal Judiciary, WtP in a referendum, or some other way?

Regardless of personal opinions, what about the principle commonly used in the U.S. where a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a Court of Law?  Should Trump be disqualified from running when he has not yet been convicted of a crime related to insurrection?  If he gets convicted of any crime in any of his four indictments, should any conviction disqualify him based on Section 3?  Section 3 does not specify any crime to be a disqualifier.  It specifically refers to being “engaged in insurrection or rebellion”.  Does “engaged” in the context of Section 3 require a conviction, or can some other criteria be considered?  This seems more and more to me like a question that the Judiciary would have to answer for WtP.

Trump has been charged in four separate, criminal cases.  In New York, he is charged with crimes associated with paying hush money in violation of election laws.  Is that insurrection or rebellion?  I don’t believe so.

In Florida, he is charged with crimes related to mishandling classified documents and obstructing justice in the investigations around the mishandling.  Is that insurrection or rebellion?  I don’t believe so, even though I believe mishandling classified documents should be its own disqualifier.  That is for a separate discussion outside of the 14th Amendment.

In Washington, DC, he is charged with many counts related to unlawful acts associated with criminal attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election which culminated in a violent attack against Congress at the U.S. Capitol while Congress was in the process of performing a Constitutionally mandated function.  Is that insurrection or rebellion?  I believe it absolutely is.

In Georgia, he is charged with using the power of the Office of the President of the U.S. to attempt to overturn an electoral function reserved for the State of Georgia relative to the 2020 election.  Is that insurrection or rebellion?  I believe it absolutely is.

So, by my estimation, Trump is charged in two cases where Section 3 of the 14th Amendment should disqualify him from running for President and two cases where the 14th Amendment should not apply.  However, should there be a conviction by a Court of Law before Section 3 could be applied?  If we don’t require conviction, then what should be the alternate threshold and who should make that determination?

Am I Pro-Life or Am I Pro-Abortion?

I’d like to begin answering this question by stating that it is an infantile question that could only be accurately answered in its given form by a person with the brain of an infant.  Anyone who says they are one or the other is clearly living their life without a clue about much of anything.  For example, as much as I might wish to be, I can’t be considered pro-life because I believe there are certain circumstances in which the death penalty is the only appropriate punishment for certain people convicted of murdering one or more human beings.  I also can’t be considered pro-abortion because I am opposed to abortion in more scenarios than not.

I have taken the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America (Constitution) on many occasions since I was 21 years of age.  It seems silly every time I had to take it after that because once was all I needed.  I consider it an oath for life and I will support and defend that ideal until the day I die, and perhaps beyond.  From that personal perspective, I will now address the titular question.

Since the topic of abortion appears to be at the top of mind for most Americans as we approach the 2024 Presidential Election, let’s focus on how the Constitution informs my opinion about the topic of abortion.  To begin, the Constitution contains only two references to the word “born” with no references at all to pregnancy or anything else related to one human being giving birth to another human being:

1. No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President

2. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Unlike born, words related to elect, such as election, appear in the Constitution about 46 times.  Election is defined as “a process in which people vote to choose a person or group of people to hold an official position.”  So, the Constitution makes many references to “We the people of the United States” (WtP) having choices about how the United States of America (USA) is to be governed.

Based on my reading of the Constitution and my oath to support and defend it, I am heavily pro-choice because WtP are given the exclusive responsibility to choose our government and how we are to be governed.  I don’t believe any of us should be making choices for others of us except for those WtP have properly elected to do so.

Without regard to individual choices, the government of the USA has a responsibility to protect its “born” citizens:  

“The Congress shall have Power To … provide for the … general Welfare of the United States”.

So, should Congress have a responsibility to protect “unborn” children without infringing upon the rights of WtP to make our own choices?  Personally, I believe it is reasonable to require the protection of any “unborn” person who could survive on their own, outside the body of the mother, without extraordinary medical or other scientific intervention.  Prohibiting the choice to abort a pregnancy before the prospective mother could even know for certain she was pregnant, on the other hand, would be a clear infringement of that person’s right to choose.

Those who claim to be pro-life, which is unlikely to be completely true, have used the argument that life begins at conception.  That, however, is an unknowable point in time and is a bit arbitrary since some could argue the life began with the independent creation of the egg and the sperm.  Such arguments about the beginning of life often arise from religious beliefs, but religious beliefs should not be used in a Constitutional discussion.  The USA is not a country that is governed by religion and it was clearly created with an intent to avoid being ruled by any particular religion.  Regardless, setting a time earlier than it could reasonably be known that a pregnancy exists clearly infringes on the person’s right to choose to have a pregnancy.

For the vast majority of WtP, conception is a non-starter due to the unknown factors.  For the vast majority of WtP, the due date is a non-starter because the child could survive on its own just like those who are already “born”.  What is that point in between that would be least objectionable to WtP as a collective?  That is what our elected representatives should be working to determine instead of trying to force the majority to one extreme or the other.

The question shouldn’t be about pro-life or pro-abortion.  It should be about the timing of a reasonable dividing line between being allowed to abort and not being allowed to abort.  Abortion should also be defined in terms of personal decision versus medical emergency.  Terminating a pregnancy that could very well end in a successful delivery is a reasonable definition for an abortion.  A medical emergency to save a life, on the other hand, should never be characterized as an abortion, and such decisions should be made between medical personnel and the patients who are at risk, not the government or other members of WtP.

If WtP keep pushing for extremes instead of reasoned solutions, the Constitution will cease to function as it was designed to function and the USA will be no more.  Being a Democratic Republic requires negotiation and compromise.  WtP consists of more than 300 million individuals each having different ideas about how things should be.  If we can’t once again figure out a way to combine those different ideas into how we are to be governed, then the Democratic Republic of WtP will suffocate and die.

“Independence Day USA” in 2023

As we celebrate 247 years of governing independent of the English Empire of the 1700s, there is a great deal of concern regarding the direction Our country will take in the next 247 years.  We appear to be locked in another Civil War where this time is Red vs Blue rather than Blue vs. Gray.  Can we survive another one?  Is our two-Party duopoly equipped to bring an end to the war this time around?

Written by a former colleague of mine:

“The term ‘tip of the spear’ has come to represent those individuals, companies or organizations who popular opinion has deemed the first to face whatever unknown danger is hurled at them.

The FBI is such an organization and many of its people have lived at the tip of the spear previously, before migrating to the FBI. They are, generally, solid unassuming men and women who do the job without seeking public praise nor fearing public scorn.

As this LA Times column makes perfectly clear, the nation must have confidence in its institutions, particularly in the FBI.

The FBI is most often in the vortex of having the sole responsibility for investigating politicians accused of criminal violations and conducting those investigations with consistent standards no matter whom the target might be.

Under the law, a former president is no different from any other citizen.

Hand-wringing over ‘optics’ or fearing the unprecedented nature of an investigation is not and should not be a factor when conducting an investigation. It falls to the FBI director and the Attorney General to underscore that point publicly and early in such cases. Even during congressional hearings.

Now is not the time to be timid. Now, more than ever, it is time to reinforce that the rule of law applies equally to everyone.

As stated in this piece, ‘The chilling effect from their harping is obvious in the crazy caution Justice and the FBI displayed toward Trump.’

When you're the tip of the spear, there is room for caution, but not crazy caution.”

The following article was shared with the text written above:

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-06-21/weaponization-justice-department-fbi-republican-democrat-merrick-garland-bill-barr-hunter-biden

From the opening of the article:

Republicans keep gunning for Justice Dept. and FBI, but it’s Democrats who should have a beef with the feds

If Democrats are weaponizing the federal government against their political opponents, as Republicans charge, they’re doing a really bad job of it.

My reply to my colleague and the article:

Will we ever get people under the exclusive control of one of the two major Political Parties to remove their blinders long enough to see and face reality? How on earth has this corrupted form of democracy we have, a duopoly where less than 60% of voters exercise 100% control of government power, survived for 247 years.

And 100% of those registered to one of the two Parties hates the 28% (give or take) of registered voters that are in the other Party. It’s no wonder the country that is supposed to be controlled by 100% of #WtP has become so dysfunctional. It’s time to give control to the 40% that think for themselves!!!

Another former colleague then responded:

“It’s not a ‘Democracy’, it’s a ‘Republic.’ Many dismiss that statement by trying to equate the two, but the difference is significant. A Democracy is majority rule and infringes on liberties. A Republic provides for representation of all citizens, including the minority. The genesis of the duopoly is the reduction and now often outright elimination of the teaching of Civics. A majority of youth, fellow citizens, and even elected representatives I’ve encountered fail at demonstrating the genius of our founding fathers to put forth our Constitutional Republic which embodies power in the people. We do not elect ‘leaders’, we elect ‘representatives’. The word leader does not appear in the Constitution, but representative does. Most don’t understand the power they as individual citizens have and thus fail to exercise it. Most don’t understand the Article I branch is the most powerful as our representatives over the other two ‘co-equal’ branches. The Article I branch can overrule the Article II branch veto. The Article I branch can also overturn the Article III branch rulings via legislation passed into Law by the Article II branch signing it or having the veto overruled. It will take a generation of teaching to correct.”

To which I replied:

“It will take a generation of teaching to correct.” Except our Article I duopoly will continue to ensure that education is never allowed to happen in order to maintain self-preservation of the duopoly.

Shortly after the online conversation above, I came across the following article that is, coincidentally, completely independent of the conversation I had been having, but it has some striking similarities and so much more that should be read by every U.S. citizen before November 2024:

https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/04/politics/american-political-divisions-july-fourth/index.html

A couple excerpts from that one:

The ideal of national unity celebrated on July Fourth has almost always been overstated: the country from its founding has been riven by sectional, racial, class and gender conflicts. Large groups of people living within our borders have always felt excluded from any proclaimed national consensus: American Indians who were brutally displaced for decades, Black people who faced generations of legal slavery and then decades of state-sponsored segregation, women denied the vote until the 20th century.

To Wolfe, the US is now trapped in a “vicious cycle” of rising partisan and ideological hostility in which political leaders, particularly on the right, see a “benefit in fueling the rage even more.” While President Joe Biden, Wolfe says, has struck traditional presidential notes of emphasizing the value of national unity, Trump – currently the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination – has built his political strategy on widening the nation’s divides in ways that may be difficult to reverse any time soon. “I don’t know if [Trump’s] a political genius or just instinctively knows something, but he sure has exacerbated the shocks, and I don’t know how we are going to recover from him,” Wolfe says.

I’d say more from my own perspective and experience, but there isn’t anything I could say that wasn’t said above.  I know it’s been a long while since I’ve had the desire to post here, so thank you for checking in today.