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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Friday, March 10, 2023

Second Amendment: It Is What It Says. Nothing More and Nothing Less!

By Rich Kozlovich  

This actually goes back to an e-mail I received eleven years ago, which explains the time frame in the article. Normally when I get those “please pass this along” e-mails I read them, and even when I think they are interesting I don’t usually send them along. However, this was sent and I was asked to pass it along, and quite frankly it seems a worthwhile effort considering the wider ramifications of this kind of thinking. 

The e-mail starts out saying;

“Attorney General Holder says, "We have no right to possess guns!”’ So, what does a person who believes that we shouldn’t “need” guns to do?"  "Well, that depends if that person believes that we shouldn’t “have” guns or not. There is a substantial difference between “having” and “needing”, but in this case the "having" is based on the "needing"'.

The fact of the matter is we live in a dangerous world, and when the general population is armed the world is substantially less dangerous because crime goes down when gun ownership goes up. Clearly that, at the very least, is the "need" to justify this "having".

Most importantly, and we really do need to get this, the Second Amendment was deliberately inserted in the Constitution for two reasons. One, to make sure you can defend yourself, your loved ones and your property, and two, to give the citizenry the ability defend the Constitution against a government gone wild and is based on English natural law as codified in the English Bill of Rights. 

In this June 5th article, The Unspoken Wisdom of the Second Amendment, Anthony Matoria notes:

The founders of the country and drafters of the Constitution knew that not only would we occasionally have to suffer scoundrels, doofuses, and demagogues in positions of power, but human nature is a stubborn thing.  They understood that concentrated authority and policies of repression, even if they did initially appear to achieve their stated purpose, would over time be abused, with disastrous results.  The temptation to overreach, to expand the regime of authoritarianism and repression for partisan ends, is irresistible to the craven, mediocre, and dishonest professional politicians whose view of public good begins and ends with their own interest.

The drafters of the Second Amendment understood these things, and that is why they codified liberties within the Constitution.  They did so because they knew that occasionally, corrupt, stupid, and incompetent people would hold temporary positions of authority in government.  They wrote the Second Amendment not because they necessarily liked guns, but because they knew what tradeoffs were necessary to a free state, and that political fads are sometimes hostile to it.... 

The English Bill of Rights became law after a politically difficult time (actually it was more religious than political, or if you will, the religious issues generated the political issues) in English history where the common people overthrew King James and forced he and his successors, William III and Mary II in to accepting the English Bill of Rights. This was done for three reasons. There was a fight over the authority or the King to govern without consent of Parliament and the King’s (who was Catholic) desire to disarm his Protestant subjects and maintain a “permanent standing army”, against the wishes of Parliament; clearly and attempt to keep them in line with no way to defend themselves.

It might be noted that this wasn’t a new right being demanded by Parliament from the ruling authorities. This was merely codifying what was always considered a ‘the natural right’ of all Englishmen, and the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) agreed by saying this regarding the English Bill of Rights: "clearly an individual right, having nothing whatsoever to do with service in the militia". Furthermore, this was not a “granting of a new right”, but codifying forevermore a right they held without permission of the King, nor did the King have the right to disarm them.

The Second Amendment says: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  So, who does everyone think this "well regulated militia" is made up of? The general population! The term “well regulated” merely defines the difference between legal and criminal behavior. Otherwise they would be a mob bent of murder, mayhem, destruction.

When the Constitution was written a militia was not anything but the general population fighting as a civilian army, organized to their own likings and purposes. And they could go back to their regular lives and take their arms with them because they might be called upon to stand up to defend their community once again. And from where did this right originate? If this is a natural right then it didn’t originate with the King in England, not is it a “granting” to be given or to be taken away by the Government of the United States.

This e-mail went on to say:

"I Guess they were not happy with the poll results the first time, so USA today ran another one (no longer available online) Attorney General Eric Holder, has already said this is one of his major issues. He does not believe the 2nd Amendment gives individuals the right to bear arms. Whether a person is a gun person or a non-gun person it is impossible to avoid seeing the implications of this. The number one law enforcement agent in the nation is advocating overturning the second amendment based on his opinion. Even the Supreme Court agrees  individuals have the right to own arms."

According to “Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who wrote the opinion for the court's dominant conservatives, said: "It is clear that the Framers . . . counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty." However Justice Scalia says; “that there are limitations on the individual right to keep and bear arms, but the Supreme Court will have to decide what exactly those limitations are.” 

That statement has huge implications, and that was from a conservative justice.  I've often said Scalia wasn't the great conservative on the court, it was then and still is, Justice Thomas, who I think is the finest jurist to sit on the court in my lifetime. 

In no way should this be under the purview of the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court.  If clarification is needed on the Second Amendment, then "that is a legislative branch issue" requiring an amendment to the Constitution, not a judicial branch proclamation with their penumbras and emanations.  A branch of government that's clearly out of control.

We need to pay attention to the verbiage in this discussion.  I keep hearing how the Second Amendment "grants" the right to bear arms.  Wrong!!!! 

The Second Amendment "grant's" nothing!!! The Second Amendment "affirms" the right to bear arms.  The Founding Fathers deemed these rights as unalienable, meaning these were rights "endowed by their Creator", not by Congress, and certainly not by any permutation of the federal, state, local governments or the courts.

As the e-mail went on to say:

“Scalia is saying is what every constitutional lawyer in the country knows: No constitutional right is absolute; there are burdens on each right that do not violate that right. It can give the wrong impression to refer to “limitations” on any right; it says that certain things are either beyond the definition of that right, or are a burden that the Constitution allows. For example, certain types of speech—such as perjury, fraud, impersonating a federal agent, and inciting people to engage in violence—are not protected by the First Amendment.”

What we need here is definition, as definition leads to clarity.  That statement a logical fallacy.  All that's discussed in that statement is clearly criminal activity, and prosecuting them for that activity in no way represents limitations on the First Amendment.  Just as prosecuting someone for murder with a gun is not a Second Amendment limitation, it's prosecution of a crime.  

However, they're attempting to compare the prosecution of criminal activity as a justification to limit actual rights, in effect, trying to make an intellectual connection that possession of guns is a criminal activity.  

Being punished for irresponsible, and/or criminal behaviour is not a limitation of that right!  Punishment is a consequence of a misuse of those rights, including the right to bear arms. If one misuses these rights, they're punished, that doesn't justify any attempt to abridge those rights.   Both the First and Second Amendments "affirm" rights the left works diligently to destroy, whether it's freedom speech or religion, if they can destroy those rights, they can destroy America. 

  • Nothing is more dangerous to the left and their goal to impose tyranny on the nation than the freedom of speech and the right to bear arms..  
  • Nothing is more insidious that the corruption of thought, language and facts used by the left to do so.

The argument from the left is all about eliminating the Second Amendment, and that's really the goal here, not fighting crime or preventing murders.  This idea their "common sense" approach to gun control will make the world safer is horsepucky!  Disarming victims is a dumb way to fight crime.  Cities like Chicago, Washington, D.C., Detroit, all cities run by left wing Democrats, are also cities with the strictest gun laws, and are among the worst shooting galleries in the nation, not to mention the huge upsurge in crime.  The stricter the gun laws, the more gun violence there will be, and the more crimes will be committed.  That's fundamental, and is almost as absolute as the law of gravity.

What we have here isn't a gun problem, it's a culture problem.  What's the most common demonstrator in all this?  Fatherless families.  And who bears the bulk of the blame for that?  The federal government and the leftists who promote illegitimacy with their welfare programs, which has reached 70% in black America, who commit most of the crime in America per ratio, but illegitimacy is surging among every group in America, and instability has followed, and this whole problem was mostly created by the left.

It's been noted that in times past there were more guns per ratio than modern times, and far less murders.  At least that was true until very recently, because people are afraid, and they're buying guns, a lot of guns.  Why? Because the left has generated so much hate and violence crime is skyrocketing, and with their refusal to punish criminals, they've made the world around us far more dangerous than it was in the past.  So if they created this mess, and they did, why would anyone want to trust them to fix it?

It's not the guns that kill; it's culture-fueled anger:  It is not the guns; it is the anger.  It is a refusal to prosecute and jail angry, violent offenders.  It's a deliberate, angry, race-based leniency and a cynical, angry, deliberate theft of our peace and tranquility to allow such people to walk. Instead of abridging gun rights, how about abridging the freedom of angry criminals to walk free?

Clearly this next paragraph is dated going back ten years, but I left it in the article because the fact it's dated doesn't change the reality and danger of the leftist worldwide agenda to abolish the Second Amendment. Which is just one more effort to undermine and destroy the U.S. Constitution

Does anyone find it interesting that this has become an issue since the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty was rejected by Congress? Is this all about a movement by powerful forces in the world to impose a worldwide government under the auspices of the United Nations, The most incompetent and corrupt organization the world has ever known?  

There are four things that stand between freedom and that worldwide socialist government.  The American identity, The American culture, the American economy, and the United States Constitution. And they're all under severe attack daily by the left and their cats paws in the deep state, academia, government and the media.

 

Crime in America: If Leftists Were Any Nuttier, They'd be Nut Rolls

By Rich Kozlovich

Crime is skyrocketing in America, and the Democrats own it.  They're refusing to enforce laws, refusing to prosecute criminals, ordering police to not arrest criminals, letting violent criminals out without bail, or minimal bail, out of control immigration, increase of illegal drug use, demanding police forces be eliminated, and prosecute cops for doing their jobs, but that's not what's causing this upsurge in crime. 

No, their answer is there are just too many darned guns in the hands of honest citizens. Imagine that.  Yet Chicago has some of the strongest gun control laws in the nation, and what has been the result?  

Democrat-run Chicago Year-to-Date Crime Rate Up 97% Compared to 2021 - Compared to the first 22 days of 2021, the major crime rate in Democrat-run Chicago is already up 97 percent this year... Compared to those same 22 days last year, crime is up 61 percent. Another great American city utterly destroyed by Democrats.

In  John Mac Ghlionn's piece, 11 U.S. Cities Run by Democrats Listed Among 50 Most Dangerous in World, he states:

Eleven U.S. cities rank among the 50 most dangerous in the world, according to a recent report published by Numbeo, a global quality of life database. All 11 are governed by Democratic mayors……..Baltimore, Memphis and Detroit — are ranked among the 20 most dangerous cities on the planet………Memphis police department has just announced plans to permanently deactivate the unit that five of the officers involved in the vicious beating of Tyre Nichols belonged to. Mike Duggan, meanwhile, is currently serving as the mayor of Detroit.”

On September 28, 2022 Rachel Schilke published an article entitled, Robert Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan asks judge to free him, saying:

The man convicted of assassinating presidential candidate and former Sen. Robert Kennedy in 1968 is asking a judge to free him from prison, arguing that he no longer poses a danger to society.  Sirhan Sirhan, 78, is serving life in prison in California for Kennedy's murder, in which he shot the New York senator after he won California’s Democratic presidential primary, jurors found. Five others were wounded during the shooting in Los Angeles at the Ambassador Hotel. Sirhan's attorney, Angela Berry, stated in his request for release on Wednesday that her client is not a danger to the public anymore...............

Newsom overruled a two-person parole board that granted Sirhan parole in August 2021 after two of Kennedy's sons, Douglas and Robert Jr., spoke in his favor, stating they could tell he was "a human being worthy of compassion and love.” However, Kennedy's wife, Ethel, and his nine children were not supportive of Sirhan's release.......

Is it any wonder crime is skyrocketing in California, and much of the country with this kind of insanity.  The parole board granted release?  Really? Are they nuts?  Yes, they are!  And they're not alone, because if this murderer hadn't killed a Kennedy, he'd be out now.  And I agree with the argument that was why Newsome overruled the parole board.   If it wasn't Robert Kennedy he killed, he'd be out now, which demonstrates nut rolls permeate California's entire "justice" system.

As for the Kennedy sons telling the world he should be released because he's "a human being worthy of compassion and love”, they're even nuttier.  

Every criminal, whether they're a one time murderer, a mass murderer, rapist, serial killer, terrorist, etc. is a human being.  So what?  So was Stalin, Castro, Hitler, Pol Pot, and many other mass murdering "human beings".  Are they really worthy of our compassion and love?  NO!  Here, just in case anyone missed it, let me say it again...NO!  So then, what's the criteria for being "worthy of compassion and love"?  How about being innocent of wrong doing?   Like the unborn innocent they support murdering with their views on abortion? 

As for the idea they passed a law that requires government to release these vile characters when they can tell these monsters no longer represent a danger to society:  Well that is a huge load of horsepucky, as so many who have been released demonstrate over and over again.  

Prisons weren't created to fix these monsters, it was to isolate uncivilized moral beasts from society to protect society and punish them.  Rehabilitation simply doesn't work for the vast majority of these people.  Why is that is so hard to understand?  

I would like to draw everyone's attention to this latest piece by Victor Davis Hanson:  The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization saying:

As we suffer self-inflicted mass looting, random street violence, hyperinflation, a nonexistent border, unaffordable fuel, and a collapsing military, Americans will come to appreciate just how thin is the veneer of their civilization.  When stripped away, we are relearning that what lies just beneath is utterly terrifying.

One thing should be clear as a bell.   Since the actions of leftists are so destructive to civilized society, one must conclude, the destruction of civilization must be the end goal of their agenda.


 

Thursday, March 9, 2023

Here's What I Believe, What I Don't Believe, and The Fix

By Rich Kozlovich

The insanity I've seen displayed over the last sixty years has been mind boggling. I wish I could have said things have improved.  While we have great technology and advancement, we have plenty of food, at least until now, and overall we have good medical care, and we live longer lives, we have to consider what's happening to the American culture, and the conclusion is it hasn't improved, and in point of fact, is worse than it has ever been as America is in an existential crisis, with leaders doing just about everything in their power to destroy all the foundational values that make for a stable society. 

Here are the things I believe. 

I believe the left hates Trump even when he does things they like, just like they hated Nixon, who promulgated more far left policies that impact our culture and economy than most 20th century presidents.  It was Nixon that created some of the most abusive and tyrannous agencies there is like EPA and OSHA.  And they hated him.  Why?  Because he was an anti-communist, and that's what tells the tale about who the left really is.

The mental gymnastics leftists and RINO's must go through to criticize Trump, and conservatives, has been remarkable.  The media's irrational rantings have been so outrageous you can't help but laugh.  The lies, misdirection, logical fallacies Democrats spew out about conservatives is so obviously false I wonder how their minds became so twisted.  Whether they believe what they're saying it or not. 

I can honestly say I didn't like Trump yesterday, I don't like him today nor will I like him tomorrow, as a person.  When I say that to my conservative friends they respond:  Who does?  But we all agree, he's a leader!  And as President of the United States, I believe he may possibly be one of the greatest Presidents this nation has ever had, even with a split Presidency.

I believe the RINO's and Neo-Cons hate Trump because he wants to dismantle a system that's made, they and their friends, powerful and wealthy.  In that regard, the left and the RINO/Neo-Cons, are in harmony and explains why they've been so cozy hoping to even now destroy Trump in order to keep him from running for President again.  And these new January 6th hearings is going to expose all that. 

These January 6th tapes are exposing the Democrats, leftists, RINO/Neo-Cons, like Liz Chaney and others, for who and what they are.   That will help define who and what the Republican party is going to have to become.  They're the reason the Republican party has been consistently called, and acted like, the Stupid Party.  

Here's what defines a Republican as a RINO. 

  1. They are totally out of touch with their base.  A base that subscribes to traditional American Judaic/Christian values.
  2. They're more in harmony with the Democrat left.  
  3. They have no sense of loyalty or justice and are totally self-serving.
  4. They take actions that are clearly detrimental to the nation for political or financial gain. 

There's a lot of talk about draining the swamp and fixing the Deep State, but that would take a lot more than rolling back a few liberal left-wing initiatives.  It requires an entire restructuring of the liberal/leftist/progressive vision and central power governing structure, and the initiatives they've insidiously imposed on the nation through regulations, spending, and taxes. That can't be done without restructuring government by eliminating whole departments of the federal government. 

To fix it you must shrink it, and that must be done on a massive scale, and that includes eliminating the Departments of Labor, Energy, Education, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development and Transportation.  Combine Home Land Security and Veterans Departments with the Department of Defense.  Combine Agriculture and Interior.   Remember, the Post Office once was a department, and now it's not, and it should be joined by those I've listed here, and that includes the frighteningly large number of agencies that work for those departments.   

Let's take the Department of Agriculture which is a massive and expensive self serving boondoggle.  A vast bureaucracy with a budget of some $130 billion.  That's larger than the farmer's net income.  It redistributes funds according to formulas created decades ago and is a massive hog trough of federal funding.

  • $20 billion in various crop “supports” to the nation’s wealthiest farmers
  • $5 billion in ethanol subsidies 
  • Grants that amount to welfare to the wealthy, and food stamps to the poor.  

While the department does good things that need to be retained, we have to recognize their real mission!  Mostly to provide cash to political constituents.  It needs purged. As it is now:

  • Too many "Americans" think government is the answer and not the problem. 
  • Too many Americans don't think they're Americans.
  • Too many Americans hate America.
  • Too many Americans are remarkably ignorant of American history.
  • Too many Americans fail to realize how unique American style republican democracy is in all of world history.
  • Too many Americans graduate from school semi-illiterate, and amazingly ignorant.
  • Too many Americans graduate from college filled with false information and assumptions about how the world works, or should work, and are arrogant in their ignorance.
  • Too many Americans no longer are people of faith, and as a result have no moral foundation other than the latest philosophical flavor of the day, and that's a foundation of shifting sand.

Is it any wonder society is being washed back and forth like waves crashing against the rocks to its destruction?  

Here's what I don't believe:

  • I don’t believe Social Security will there for my children and it may not be there for me for much longer. Social Security was supposed to stop being self-funding by 2020 and bankrupt by 2030, and it will go bankrupt with the federal government owing the Social Security fund trillions of dollars they borrowed with non-redeemable bonds.  (Here's the  Summary of the 2021 Annual Reports, Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees)
  • I don't believe our children and grandchildren will have a better life than we did.
  • I don’t believe Medicare and Medicaid can survive the decade.
  • I don’t believe crony capitalism will be less but more – especially since this pattern goes back to the Whiskey Act of 1791.
  • I don’t believe those who left California because they made a mess of it won’t attempt to make a mess of the states they moved to. Currently residents of Democrat run states are fleeing in droves to Republican run states, but they're probably going to take the ideas that destroyed the states they're leaving and vote for them in the states they're moving to. 
  • I don't believe spending billions will end poverty.
  • I don't believe spending billions will fix homelessness.  California spent billions to fix homelessness and it only dropped one percent.  Even if those billions amounted to only "two billion that would come to 1.3 million to get one person off the street".
  • I don't believe you can convince liberals their leftist philosophy has been the most irrational, misanthropic, and morally defective belief system in all of world history.  In spite of the most recent and ongoing human disaster leftists imposed on Venezuela.  Millennials all want us to still "Feel the Bern."
  • I don’t believe the national debt can be paid unless the government sells its assets, which amounts to 150 trillion dollars, and they won’t. 
  • I don't believe diversity and multiculturalism, is anything more than a leftist scheme to undermine and destroy the American identity, the American culture, the American economy and overturn the U.S. Constitution.   Diversity without accomplishment is incompetence without consequence. 
  • I don't believe the world's economy is stable.  The unending amount of debt the world's nations has accumulated, and continues to accumulate, is going to cause a worldwide economic depression.
  • I don't believe the EU can survive to 2025, but certainly not by 2030. 
  • I don't believe Europeans can tolerate the Muslim invasion much longer without civil war breaking out all over Europe if Europe wishes to be European.
  • I don't believe the Middle East or anywhere in the world that's dominated by Islam is fixable.
  • I don't believe Russia or China can withstand an international economic down turn, let alone a collapse. 
  • I believe the Russo/Ukrainian War is Europe's fault, and not our fault or our responsibility.  Let them fix it or not.   
  • I don't believe a nation that abandoned the moral foundations that made them great can survive. 
  • I don't believe large corporations are concerned about anything except the next quarterly report, and in no way will they support anything considered conservative, in their views, their actions or their philosophy, even if it impacts their profit margins. 
  • I don't believe any of the problems listed above can be fixed until public education is fixed.
  • I don't believe public education can be fixed until the federal government is forced out of it.  
  • I don't believe public education can be fixed unless the states follow Governor Ron DeSantis' lead and pass legislation to teach the truth about communism and all the other leftist clabber.  
  • I don’t believe academia can be purged of its far left Frankfurt School aficionados unless we stop funding these universities with taxpayer dollars and student loans. They can't be fixed until they have to become self supporting "for profit" institutions.
  • I don't believe there is such a thing as man made climate change.
  • I don't believe green activists aren't anything but dishonest, irrational, misanthropic and morally defective misfits.
  • I don't believe spending can be brought under control without repealing the 16th Amendment. 
  • I don't believe you can reduce corruption in government without repealing the 17th Amendment. 
  • I don't believe the federal government can be fixed without passing a 28th Amendment creating term and age limits for Congress, and the federal judiciary, nor do I believe the judiciary will remember its proper role until age and term limits are imposed.
  • I don't believe government can be fixed without passage of a 29th Amendment creating sundown laws for all federal departments, agencies, bureaus and any official agency of the federal government, and all federal laws and regulations, with the goal of reducing the size and scope of the federal government.

So what is it that I really believe?  I believe leftism is like rust.  It never sleeps.

 

How to Restore Republic After It's Fallen into Corruption

By Rich Kozlovich

This quote by Mike Vanderboegh appeared on The Last Refuge saying

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.” 

All that sounds great, but what's all that mean?  It’s a clarion call for courage, commitment, understanding and intelligence.  It’s a clarion call for leadership.  Real leadership!

John Boehner once said, a leader without followers is a man taking a walk by himself.  Well, that's true, and then again, maybe it's not.  What I've found over the years is most leaders aren't really leaders.  They're managers who have been chosen to organize the direction everyone wants to go.   Neville Chamberlain was amazingly popular when he appeased Hitler at Munich because WWI had only been over for 20 years and the losses from that slaughter still haunted the British, and they would have done anything to avoid another war.  Churchill was considered nuts.   

What if everyone is wrong?  What if everyone is going in the wrong direction?  Well, there are consequences for driving on the wrong side of the road, and we’re seeing that now.  And what happens next is the one going in the right direction, all by himself, will become the leader.  Society merely has yet to come to grips with that. 

How does that happen? 

At some point, society reaches the apex of reality, and the tide changes.  Guess who's in the lead?  Unfortunately, the go along to get along managers often remain fouling the water with their efforts at appeasement, which usually entails attacking those who are trying to do what needs to be done.  We've seen a lot of that with people like Paul Ryan and John Kasich, and it's continuing.   A leader can hire a great manager, not the reverse.

These so-called leaders, who aren't, were chosen because they've been go along to get along for all of their lives, and being a rock in the current is totally alien to them.  Whereas real leaders are prepared to be the rock in the current.  Prepared to be unliked in order to accomplish their mission.  Prepared to stand up and say, you're all wrong, and I'm going to tell you why.  Prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of their adversaries. 

Rhetoric can be high sounding, and that’s important, but rhetoric needs a plan, because without a plan there's no substance.   So, let me outline a plan, and it's one I've touted in the past, a plan that must deal with the self-perpetuating foundational flaws in the system.

First, eliminate the 16th Amendment.  That's the income tax amendment, then pass a national sales tax and a hard debt limit. Repeal the 17th Amendment.  Originally Senators were not elected directly by the people, that was for the House or Representatives.  In order to maintain a balance of power Senators  were chosen by the states to be de facto ambassadors from the states to the federal government in order to prevent the central government form getting out of hand.

Repeal the 26th Amendment,which lowered to voting age to 18.  Make thirty the minimum age for voting.  Pass an 28th Amendment that puts age and term limits on Congress and the federal judiciary.  Pass a 29th Amendment that only the Departments of State, Treasury, Justice, and Defense, are permanent, and place a sunshine clause on all other departments, commissions, agencies, and bureaus, of the federal government, and eliminate the FED. 

Place a sunshine clause on all taxes and regulations.   Let Congress deal with each of these as they occur and be on record for their actions.  And absolutely end public employee unions, especially the teacher’s unions. While that's a states issue, but pass a law that ends funding for any state that refuses, and state that law cannot be reviewed by the courts.  It's the legislature that Constitutionally determines the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary, not the judiciary. 

Finally, all that corruption must be dealt with for what it is, crimes!   Investigations must be conducted, indictments must be served, trials must be held and criminals must go to prison.  If all the criminal corruption we've witnessed over these many years isn't dealt with, there can be no restoration. 

That's foundational.  That's The Basics.