PROPOSITIONS FOR A LIBERTARIAN CONSTITUTION - Part B
by Kirk Brothers
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INTRODUCTION - WHAT WAS LEFT OUT, AND WHY
Many students of our Constitution, having read the previous
propositions, may well ask, "Is that all? Is he crazy?" I must
decline to offer an opinion on the second question, but my reply
but to the first is, "Yes, and for good reasons." Here they are.
As Chief Justice Holmes wrote in ABRAMS V UNITED STATES,
250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919), "...the theory of our Constitution....
is an experiment, as all life is an experiment."
Let's look at our 1787 Constitution in perspective from the
historical viewpoint, by recalling all we've all read about life
in the time and place that document was written. It will at once
be obvious that it was "an experiment" by mortal men with human
failings--including greed--and not carved in stone by the finger
of Yahweh. It is a highly imperfect document from the viewpoint
of the 20th century, and was showing its cracks even long before
the Civil War.
It's an eighteenth century relic, and life in the eighteenth
century was a far cry from our lives in the same physical space
as our patriot forebears. Those were, literally, horse-and-buggy
days, and the people of those times thought in horse-and-buggy
terms.
Transportation was by land or sea--and either choice was
time-consuming and fatiguing. State-of-the-art land transport
depended upon the latest design in wooden wheels for a stage-
coach--highways were two dirt ruts in the grass--and it was a
long and bumpy ride from New York to Philadelphia. Sea travel
might have been picturesque, quaint, charming, relaxing (for
passengers) etc., but one had only an estimated DAY, not time, of
departure/arrival, since ships were dependent upon wind in their
sails and favorable tides.
News from New York was at least a week old by the time ships
brought it to Savannah, and still older by the time it traveled
overland to Atlanta. Newspapers (often weekly), were common
enough, but the telephone and telegraph were both to come a
century later--along with the steamship and locomotive--and, as
we all know, radio/television and (for all practical purposes)
the automobile were the products of our own twentieth century.
In contrast to those historic times, present-day Americans
may watch a World Series baseball game from across the country,
and hear the electronically-transmitted crack of the bat as it
makes the winning home run before the actual sound can reach a
spectator in the back row of the bleachers. We may pick up the
phone and speak to someone halfway around the world almost as
easily as dialing 911 for emergency police service. Times have
changed, and our Constitution must keep pace with the times. If
it does not, what good is it?
At any rate, the Constitution accepted the facts of a
primitive, isolated life by first creating a separate Federal
legislature--in residence in the nation's capital, and therefore
remote from oversight by the citizens who elected them. The
Federal bureaucracy in turn was obliged to accommodate itself to
the Constitutions of the several states. The U.S. Constitution,
as one consequence, provided for the Congress to establish a
postal system and post roads, to regulate all commerce between
states and with the Indian tribes, and so on. These provisions
were in fact dictated by the loose social structure and lack of
modern technology in the new nation.
The present propositions for a Libertarian Constitution
assume that what is good from the old system will be preserved,
simply as a convenience as well as a Common Law necessity--the
rule of stare decisis has established many beneficial practices
and processes in government, and there is no need to throw out
the clean baby with the dirty bath water.
Another point for consideration in terms of omitting certain
traditional provisions from the new document is one rather minor
matter. Because the former British Colonies had been forced by
their King to provide room and board for British soldiers on duty
in the now-independent states, the Third Amendment provided that
soldiers would not be quartered in citizens' homes. To the 1787
framers the issue was timely and real--Americans did not want
their new government to compel them to house American soldiers,
either.
But nowadays, of course, no army would dream of housing its
troops in civilian homes--armies have numerous bases with full
facilities for barracks, mess halls, and so on. So the Third
Amendment guarantee has been eliminated from my list of specific
rights, simply because it is an anachronism--a dead letter. Our
Constitution should not be concerned with dead letters, but be a
constantly-living and vital source for the protection of every
LIVING American rather than a monument to the failings of the
dead.
As we review the Propositions in sequence for purposes of
commentary and argument in defense thereof, I'll be as brief as
possible, but as long as I feel might be necessary. Again I ask
my readers to bear with me until the entire thesis has been
presented.
PROPOSITION ONE - STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL INTENT
One of the knotty problems facing the Supreme Court when it
makes one of its sporadic attempts to apply the Constitution in
test cases is that of forming an opinion on the original intent
of the framers. It is obvious to any critical reader that the
1787 Constitution can be interpreted to mean different things by
different shysters. Reading minds in retrospect is a tricky, if
not shady, business--although it msy be sound jurisprudence, to a
point, to argue that the true meaning of the Constitution is
dependent upon the intent of the men who wrote it--but didn't
bother to clarify their intent in crucial passages.
Why is this important? Well, by comparison, let's look at
the Declaration of Independence. That document is practically
NOTHING BUT a statement of intent, and it clearly reads that
every person has an unalienable right to life, liberty and THE
PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
The "pursuit of happiness" has often been argued by pro se
litigants to support a claim that sex laws, for example, are
unconstitutional because they violate a citizens' right to the
pursuit of happiness in whatever manner he chooses. But the
legalistic answer is that "the pursuit of happiness" does not
appear in the Constitution, and so is irrelevant.
Yet in other cases Judges bend over backwards to try to find
intent in less venerable sources than the 1776 Declaration of
Independence. Why? Because it serves the purpose of government
to maintain its power over citizens' private lives.
Senator Barry Goldwater often said that government should
get out of our lives, out of our bedrooms, and off our backs.
The Senator was a true Libertarian masquerading as a Republican.
But in the present document under consideration, the brief
Preamble of the 1787 Constitution is replaced by a lengthy and
specific statement of original intent--to make it abundantly
clear to all Courts for all time to come EXACTLY what the framers
of this Constitution had in mind when they wrote the rest of the
text.
I submit that the rest of the Statement of Original Intent
is self-evident, and argue that it is necessary as a permanent
and unforgettable lesson in history. It is a record in what
would be our most important legal document, constantly reviewed
by every Judge, lawyer, and common citizen whenever one needs to
refer to the new Constitution. In effect, it says loudly and
clearly, "Never again". Government is to be kept under severe
rein, or the bureaucrats will pay for their treachery.
I refer readers to THE REVOLUTIONARY RIGHT, especially the
chapters, ABUSE OF DISCRETION--INVISIBLE TREASON, and THE TIME
BOMB IN OUR CONSTITUTION, for supportive argument on these vital
points.
As to the seven-year plebiscites, I have previously written
that citizenship must be a lifelong, ongoing process for each and
every civic-minded American. Each and every voter must have the
opportunity at frequent intervals to re-affirm the Constitution,
or amend it as necessary to correct problems which might arise
in the passing of time. Should the Supreme Court issue a ruling
that outrages Americans like the Dred Scott Decision, the people
must exercise their sovereign power to put the Supreme Court back
in its proper place.
The fact that many voters die during any seven years, and
new voters come of age during that period, compels us to have a
Constitution which is dictated by the living, and not by the
dead.
PROPOSITION TWO - LANGUAGE CONVENTIONS
It is believed that this section is self-explanatory.
PROPOSITION THREE - EXECUTIVE AND JUDICIAL IMMUNITY
This is perhaps redundant, but is included so that no one
will ever forget that the politicians are to be servants to all
the people equally, and not the Master.
PROPOSITION FOUR - THE SOCIAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL CONTRACTS
This section is intended as another statement of intent, and
a living history lesson to every person who reads the document.
It is a reminder of basic principles--those fundalmentals which
Lincoln said "may and must be inflexible".
PROPOSITION FIVE - POWERS DELEGATED TO GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE
This section is intended to state briefly the rightful jobs
of government which comply with Goldwater's injunction that
government must stay out of our pocketbooks, out of our bedrooms,
and off our backs. Within the narrow and precise areas which are
designated as of governmental (police) interest, the power of the
government will be essentially unchanged from its present level.
Perhaps the most important provision in the package is one
which is merely referred to as a "new monetary system", and it is
felt worth repeating here the most important points of a specific
proposal which was argued in THE REVOLUTIONARY RIGHT. That is,
to establish a new system of money in which one cent of new coins
will be deemed equal in value to ONE MINUTE OF TIME spent at
minimum labor. This is a plan which has been offered by several
writers who were naturally branded as idiots for suggesting such
a thing! But think about these facts, please.
There can never be more or less than sixty minutes in one
hour. Impossible. Therefore, since money must be based upon
SOMETHING, an absolutely fixed standard is essential to prevent
both inflation and deflation. An hour is always sixty minutes--
therefore the minimum wage (which might be legislated) would be
sixty cents per hour.
Now, the present minimum wage is well over five dollars an
hour, and it seems likely that by the time the nation finally
collapses of dry rot, inflation will have pushed the minimum wage
up to six dollars an hour.
Therefore, the Legislative Branch might enact a law that all
debts, public and private, would be redeemable with the new money
at the rate of one-tenth the old money. All bank accounts, etc.,
would be reduced to one-tenth of their present levels, but all
prices would also be adjusted. So in the first phase of the
changeover, everyone would stay relatively just where he is now,
in terms of economic resources. The conversion of ten to one
would be accomplished simply by moving the decimal point one
place to the left.
But the following phases are where the benefits would be
seen to outweigh the initial inconvenience and complaining about
government "meddling". First and foremost, politicians could
not tinker with the money supply as is common now, because there
would be much less money in circulation (one tenth as much).
People who borrow money would know they must pay back exactly the
same value as they borrowed (plus low interest). People who lend
money would not lose by inflation, but borrowers could not lose
by deflation.
But the biggest attraction of the idea is that time is a
universal element--the same in all countries--so that labor in
one country must cost essentially the same as in any other. Thus
a nation's wealth would be measured in terms of its actual pro-
ductivity of goods and services, and not in the "competitive"
value of its currency on financial exchanges. The power of
wealthy nations to manipulate poor nations would vanish, and the
tendency of American companies to move to countries where labor
is cheap would protect American jobs at home.
I ask readers to review my earlier writing on this subject
and give it considerable thought, because I believe it to be the
one and only solution to the problem of political meddling in
economic matters which are of no concern to a police force.
PROPOSITION SIX - SANCTIONS UPON GOVERNMENT
I submit that the topics of religious neutrality, balanced
budget and taxing powers, social welfare, education and health
care, sexual privacy, the common law bill of rights and specific
rights are so mandatory as to justify yet another civil war if
bigots try to sabotage any of these provisions. I submit that
the principles are so important in their intent and content that
the language is justified.
At the same time, programs which have been of indisputable
benefit to all Americans may naturally be extended under police
powers to punish negligence--by employers, e.g., who choose to
maximize profits by eliminating expensive safeguards.
I submit that the added sections defining cruel and unusual
punishment are necessary so that the people may express their
wishes on obviously controversial subjects. For example, I
believe that one of the major problems in education is a lack of
proper discipline. Permissiveness has turned out a generation or
two of intellectual mediocrities (see the first chapter of this
Primer--THE POLITICAL CORRUPTION OF AMERICAN EDUCATION). I also
firmly believe that violent criminals deserve to be flogged--as
they are in Singapore and other oriental prisons--and as used to
be the custom in the United States, with Delaware's whipping post
being the last to be abandoned under pressure from bleeding-heart
"liberals".
PROPOSITION SIX - DIVISION OF GOVERNMENTAL POWERS
The 1787 Constitution separated government into three
functional units called the executive branch, the judicial branch
and the legislative branch, ostensibly so that power would be
divided, and each branch of government would act as a watchdog
over the other two branches.
Unfortunately, the watchdogs became lapdogs, thanks to the
corruption of party politics, and all three branches have been
sleeping in the same adulterous bed for over a century. The
intent of this section is to violently separate the branches, and
restore the balance between Federal rights and states' rights, by
the simple procedure of taking legislative power out of Federal
control, except for the confirmatory/comproming power of the
Senate.
By having all legislation initiated at the state level,
where voters have closer contact with their elected officials and
representatives, and by COMPULSORY ELIMINATION of control by
political parties, ninety percent of the opportunity for dirty
politics as usual should be eliminated.
Test your knowledge of trivia with the following historical
question.
Who was the first President to call for both a balanced
budget, and the end of political parties?
Answer: George Washington. In his Farewell Address, our
first Commander in Chief told Congress not only that future
generations should not be made to pay the debts of their
ancestors, but said that political parties should never control
government, because parties are SPECIAL INTEREST groups, and do
NOT represent the interests of ALL the people. Government, said
Washington, should be NON-PARTISAN.
THE REVOLUTIONARY RIGHT, and this Primer, merely re-argue
Washington's thoughts in language more easily readable in our
time. If there be any doubt that political parties are the
greatest enemy of equality under law, let us recall the ancient
Roman maxim, "Divide and conquer". This was a favorite of
Niccolo Macchiavelli's, whose classic textbook in tyranny, THE
PRINCE, has been elsewhere quoted.
"Divide and conquer" expresses the essence of political
parties very well. By dividing the people into two or more
opposing groups, public unity is destroyed, and the people are
vulnerable to every propaganda trick in the book. When the
people must make a choice between the devil they know and the
devil they don't know, it hardly matters which devil wins.
That's the present situation in American politics today, and
politicians like it that way. A people divided are easy prey.
PROPOSITION SEVEN - ELECTION PROCEDURES
Much of our present Constitution is devoted to trying to
regulate that which defies regulation--politics. Where there is
a will to deceive, deception will occur, and politicians are past
masters of deception.
Therefore the relegation of political parties to educational
and advocacy roles--and stripping them of their power to nominate
candidates for any office--would do much to restore the integrity
of individuals who sincerely wish to be of public service.
With all candidates running as independents, or "at large"
rather than representing any particular district or group, the
opportunity for corruption would be minimized. Politicians in
the new system would be compelled to state their philosophies in
straightforward terms, and let voters make a truly informed
decision based upon factors of real importance. Promises of pie
in the sky and government handouts would be a thing of the dark
and dismal past.
Two points of this proposition bears commentary, I believe.
First, by requiring that all candidates be in the "genius"
category of intelligence, it would make relatively little differ-
ence who was elected in any contest. When two persons of very
high caliber compete for one job, the public will win, no matter
which one loses. And if uninformed voters have only men of
integrity to choose between because con-men of low intelligence
are not on the slate, it matters little who they choose.
It should be obvious that the legislative branch is the key
to political power, and if lawmakers are chosen at the state
level and legislation begins at that level, the power to corrupt
Federal legislation for selfish gain is mimimal, because that
power is divided equally among all fifty states. Political
action committees will wither away, because no special interest
group can afford to lobby fifty state legislatures.
I submit that electing Presidents and Governors at specific
time intervals is meaningless. Who is most interested in getting
a new President even if the old one is a superb public servant?
Only the political party out of power. I submit that it is time
for parties to move to the back of the bus where they belong, and
get out of the driver's seat.
If a Chief Executive Officer, either a Governor or President
of the United States, is doing a good job, he or she will retain
the confidence of the Senate, and the jobs of government will get
done. Having the several states control the pursestrings of the
Federal government will guarantee that the Federal government
will operate with efficiency and economy for a change. Getting
the power structure now in Washington broken up into 50 pieces in
50 state capitals will ensure that the power is effectively
neutralized--for the benefit of the people whom it will then
serve.
PART 3 - THE TRANSITION FROM OLD TO NEW
Prophesy is always a dangerous game to play, and writers who
have gone out on a limb with what seemed to them an absolutely
certain prediction of future events have frequently been left
with "egg on their faces".
Thomas Paine, for example, in THE RIGHTS OF MAN, confidently
predicted the end of the British monarchy within a couple of
decades following the French Revolution. Yet the decadent House
of Windsor continues to hold sway in England--as scandal-ridden
as it may be--simply because the majority of the English people
are sentimentally attached to an utterly pointless and useless
anachronism.
I have repeatedly offered a forecast that the United States
is headed for bloody civil war as an inevitable result of the
political corruption which present-day Americans do nothing to
resist--simply because most Americans are willfully blind to the
handwriting on the wall.
In this final section I should like to examine that grim
possibility in a little more detail than offered in previous
writings--now that vague ideas have begun to crystallize in my
thinking on the subject.
THE CIVIL WAR - FIRST PHASE
In AMERICA'S HEALING CRISIS--KILL OR CURE?, I predicted that
either the country would collapse economically first and then
politically--or politically first and then economically. In that
chapter of THE REVOLUTIONARY RIGHT I offered some common tips for
surviving the horrendous social dislocation that must occur under
either of these undesirable alternatives. Americans will be
divided into those who are fit to survive, and those who are not
fit--who will not survive.
But whichever scenario proves to be correct, it cannot be
denied that civil disorder on a vast scale will be as common in
the United States as it was in many similar crisis in history,
Armed citizens--either organized in militias or in more loosely-
organized resistance groups in rural communes--will create their
own laws with no regard for any type of Constitutional basis. It
will be simply the power of conquest: might makes right, or at
least what passes for right.
With the nation in turmoil due to lack of leadership from
our discredited politicians, there can be only one result.
SECOND PHASE - MARTIAL LAW
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, who collectively control a large
and well-trained body of armed forces who are conditioned to
unquestioning obedience, will restore order by force. While our
patriot militias might put up a dedicated fight, the rifles and
crude bombs of fuel oil and fertilizer will be no match for a
much larger force, with much more advanced weapons--not the least
of which would be aircraft.
Martial law would at first have the support of the people,
for the simple reason that law and order is a basic need of any
human society. But martial law would of necessity be short-lived
for two important and inter-related reasons. Here they are.
First, it has been our national tradition for centuries to
have civilian government over the military. That is not so in
countries in South America, for example, where military juntas
have effectively entrenched themselves for decades. The military
mind of many Latin Americans is as despotic as one could find in
history--the nations as a rule are poor and underdeveloped by
comparison to the United States--the people uneducated, and thus
conditioned to accept dictatorship as a way of life.
It is inconceivable that American military men would be
predisposed to establish a permanent military rule--because in
part of the rivalry between the various armed forces. A military
takeover would be fraught with internal jockeying for power and
inter-service competition--thus destroying the unity or purpose
necessary for a dictatorial regime to survive.
But the second reason is the decisive one, I believe.
The United State is too big and too populous a nation to be
governable by a dictatorship for any significant length of time.
The reason, in one word, is logistics.
Here's what I mean. Consider for a moment the City of New
York. It is made up of five boroughs and has a total population
of well over seven million. Millions of persons who live outside
of New York work in the city, giving rise to one logistical
problem of public transportation.
That's a minor problem.
While there might be a few farms on Staten Island or in the
outskirts of Queens or Brooklyn, there is for all practical pur-
pose no agriculture to feed those millions of people every day.
There are no oil wells to provide gasoline and other petroleum
products, and waste disposal is a major problem. Now, how could
any government agency--especially a military junta--presume to
organize and control and regulate all the processes necessary to
bring in the food and other goods needed for the city to survive?
The fact that New York City thrives is due to literally tens
of millions of day-to-day transactions--contracts between free-
enterprise citizens working together in a complex pattern of
business deals for the sake of making a profit. New York--and
every other major city--depends for its daily supply of food and
other necessities upon SOCIETY, NOT GOVERNMENT! There is NO WAY
that government could handle the job! Read that again, please!
If that delicate SOCIAL system collapsed in time of major
crisis, how could the military cope with the enormous task of
supplying the needs of New York City?
And, of course, New York is merely one example, with which I
am most failiar. There are many other major cities, just as
complicated in the countless ways in which "normal" business
transactions are vital to the daily life of their citizens, that
would simply overwhelm any attampt at dictatorial control by even
the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And so, once law and order was, to a
degree, restored by a military takeover, the military would
quickly discover they were riding a tiger which they dare not
dismount. What could the military do?
Very simple. Proclaim the imminent end of martial law, and
set the date for a plebiscite to choose a new Constitution and
civilian government. After all, our military men are all loyal
Americans, and I seriously doubt that anyone in the Pentagon
has lunatic dreams of turning the United States into another
Argentina.
Which declaration of a plebisicite to choose a new govern-
ment would bring us back to just about where we came in at the
beginning of this chapter.
SUMMARY
This is my final article to be offered to Internet readers,
and while it is one of the longest, it is also (to me) one of the
least satisfying--perhaps my readers feel the same "unfinished"
sense that vaguely troubles me.
When I began my one-man crusade against political corruption
of our government, I naively assumed that a mere three articles
would do the trick--I had a dream of awakening the media and the
public to the outrages in our bureaucracy, sparking a new grass-
roots political movement, and helping bring about Constitutional
reforms in my own lifetime. The three articles I wrote were
collectively entitled THE REVOLUTIONARY RIGHT and it was my hope
that a book publisher would offer me a contract to write a
lengthy work on my subject matter.
Then I woke up and smelled the coffee.
I belatedly realized that peaceful redress of grievances is
no longer possible, because there is no branch of government
which is not filthy with political corruption. The news media
are dominated by mediocrities who do not question the "official"
version of the "truth", and who cling to the "authorities" who
tout "conventional wisdom" at the expense of liberty. They are,
in a word, brainwashed, and they continue the brainwashing
processes like an infected whore spreading AIDS.
And so I turned to Internet as the alternative publishing
method, in the hope of finding archivists who would keep these
writings alive from year to year--and encourage their study by
true patriots from day to day--beginning with two more "final"
chapters on the new American Crisis. Those were WHY AND HOW
AMERICA MUST COLLAPSE, and AMERICA'S HEALING CRISIS--KILL OR
CURE?
Because my expressed economic opinions seemed unrealistic to
one economics professor who assured me that a Picasso painting
has REAL VALUE of millions of dollars (ivory-tower theory), I
felt compelled to straighten out idiots' thinking with my next
chapter, on WHY THE HAVES ARE RICH AND THE HAVE-NOTS ARE POOR.
And finally, I thought, let's expose the crap in the big
anti-drug hysteria-cum-propaganda. So I wrote OUR LUNATIC WAR ON
DRUGS. I got a reaction. I was disusered by my ISP on a charge
of "spamming". I had posted my article to "too many" newsgroups,
and the subject matter was "inappropriate". I was distracted for
a while by lack of emotional calm--and ultimately wrote two minor
short articles: COVERT CENSORSHIP IN AMERICA, and CENSORSHIP ON
INTERNET.
Along the way I felt it meaningful to offer some positive
goals for Libertarians other than making a buck in a free market,
by suggesting Libertarians must take a stand on some basic moral
and social issues like environmental protection. Two more minor
articles resulted, namely, THE TWO FACES OF LIBERTARIANISM, and
THE LEGAL INSANITY OF LEGAL INSANITY. I make no brief for any
of these minor pieces, but would like to add now that too many
businessmen go into the free market like predators looking for
prey, and not as equals in a good-faith contract. Too many such
sharks who preach caveat emptor call themselves Libertarians. I
have always believed that those who are gifted with intelligence
should make every reasonable effort to help those not gifted.
And finally I decided to hang up my modem and board up my
Windows 3.1 for good, with a final summation of where I stand.
This Libertarian Primer is the result. It recapitulates much of
what was said or implied in earlier writings, and tries to tie
down all the loose ends.
The unsatisfying element in this chapter is that most of it
was intended as a rough draft--any proposed Constitution will be
argued for hours by men of all political persuasions, so I felt
any attempt at "polishing" the text of the propositions would be
wasted effort. I settled for offering an outline--a rough draft
--which I hope is read with an open mind and an historical frame
of reference.
One final note of importance which is implied in what I have
writte, but might bear specific statement here. That is, when
the crisis comes, it will be followed by a long period of low
birth rates, and a trend toward declining population (I hope).
If this occurs, it is inevitable that "recession" will be an
economic consequence, because demand will decrease for what is
already available in oversupply--such as old homes, old cars,
and so on. Entire sections of major cities may well become like
"ghost towns", to be hopefully razed and converted into gardens.
But while economic survival will be easy in terms of material
goods, monetary values will be drastically reduced. That's
something to think about when planning ahead (if you can) for
your retirement.
I want to thank my previous archivists who gave up web space
in order to make my writings available to Internet readers. Ours
is a fragile medium, and it is only by the thankless gift of time
by archivists that my words could be read anywhere by anyone.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Kirk Brothers is my pen name. I was given the name (which I
have always despised) of Wilburt J. Richter, and I was born on
Black Thursday, October 24, 1929, in Augusta, Georgia--at 12:30
PM, just about when Wall Street was crumbling.
I was born both gifted and gay--have been a non-conformist
all my life and a rebel since college days (the late 40's). I
have never been able to relate to mental mediocrities for long,
and I am afraid it shows.
I chose to use a pen name because initially I planned on the
first three chapters of THE REVOLUTIONARY RIGHT as being my total
output. And two of those three chapters are concerned with my
Social Security test case, RICHTER V UNITED STATES.
I felt that, as Richter, I could not argue my own case with
perceived impartiality, so I assumed a pen name. "Kirk Brothers"
would certainly not be instantly believed if he argued for his
alter ego--but he would not be instantly scorned and ignored,
either. "Brothers", perceived as a separate individual, would at
least get a fair reading (maybe--considering the subject matter).
I was at various times in my checkered career a college
professor, TV news writer/editor, actor/singer, and finally a
health consultant practicing Homeopathic medicine in New York
City. I have written a few short stories and a couple of "junk"
novelettes--none published. I am retired and currently live in
Florida.