Chris Penningroth’s Weltanschauung

                Today there is a lot of discussion about the correctness of a few popular social media hashtags.  Three of the current most-popular contenders are good, but none are what Americans truly need right now; they are not what we need to hear right now, need to see right now.  But if not these, which one?

                The most Christian, the most American, and the best hashtag has not been commonly seen or used yet.  The very loving, very simple, very correct, very American, very best version of this hashtag should always have been:

#YourLifeMatters

                #YourLifeMatters.  Because your life matters. 

                Let me say that once again:  The proper viral hashtag should have been #YourLifeMatters all along.  This true and correct hashtag uses the exalted English word—that blessed pronoun that can mean either you the sovereign individual or you the crowd longing for a return to a chivalrous justice—that when we speak of whomsoever’s life matters, we speak through the inspiration of a reverential spirit.  When we say #YourLifeMatters we speak to each person neither of something abstract about ourselves, nor of a group to which we may or may not belong.  We meet each person where they are, and we affirm to each that #YourLifeMatters.  It helps each of us to become more selfless.  It takes us away from ourselves and places the focus where it is needed, where it belongs right now in this moment in history. 

                Very importantly, promulgating #YourLifeMatters for your own part will remind you to follow that part of the greatest commandment:  To love others as you love yourself.  And to each recipient of that message that #YourLifeMatters:  Each person will receive that most personal message, and what follows will be that warm feeling that there is someone who understands; a certainty of camaraderie; knowledge of a society of justice and liberty.  Every person will receive an empowering message that reminds that they are not alone in this struggle we call life.  #YourLifeMatters is a simple message that transmits strength to endure, patience to gain wisdom; light and hope to keep spirits afloat in and through difficult times.

                But how will anyone learn that #YourLifeMatters? How will that one person who needs to hear it receive it? It depends on one person:  You.

                I need you.  I need you to show that one person that needs to hear this message by telling that silently hurting someone that #YourLifeMatters.  I need you to assuage the guilt or sorrow of that wonderful person and remind him or remind her that #YourLifeMatters.  It’s up to you.  Can I count on you to be the bearer of that light? Will you spread the word that #YourLifeMatters?

                I offer you a challenge to do it!

                Take the #YourLifeMatters challenge with me!   

                Walk up to people.  Look each person in the eye and say the words of the hashtag out loud.  Mean those words when you say them.  Speak them as an oath.  Do not swear, but simply let your spoken words be true.  Hold your hands out, palms upward toward your audience in a gesture of sincerity, friendship, and kindness.  Let your body language match your words.  There is no need to touch anyone right now.  For right now in this moment in history it will be enough to say those words and to have them heard. 

                Start the challenge by first telling those closest to you that #YourLifeMatters.  Tell your family.  Tell your friends.  Tell the people who matter to you moment by moment, day by day, year in and year out.  Realize that this telling will be easy—don’t allow yourself to settle for just that which can be quickly accomplished and easily forgotten, but don’t skip over your loved ones. 

                Be bold.  Tell others #YourLifeMatters.  Tell strangers.  Above all, tell it to those souls who so desperately need to hear.  Even if they initially do not want to hear it from you; tell them, affirm for them that #YourLifeMatters.  This will be the tough part of the challenge, but this will be the most rewarding part.  This is the part that makes a difference.  This is the part that changes the world for good.  For good. 

                Post #YourLifeMatters boldly on your own social media.  Post it as a comment for your friends.  Reply with it in comments.  Sent it via direct message, text, e-mail, or legacy methods.  Make sure you tell each of your contacts that #YourLifeMatters.  This keeps the fires lit and helps these very necessary words spread to ensure that that person who most needs to hear it or see it receives it and is reminded of that which is so important:  #YourLifeMatters. 

                By reminding everyone that #YourLifeMatters, you will feed that part of your soul that yearns to do good unto others, that needs to walk in the paths of righteousness, that aches to follow the highest and noblest example, that yearns to compel others to do better through the discipline of love.  High or low, light or dark, left or right; tell each person that #YourLifeMatters.  And you will be the change that you have sought all along. 

                Finally, in the peace of your solitude, make certain once in awhile that you look in the mirror and tell the doppelgänger looking back at you that #YourLifeMatters, too. 

                #YourLifeMatters:  For justice, for peace, for liberty, for family, for friends, for the good of this world, and for that which lies beyond.  #YourLifeMatters.

                The first of the ideas that will restore liberty-enabling checks and balances is an idea that will help first to restore the most critical balance of all:  That balance between the sovereign people whose liberty has been weakened and a federal government that has been encroaching on that liberty for decades.  The idea is so simple it will seem radical.  It may even seem to be an idea whose implementation would be so challenging as to be well-nigh impossible.  As wiser minds might have put it, the things we need to do to solve these problems are simple in concept; but they require serious effort to understand correctly, and discipline and nerve to apply the solution.  And as British former Prime Minister Winston Churchill observed “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.[i]”  My friends, I submit to you that by this point we’ve essentially tried everything else.  It is now time for us to undertake that which is simple, but difficult.  Difficult, yes.  But not insurmountably so.  If you are ready to leap with me to do the difficult work of studying briefly one of the key historical processes by which we arrived at this unfortunate juncture; if you are intellectually curious enough to patiently listen to my explanation of this challenging yet eminently simple solution; and most importantly if you find yourself willing to take the required actions; then please embark with me on this journey into the healing of our divided land.

                The Founders vested the powers to derive legislation, to make laws, in a body of persons rather than a single person.  They wisely concluded that a body of representatives of the people would be best suited to considering the need for laws, debating the efficacy of proposed laws, and the selection and ratification of ideas to codify into laws.  I think most of us probably agree that the Founders were correct; that a body of elected representatives is the best political organizational option for creating laws.  We see this not only in our own country at all levels:  Federal, State, and local; we see it in many other countries through congresses or parliaments.  In any case, the Founders believed the creation of the body that would generate laws to be of primary importance.  Hence, the first article of the Constitution dealt with the establishment of the Congress. 

                The part of Congress that was to be closest to the sovereign people was the House of Representatives.  How was it to be closest to the people? It was to be closest to the people through proportional representation. 

                Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution gives the initial number of representatives per state.  “The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative. . . .”[ii]

                The framers specified that at most, there should be a minimum of one representative for every state; but in general placing an upper bound on the number of representatives by limiting the total to one representative per thirty-thousand people. 

                This number is probably a bit surprising; especially to us today given the population of our country, currently estimated at close to 320 million, and the current number of representatives in the House of Representatives, 435.  Let’s establish a little context.  In 1790, the population of New York City was 33,131; the population of Philadelphia was 28,522; that of Boston, 18,320; Charleston, 16,359; and Baltimore, 13,503[iii].  Put differently, we were once electing representatives at a population level commensurate with the populations of only two or three of the largest cities per state.  For comparison, New York State, the home of about 33,000 New Yorkers in 1787, had a total population of 340,120[iv]; it was given six representatives, or about one representative per 60,000 citizens; or one representative per “Two New Yorks,” if you will. 

                The proportion today? One representative per approximately 647,000 people.

                How well-represented do you think you are?

                Let’s let social science put a number on that thought:    

                If, per Dunbar’s number, each person can be said to know 150 other people, and calculating the probability of knowing one person (ostensibly your representative), if it were a matter of straight division you would have a half-of-a-percent chance of knowing one person out of 30,000 people.  Similarly, you would have a one-quarter-of-one-percent chance of knowing one in 60,000.  Your chance of knowing one out of 647,000? About one-quarter of one-tenth of a percent.  Now while you may not have had a good chance of knowing your representative even amongst 60,000 people; the odds were much better that one of the 150 people you knew may have known your representative, and could therefore introduce you.  Your odds of someone you knew who had direct contact with the representative was probably about 12% out of 60,000 people; but only just above 1% out of 647,000 people[v].  As time goes by and the U.S. population increases, these odds are going to get progressively worse. 

                As troubling as this statistic might be to some, others might be relatively happy with the notion of a cap on the number of representatives.  They may be satisfied with their own representative.  They may believe that “Smaller government” means having only just enough representatives and that 435 total representatives is a fine number.

                Let me now put this another way that may lend pause to that notion.

                According to one source, lobbyists in 2018 spent over $3.46 billion lobbying Congress and federal agencies[vi].  The exact figures are not broken down, but if you split this into half for Congress; that’s somewhere near $3.2 million per representative and senator.  According to another source, total contributions to U.S. House candidates in 2018 were $1.55 billion[vii].  That equates to almost $3.6 million spent per House seat! Is this a good thing? Or is it a problem that needs to be addressed? Lobbying in and of itself is not necessarily bad.  We have the freedom to petition our government, and lobbying can be an effective way for a specialized and high-trust society to do this.  But how much is too much? How many lobbying interests really capture the range of concerns that each individual has, especially as lobbying becomes as concentrated as it has in recent decades with a few lobbying clients giving anywhere from $12 million up to almost $94 million[viii]?

                Given these two paramount concerns regarding representation, adequacy of representation and the amount of money spent lobbying any particular representative; I would argue that the latter is the greater concern.  But the solution I will propose will help alleviate concerns in both regards.  This solution I am about to propose is not going to be a stand-alone solution, unfortunately; but it will be one of the key reforms We the People need to make.

                We can turn the issue of money in politics into a simple exercise in supply and demand.  Demand for money is relatively static (excluding inflation) if there are 435 representatives vying for campaign dollars.  If the supply of money can also be considered inelastic, then the $3.2 million per congressional race will be the same going forward.  And any increase in lobbyist efforts will result in even more money per congressman; and presumably increased influence for the concentrated interests petitioning the government.  We the private citizens cannot hope to match our voices and meager resources to this level of influence; especially if the representatives have no personal connection to us via ourselves or our mutual friends. 

                So now I finally unveil the first of several key steps in my proposal that I believe will begin restoring liberty. 

                We the People need to act to increase our own influence with regard to the House, the body of Congress that is supposed to be closest to us.  We must take several steps to rectify the imbalance that is currently tilted in favor of the concentrated moneyed interests.

                We the People, as one of our first steps, must increase the number of representatives in the House of Representatives. 

                In future posts, I will explain how I believe we should do this, and to what extent it should be done. 

                This is one of many simple (and yet difficult) steps we will have to take.  I believe this to be one of the more important of those steps; perhaps the most important step.  This proposal will have far-ranging ramifications that will touch on the Electoral College, the Senate, and Congressional staff; it will also have an effect on the debate for term limits.  And those are ramifications for just the legislative branch! I believe I know how to approach these issues, in some cases happily synergistically. 

                Please stay tuned for further details, which I will publish as soon as I can.  Until then, please feel free to let me know what you think in the comments section.  Comments are moderated.  Please keep comments civil and to-the-point.  Thank you!  

[i] From https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/winston_churchill_135259, last accessed 8 Dec 2019

[ii] From the Transcript of the U.S. constitution found at https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript, last accessed 10 Dec 2019

[iii] See http://physics.bu.edu/~redner/projects/population/cities/1790.txt, last accessed 9 Dec 2019

[iv] See https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/us-census-1790/, last accessed 9 Dec 2019

[v] This assumes your chances of one of the 150 people you know being your representative can be calculated by dividing the number of people you know by the population in question; and assumes that each of those 150 people themselves know 50 unique individuals. 

[vi] See https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/summary, last accessed 10 Dec 2019

[vii] See https://www.followthemoney.org/show-me?dt=1&f-fc=1&c-exi=1&c-r-ot=L&y=2018#[{1|gro=, last accessed 10 Dec 2019

[viii] See https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders?cycle=2018, last accessed 10 Dec 2019

                I believe that the time has come for the sovereign citizens of the United States of America to take an intense look at the structures of what history will remember as the greatest government in world history to date; that Republic our forefathers ordained for us and bequeathed to us.  In the preamble to the 1789 constitution the founders put forward the purpose of the basic rule for our Republic, they spoke of “A more perfect union.”  While our current constitution has allowed the United States of America to flourish beyond the wildest dreams of 18^th Century humankind, I believe some critical adjustments need to be made to guarantee to our posterity an ongoing Republic that continues to strive to be more perfect. 

                There were many key features of life in the United States dating from colonial times that were such common experience and shared culture.  The best of the mores and values of the time were not enshrined in a specific way into the founding law.  It is beyond time to remedy that.  Many features of life as it was and the values that formed the bedrock of our ordered liberty need today to be further amplified or enunciated in the document that forms the modern covenant that spells out the way We the People can agree to and by which we will govern ourselves.

                As stipulated in the Declaration of Independence, governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.  The political crossroads we find ourselves at is serious enough to warrant this keen and overdue look at our constitution and our Republic.  I believe we’ll find that what we have, while not quite sufficient for today, should not be set aside at all.  But we no longer face “Light and transient causes.”  The issues we deal with today must be confronted, and we have to give our founding document the improving changes it needs in order to ensure it continues to work. 

                Our system of federal government has worked because of the checks and balances authored into it.  But the federal government is becoming less tenable, less manageable, and worst, less accountable to the people whose rights it was designed to secure.  As the government becomes less accountable to the people, it becomes less responsive to the checks and balances imposed upon it by federal principles; it becomes less responsive to the voice of the people.  It could then become less of a government by, for, and of the people and more of a government that accrues power unto itself for its own ends; rather than a government meant to secure the blessings of liberty for the people it was meant to serve. 

                The 1789 constitution was, in the words of one author, a 5,000-year leap forward in human progress.  Nothing quite like it had ever been conceived.  And yet it contained within it a key flaw that in less than four-score-and-seven years would leave the country tending to some hundreds of thousands of wounded and dead, and dealing with the political scars of civil war. 

                While the major flaw was corrected by nothing less than a war, other less weighty issues were changed using the constitution’s amendment process stipulated in Article V.  Amendments were a key part of the constitution from its inception, as the original required the “Bill of Rights” amendments to ensure its passage and acceptance.  While many necessary changes to the constitution have been made, other necessary changes have become rare; and many changes, necessary and otherwise, have come to pass using methods and procedures that We the People did not grant to the federal government.  It is becoming a critical matter that the government is beginning to fail to follow the law that We the People established for it. 

                In these latter days, due to the programmed difficulty in changing the way we allow the government to operate through the amendment process, and further due to the desire of those who would govern to will themselves power, the federal government has not been consistently content to stay within the bounds We the People established for it.  Today we are faced with a de facto rise of an ostensible “Governing class” of quasi-professional politicians, tenured judges, and bureaucratically empowered civil servants.  Unable to convince a requisite three-fourths of states’ legislatures or conventions to make structural modifications to the constitution, this new estate has taken upon itself to sidestep the boundaries set down by the wisdom of the ages; wisdom meant to form the more perfect union.  This new estate is offering rulings and judgments without the political accountability our original social compact required from such decisions.  It is time for We the People to hold this estate to account and return it to its proper position in a flatter federal hierarchy. 

                The belief that these changes have been or have not been necessary are a key dividing line for United States Americans.  However, most Americans are pragmatic at heart.  We can learn from our past, avoid the mistakes of intransigence that led to division, and work together to enshrine that which is noble and bound to ensure, for those who follow our current generations, to benefit from the blessings of liberty we will bequeath to them.  If we make these improvements, we will change the world again, and again for the better.  If we fail to make these needed changes, or if we revert to the older political ideas that either failed in their turn or failed to bring enlightenment, we will continue on a path that will ensure at best the squandering of our prosperity; and possibly something far worse. 

                Therefore, I have taken thought, and I am ready to propose some modifications that I believe will restore necessary ordered liberty while returning the Republic to a state that secures the rights of the individual sovereign people of these United States to life, liberty, and the means to peaceably pursue individual happiness. 

                As I publish the individual items, I will (attempt) to update links to them below.

                Thank you for reading! I look forward to your comments. 

Some time last year I began an attempt to start listing some ideas I’d been mulling. With the current day’s news, I no longer think it feasible to wait much longer while I try to find the perfect way to write out the things I’d been considering. So I’ll begin now to just start putting my ideas forward. If the ideas gain traction, I can work them into perfection another time.

I put these ideas out there in the hope that they lead to something that will make our already good society even better.

As I’m certain has been the case for many of us bloggers, I’m more active on social media and less active on the blog.

In case you’re looking for me or my thoughts, here’s where you can find me in virtual space:

I’m semi-active on LinkedIn as a professional matter, but I post almost nothing there. Same with Experteer and Xing, but I use them even less often.

I just joined and have become more active on MeWe in recent days. I currently am trying to build interest in a group for Christians. You should be able to find me by name, but if not, try to contact me directly and I’ll look for you.

I have been on Gab for quite some time (my Gab name is @SPinRHF16). I hope Gab becomes an effective replacement for Twitter in coming months or years. You may be able to contact me through the Christianity group, the Ace of Spades readers group, MoGab, or the groups I’m trying to get launched on Gab (Lean Six Sigma, Project Management, and Program Management).

I still have a Twitter account (@CPenningroth), but I rarely check it.

I am fairly active on Facebook but am beginning to wind down participation there. I use it more often than not to keep in touch with old friends the way we used to keep in touch via e-mail. I almost never post anything substantive there.

I have a RallyPoint account but I view it less often than Twitter, not because I don’t like it, but because I can’t be everywhere. If you try to connect with me there, you’ll need to send me a direct message to let me know to check RallyPoint.

I check Goodreads from time to time and am a member of the Ace of Spades book thread readers. I’m happy to link up with friends there.

I have an Instagram account. I think I posted one picture there several years ago. I use Instagram more often than InterNations.

I have accounts with social media apps or web pages that probably no longer exist, which tells you how often I check them.

So that in a nutshell is where you can find me these days. Wherever you are, I hope you’re having a fantastic day (or night)!