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Require a Citizenship and Constitutionality test for all Lawmaking Bodies – Robert George

by Robert George Tronge Monday, Dec. 05, 2016 at 1:17 PM

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey on Thursday signed legislation that will require all Arizona High School students to take and pass the US Citizenship test before they are able to graduate.

Require a Citizenshi...
13_-_robert-tronge-164.jpg, image/jpeg, 331x252

The first question that comes to my mind is how many legislators and their staff could pass a similar test? Lets say one that included the US citizenship test, but also specific questions about the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the United States. Those questions would be designed to find out if people working in government actually understand that these documents were designed to protect INDIVIDUAL freedoms.

Today, many lawmakers or public officials have no idea about the rights that our Constitution protects. Lawmakers pass laws, rules and regulations that that are outright or clearly in the gray area of being unconstitutional. Their comments are “let the courts decide”. Quite obviously they do not know their jobs. If a law has any possibility of being unconstitutional it should never be considered, let alone passed. Legislators that propose and push laws that are in this gray area are nothing more than political terrorists attempting to destroy the fabric of this country. Isn’t it time that this type of terrorism brought on by the looters of society against American citizens individual rights was punished?

When the craftsman sets out to learn their trade, for example, woodworking, they spend a great deal of time learning about their craft. They must learn not only the tools to use, but also the proper types of wood to work with. They must be totally versed in all aspects of woodworking if they want to be considered a master of their trade. This is true of any field of endeavor, except one, our public officials. For some reason many of our politicians feel that they will gain more popularity by pushing through more laws through. They do this without any consideration to the constitutional requirements of the laws they propose, and some people working in our government enforcing those laws, feel that they are above the laws themselves.

The job of a politician is to uphold the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of both the state they represent, and our federal government. They take an oath to do this, but how many of these politicians today realize that the primary reason for our Constitution is to protect INDIVIDUAL rights; not the majority’s rights, and not the government’s rights to exist? Our founding fathers recognized the possibility of the government growing in power to such a point that individual freedoms would be lost.

That is why on March 4th of 1789, they added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution guaranteeing individual freedoms to the people in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of the government’s powers. Today the people holding government offices whether elected or employed, have shown a total disregard for those individual rights.
How many laws have been passed in the last 100 years that have been found by our court systems to violate the principles of our Federal and State Constitutions? Examples might be the Jim Crow laws or laws passed in the McCarthy era, as well as laws requiring businesses to implement unneeded measures, increasing the cost of goods and driving some companies out of business. Consider the cost of implementing those unconstitutional laws, and the costs of defending them in court, only to have them proven to be unconstitutional. Now add in the cost of removing the laws and the mechanisms that they created and you soon realize that these mistakes have cost us, the taxpayers, billions of dollars. Also consider the cost in taxpayers dollars and the pain brought upon individuals because public employees have stepped outside the boundaries of the laws designed to protect the rights of individuals.

How well do public officials uphold their sworn oath to protect the state and federal constitutions that require them to protect citizens’ individual rights? When public officials are faced with special interest groups pressures that are attempting to strip the rights from small disfavored groups of American citizens, do the public officials that stand their ground, to protect small disfavored groups and prove to be the true American patriots? They realize that even though they may be fired from their job or not reelected in coming elections because of their actions, of honor, integrity and their oath before God to uphold the Constitution is more important than their personal gain. “The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.” Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

How many organizations, businesses and individuals have had to spend their time and resources fighting those unconstitutional laws or actions by public officials? If the public officials would have just done their jobs upholding the Constitutional principles of this country these laws would have never been  proposed, let alone passed in the first place.

Public officials need to learn their jobs, and not rely on special interest groups that lobby and feed the officials false or skewed information. They need to look at all sides of the issue and obtain accurate information before ever presenting a law for consideration. Most importantly the officials need to remember their primary job is to protect individual rights from the power of the majority, as well as the overwhelming power of government.
It is time that we the people start holding our government representatives responsible for their overzealous actions. We need to stop legislators from trying to put forth, knee-jerk legislation that Is not well thought out and that while it might satisfy some people, it is in fact unconstitutional because it infringes upon the individual rights that are guaranteed protection by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Public employees who use their government positions for self gratification and financial gain should be held responsible as well. Those public officials should be held to a higher accountability than ordinary citizens instead of the way it is now where they have less accountability.

If a person who is in the military violates the military code of conduct they can be given a dishonorable discharge, losing all of their benefits, pensions and denying them positions in many government agencies. Corporate managers have been held responsible and imprisoned for allowing dangerous products to reach the marketplace. Why shouldn’t politicians and other public officials be held to that same accountability when they have placed on others in unconstitutional rules, laws and regulations that they have passed and enforced?

We firmly believe that our government’s representatives should be held accountable for proposing unconstitutional laws and if any bill is later found to be unconstitutional both the sponsor and cosponsors of it should be punished. They should be immediately barred from any type of public service, from serving in the Congress to working as a clerk in some DMV office somewhere. We also believe that because of the cost of fighting these unconstitutional laws, these lawmakers should lose their pensions and any benefits that they might have received while being in office. The same should also be true for any public employee who steps outside the lines of their authority, they too should be banned from any further public employment. “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty”. Thomas Jefferson

To some these penalties might seem harsh, but these people chose to become politicians or public employees and in doing so took an oath before God to uphold the Constitution and protect our individual rights. If they are unwilling to do this then they should face the consequences of their actions and should not have run for a political office or applied for a government position in the first place. Their job, right from the start, is to represent the rights of each individual person of this country.

We believe that when a person chooses to work for the government they should be held not to just the same but to even a higher accountability than ordinary citizens, and this accountability should include the highest possible penalties when the public employees disregard others’ individual rights.
Holding people accountable for their actions has long been viewed as the best way to have a stabilized society, to create the best products and services and to create a moral conscience. Why should our public officials be exempt from that accountability?

It is time that a petition was started requiring all lawmaking officials and their staff to have to take a citizenship and a Constitutional test and to pass both of them before they and their staff can take office. This test needs to be given every two years for lawmakers and their staff, and this testing needs to be overseen by a civilian watchdog group, with no political ties.

This needs to be a requirement across this country for any public official that makes laws, rules or has regulatory authority. There also needs to be as part of that petition the fact that all public officials will be held accountable for their actions and that there will be no qualified immunity for any public official that attempts to limit, remove or ignore an individual’s Constitutional protected rights.

Robert George Tronge, Robert G Tronge, Robert Tronge
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Tests won\'t save us Nobody Thursday, Dec. 08, 2016 at 7:06 PM
Tests won\'t save us Nobody Thursday, Dec. 08, 2016 at 7:06 PM
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