Time For A New Government

I am going to state this as succintly as I can: We--Puerto Rico--have to establish a new government.

No, this is not an extremist position, nor is it an "in your face" remark backed by insouciance. It is, by any pondered review, the only position We can assume facing the utter wreck Our government has become.

I'll start with the basis for My position, from "What is the U.S. Constitution?", by Timothy Baldwin, over at The Ruthless Blog:

3. When a government breaches its limitations placed upon it by a constitution, (a) the government agent loses its trust to rule, (b) the powers delegated to it are reverted back to the creators of the constitution, and (c) the constitution becomes non-binding on those who created it. This is the natural law concept of “the consent of the government,” as expressed in our Declaration of Independence. It is further a concept regarding the rights of the parties who enter into a compact. As noted by our founders, we do not normally exercise this natural and compact right over “light and transient causes,” but in cases where a “long train of abuses” are evident. European forefather, Hugo Grotius, recognizes that when a government contradicts the principles that created its power, that creation (i.e. kingdom/constitution) dies and the people have the right to institute new government:

“[I]f the king act, with a really hostile mind, with a new to the destruction of the whole people…that the kingdom is forfeited; for the purpose of governing and the purpose of destroying cannot subsist together.” Hugo Grotius and William Whewell, trans., Hugo Grotius on the Rights of War and Peace, Book II, (Cambridge: University Press, 1853), 57–58. 

A constitution that has been continually breached by the government is no longer a constitution at all, because the very purpose of a constitution is to limit the government by the will of the people who created it. Thus, a people who continually live under an abandoned constitution do not live under a constitution at all; but rather, they live in voluntary slavery, and the constitution is dead to those people and that government. It is literally time “to alter or to abolish” that constitution before the people’s lack of resistance is deemed to be “the consent of the governed.” (Emphasis Mine.)

Brief history lesson: Our Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is based on the Constitution of the U.S. of part of A., the Bill of Rights (Amendments I - X), all subsequent applicable Amendments approved up to 1952 and has automatically added any applicable Amendments after that. So We have a Constitution that is based on the exact same frame of reference, the exact same government model and the exact same relationship between the people and the government that is defined above. Keep. That. In. Mind.

Now drop this phrase into the above framework: extra-constitutional debt. It is, by definition, a financial arrangement that is not covered by the Constitution, but is directly paid for by Us, through taxes, fees, licenses and misery.

And what has this mutant farce by Our government led to? Our debt is more than Our Gross National Product (GNP).

For you statehooders out there, GNP is what We, as a country, produce. For you commonwealthers out there, debt needs to be repaid. For you independentistas, your standard of living could very quickly--shudder--get closer to Cuba's. And for all of Us, it is time for a new government.

Imagine that a company has management that runs up debt to pay itself and its cronies lavish salaries, benefits and perks and does so to the extent that the company creates so much debt it has no choice but face bankruptcy and ruin? Do you keep the same management? Or do you fire the Fools--sorry, I meant drop-kick the fuckers--and bring in new management who will follow the rules of proper management?

Of course, the rational, intelligent, mature, motherfreaking obvious course of action is to bring in new management that will follow the rules of proper management. But that is not--ever--what We have done. We have repeatedly, stupidly, crassly kept the same management, replacing Crooked Countryfucker1 with Crooked Countryfucker2, 3, 4, 5...6,789 and so on ad nauseum. To the extent that now We, as a nation, Owe more money than We make. 

And you know what that means for a subordinate economy that cannot make a move without checking "up" for confirmation? It means We are in receivership, "a situation in which an institution or enterprise is being held by a receiver. In law, a receiver is a person 'placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights.'"

Let Me make it simple: It means We are not in charge of Our assets, We are not in charge of Our production, that We are, for all intents and purposes, "the property of others." And who generated this unholy level of debt, who mangled the very foundation of proper fiscal management, who expanded the size of government and the size of government debt to the point where We are not the owners of Our own country?

[Statehooder in the back: "Who, Jenius, who?! Don' leave me hangin'!"]

[Commonwealther in the back: "Who, Jenius, who?! Don' make me think!"

[Independentista on his back: "Pass the pot! I can still hear Rubén* snoring!"]

Our government did. They breached Our Constitution by not only violating what was in it--the limits imposed upon them by Our consent--but also by creating mechanisms by which they could throw off their limitations and yet keep Us beholden to their excesses.

Not enough proof? Don't think We have cause to scrap the government We have in order to form a new one that actually represents Our interests? Okay, here's three words that seal the deal: Public-Private Alliances.

Dissenters, you have nothing more to say. It is time for Puerto Rico to have a new government. Period.

The Jenius Has Spoken.

[* Rubén "Eloquent Vacuum" Berríos, Dictator-for-Life of the Puerto Rico Independence NonParty since 1971, perceived useless since 1978 and presumed "still alive" since 2003.]