One Thing the John Birch Society Got
Right
While the John Birch Society has
long been discredited for its paranoia and oppressive approaches to society at
large, there is one area that they got right.
At least one of the founding members
of the JBS, Clarence Minion, advocated for a constitutional amendment referred to
as The Bricker Amendment, named after Senator John W. Bricker, who sponsored
the amendment.
The proposed amendment dealt with
U.S. sovereignty issues[1]
with respect to treaties made with foreign countries, specifically prohibiting any
treaty that violated the constitution and/or subordinated U.S. law and policies
to an outside entity, as the Trans-Pacific Partnership would do.
If the Bricker Amendment had been
adopted, the concern about fast-tracking the TPP would never have materialized.[2] We’ve
learned from fast-tracking NAFTA that entering into treaties, even trade
agreements leads to a usurpation of national sovereignty.
Considering the scope and reach of
the current Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement being discussed in Congress,
this amendment may be exactly what we need in this modern era of Free Trade.
Some provisions rumored to be
included in the TPP is the ability for foreign corporations to be able to sue
over lost profits due to local laws that, say, prohibit dumping pollution into
streams and rivers, thus increasing costs for that corporation.
The Bricker Amendment would prohibit
any President or Congress from considering any treaty that would supersede the
Constitution of the United States, particularly in areas of trade, as the TPP
would most certainly do.
Of course, it’s difficult to
determine exactly what the TPP details are, due to the secrecy of the document.
Even members of congress don’t know what’s in the treaty, and that alone should
be enough to dismiss the proposal out of hand.
It’s strange to suggest that an idea
born from the paranoia of the John Birch Society would come to the aid of
ordinary people who would otherwise have nothing whatsoever to do with anything
connected to these Rabid-Right Wingnuts, but there you have it.
