Philosophy, Law and Politics

Promoting Reasonable and Consistent State Agency Regulation in Ohio

Proposed new regulations of Ohio Executive Agencies are reviewed for adequacy by the Ohio Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, composed of members of the Ohio Senate and House. In the current proposed revision of Ohio law governing the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (SB 221, amending Ohio Revised Code 106.021), perhaps it should be made mandatory that JCARR undertake review of whether a proposed regulation is contrary to law and similarly be required to request an invalidation of a proposed rule by the Ohio General Assembly upon making a finding that a proposed regulation is contrary to law. Under current law, both are left to JCARR’s discretion.

Mandatory review and invalidation is necessary because JCARR should be precluded from permitting unreasonable proposed rules and regulations to become effective. A regulation must be reasonable to be lawful. Agencies should adequately justify their decision making with sufficient analysis and explanation. It is the duty of JCARR to ensure as a balance and check on government that the agencies make wise and reasoned policy choices. JCARR does not supplant its policy choices for that of the agency, rather it only looks to the due and proper procedure and basis upon which the agency relies for the rule its seeks to promulgate. Such a requirement of reasonableness would result in regulation that is consistent with and does not conflict with governing law, without first relying upon a court for judicial review after the harm has been done. No committee of a state legislature should have within its discretion non-action upon arbitrary and capricious proposed agency regulation.

A review of the possible “adverse impact” of a proposed regulation is a preexisting requirement as to Ohio Revised Code 106.021(F). Usually neither an analysis nor finding of a possible adverse impact is reported for consideration as to the validity of a proposed regulation. Review of potential adverse impact usually merely addresses fiscal, business considerations, and not the substantive analysis required in legal drafting.

SB 221, Line 103, amending Ohio Revised Code 101.352, proposes to permit JCARR to seek an agency’s appearance to explain whether current rules reflect the principles and policies of the agency, or rather whether the agency should propose new rules that establish its present basis for regulation. Yet, this duty is permissive and subject to JCARR’s discretion and is not mandatory, even if JCARR is on notice that an agency’s regulations are not up to date? Would a mandatory provision place too great an administrative burden upon JCARR?

SB 221, Line 134, amending Ohio Revised Code 101.352, similarly permits that upon initiating review of an agency’s regulations and receiving an agency’s testimony at a hearing, JCARR “may” but is not required to vote upon whether to recommend that the agency review its regulations. Would making the vote mandatory create a violation of the separation of powers among the legislative, judicial and executive branches? Or, would it no more enhance the power and authority currently permitted JCARR than the creation of its power to review proposed executive agency regulations in the first instance?

SB221, Lines 1541-1619, amending Ohio Revised Code 121.931, permits a person to petition an agency to request a review of whether the agency has not properly revised or restated its regulations. If the agency denies the petition, the petitioner may appear at an agency hearing. In such a proceeding, how is the agency’s standard of review – that the petitioner has shown that the agency’s action in not revising its regulation is “erroneous” – to be defined? Is the burden of proof borne by the petitioner – that the agency’s previously stated “intention to deny the petition [for revision] is erroneous” — the same as a required showing of erroneousness by the petitioner as to the agency’s rationale for not granting the petition and undertaking a revision or restatement of the rule? Does an inquiry as to whether the agency’s action is erroneous go only to questions of fact or also to whether the agency may have committed an error of law? Is a finding of erroneousness too high a standard for the petitioner to bear? Given that a petitioner may not appeal a denial of a petition within the agency, is an agency denial of a petition a final agency action permitting judicial review?

Is a Failure to Prosecute Utterances of “Hate Speech” and “Fighting Words” a Violation of Due Process by Ohio County Prosecutors in Not Protecting the Victim’s Constitutional Rights of Liberty, Privacy and Personhood?

Under Ohio law, Ohio Revised Code § 2917.11 regulates “hate speech” or “fighting words.” This statute expressly prescribes “offensively coarse utterance [and] gesture[,]” and “insulting [or] taunting [conduct] … likely to provoke a violent response.” § 2917.11(A)(2), (3). This law lies within criminal provisions of the Ohio Revised Code denominated “Disorderly Conduct,” as one of many “Offenses Against the Public Peace” of Chapter 2917. Has any duly elected Ohio County Prosecutor recently invoked this provision?

How does the community resident evaluate whether the absence of arrest and prosecution in his or her Ohio County is a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion in regulating conduct under Ohio law? In what other ways are the constitutionally protected, basic and fundamental rights of Ohio citizens and residents to privacy and personhood, as incumbent within our essential rights of liberty and freedom, protected from independent, idiosyncratic, and isolated acts of speech contrary to personal integrity?

Ohio Revised Code § 2917.11 should be used by Ohio County Prosecutors to guide popular conduct, as a didactic tool. Section 2917.11 deters visceral, unkind speech directed, especially, to a person the potential perpetrator does not even know. And, importantly, this law looks to proscribe harmful words spoken when no logical rationale exists for devolving into such conduct when long historically permitted forms of expression and advocacy exist.

If traditional forms of expression, speech and participatory politics are possible, conduct subject to prosecution under Ohio Revised Code § 2917.17 only evokes either fear harmful to one’s sense of personhood or, more difficultly, fear expressed in the form of a harmful or violent response from the victim of the unkind speech. Do we instead prosecute the victim for engaging in an improper response to unprovoked hate speech and let the utterer of fighting words go free? Why is the fearful, dependent spouse convicted of homicide for shooting a long abusive, domineering spouse while asleep and unlikely to rise up in confrontation? When is self-defense illegal?

Is an Ohio County Prosecutor’s failure to prosecute hate speech and fighting words an unconstitutional disregard for the right of every individual to liberty, privacy and personal integrity, all long respected by the U.S. Supreme Court? Should the Ohio County Prosecutor, as a state actor, be subject to civil action, under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code, for such a failure to prosecute? The right to Due Process includes one’s liberty interests, and the duty of the Ohio County Prosecutor to protect the liberty interests of Ohio citizens and residents subject to personally intrusive fighting words and hate speech by prosecuting those engaging in hateful speech. Does Section 1983 include a substantive due process right to challenge in Federal Court an Ohio County Prosecutor for the absence of prosecution of fighting words perpetrators under Ohio law?

The consequences arising from an Ohio County Prosecutor’s decision to not prosecute acts criminal under Ohio Revised Code § 2917.11 are self-defining and derive inherently from the Anglo-American Common Law giving rise to the U.S. Constitution. A want of review, regulation and criminalization results in a perpetuation and acculturation of illegal intent and conduct within our country. American criminal law has many purposes, including, deterrence, rehabilitation, restitution and retribution. Laws exist on the “statute books” for a reason. These are the reasons for Ohio Revised Code § 2917.11 .

How do we begin? How does the first individual abused as to self and personhood come forward in Federal Court and ask why his or her Ohio County Prosecutor did not seek redress on his or her behalf under expressly worded Ohio Law? Should such prosecution on the individual’s behalf be so permissive, and not a mandatory obligation of the duly ethical Ohio County Prosecutor under the professional rules and judicial decisions of the Ohio Supreme Court?

Life in our American Republic requires free speech and a sense of participation without fear and without improper inhibition. Justice and fairness in our democracy require that Ohio County Prosecutors act zealously, with best efforts and with a sense of being conservative to the utmost. Non action and a failure to prosecute potential perpetrators under enacted legislation is not conservative, it is the opposite. Prosecutorial discretion is both permissive and mandatory. Where do our State and Federal Courts draw the line?

In a democracy, free speech is a property right. It is not to only be accorded governmental protection as a permissive privilege. In America, a citizen or resident should not feel as if he or she must ask permission of an equal to speak or live, for fear of becoming a victim of hostile words. He or she should freely speak. If the equal is inhibiting in a manner contrary to § 2917.11, the Ohio County Prosecutor should act.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

America Relies Upon a Learned and Informed Public

In the United States, as a country of a majority population that is not indigenous to its North American soil, how do we reconcile nationalism and democracy? As a community of diverse ethnic origins and heritages, diverse faiths, and diverse periods of time resident within the county, can an existence of a nation-state community ever be achieved? Does the theory of the “melting pot” of an immigrant nation undo properly existing cultural lines of identity that are distinct, have merit and are centuries old?

We should encourage a community diverse in cultural identity that lives under the governing principles of American democracy: equality, freedom, and justice. In America, its people have freely chosen to reside under America’s governing principles. Citizenship and the rights of noncitizen residents transcend the diverse cultural identities of national origin. America’s governing principles, constitutions and laws create an equal right to personhood and identity that transcends governmental decision making based upon stereotypes and, especially pejorative, presumptions. The rule of law does not look to one’s culture, ethnicity or religion.

The governing principles of America are created, respected and maintained by an academically learned intelligentsia that exercises a just governance of the majority. An educated public and deference to individual merit and ability are the foundations of a democracy. A state cannot survive without an educated public, whether possessing one or many national identities.

In our world, only representative democracies are viable forms of government. Direct democracies defy the economy of scale required for complex decision making and regulation in the modern age and are not even attempted. Dictatorships, with the veil of legislative and military decision-making especially during the post-colonial period the 1900’s, can neither demand nor evoke a legally compliant population of self-governing individuals.

Without a public that understands the principles of America as a country from a young age of early education between grades 4 to 6, with reaffirmation in between both grades 7 to 9 and grades 10 to 12, our public will not be able to participate as citizens and residents as they engage in specialized careers of science, business and nonpublic policy fields. Thus, all college students should have a required course in the fundamentals of American government.

All in America bear the responsibility of treating all among us as free and equal, with rights and privileges of fairness and justice. Our world is complex, and all Americans must be sufficiently learned to debate and understand America and their own place in the world.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls, Esq.

Should State Agencies be Required to Schedule Public Hearings When Adopting Regulations? (Written testimony before the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review of the Ohio General Assembly.)

The below is the text of a Comment Letter I submitted this morning to the Ohio General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review for consideration when the Committee reviews a proposed new regulation of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, during its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, December 11, 2017. I ask the essential question of whether an agency as significant as Agriculture should be allowed to confuse the public as to whether a public hearing is obligatory when it adopts new regulations. If Agriculture finds public hearings useful and has conducted them upon public request, why has the Ohio Government not imposed the requirement of a public meeting upon its agency action? The public is fearful of even considering whether or not to participate. This is especially the case if they fear that they might make errors in interpreting procedural rules governing public comment. Perhaps Ohio law should be amended to require public hearings for agency action of all Ohio agencies of a certain size.

Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review
The Ohio General Assembly
Vern Riffe Center
77 South High Street
Concourse Level
Columbus, Ohio 43215

Sent Via Email to: jcarr1@jcarr.state.oh.us

Re: Ohio Department of Agriculture Proposed Rule 901: 0-4-01

Dear Members of the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review,

I write with interest in the proposed addition to the Ohio Administrative Code of new rule 901: 0-4-01 by the Department of Agriculture regarding its procedure for conducting administrative hearings. I am concerned that the proposed rule exceeds the power and authority currently conferred upon the Department of Agriculture by Ohio Revised Code § 901.03. Consequently, I write in opposition to the proposed rule.

As presently drafted, the proposed new rule imposes confusing and burdensome language upon the public. It asks that those seeking to participate in an agency hearing reconcile the procedural requirements of Chapter 119 of the Ohio Revised Code with the provisions of the agency’s own Administrative Hearing Manual, found at: www.agri.ohio.gov. Neither the proposed new rule nor any proffered revision of the agency’s manual clearly indicate whether the express language of the proposed rule, specifically that “all administrative hearings shall be conducted in accordance with Chapter 119 of the Oho Revised Code,” imposes the hearing requirement incumbent within Chapter 119 upon the Department of Agriculture, or, if, instead, the burden remains upon the public to formally request a hearing in both rulemaking and adjudicatory contexts as indicated in the Department’s manual and in the current rule.

The Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review must ask if the Department of Agriculture, in the proposed new rule, clearly informs the public of whether primary governing authority as to Department of Agriculture rule making hearings is possessed by Chapter 119 or instead its agency manual. Otherwise, the Committee must ask if the agency is to be permitted leeway to revise its manual to so clearly inform the public after the proposed rule is issued and effective.

It must be acknowledged that 901: 0-4-01, as proposed, is a great step toward permitting the Department of Agriculture to reach the procedural goals and objectives of the Ohio Revised Code Chapter 119 mandatory agency hearing, currently a condition for action by certain agencies pursuant to their enabling legislation. O.R.C.§ 119.01; See also, O. R.C. §§ 113.061 (Treasurer) and 3752.03 (Director of Environmental Protection). And, in declining to issue an invalidating recommendation as to this proposed new rule, the Committee would permit the Department of Agriculture to retain the flexibility of self-governance, by imposing upon itself, through its authority under O.R.C. § 901.03 to “adopt reasonable rules and regulations,” the Chapter 119 hearing requirement, while not yet being statutorily bound to do so. For, Ohio Revised Code § 901.26, merely grants the power to conduct hearings to the Director of the Department of Agriculture while not requiring that the Director so conduct. These relevant provisions of the Ohio Revised Code governing the Department of Agriculture became effective in October of 1953, and have not been subsequently amended.

Governing agencies engage in varied forms of decision making, relying upon a variety of resources for data and information. We act to achieve both administrability and efficiency within our regulatory agencies, in behest of their respective individual statutory purpose. But, a rule should be clearly written, and an agency should not be permitted to obtain its required experience and learning by burdening the public after a rule is promulgated.

The Department of Agriculture should be commended in seeking to increase popular participation in its rule making process. The proposed rule informs the public of the availability of both, at a minimum, the right to request a hearing and, as well, the existence of a periodically revised instructional manual to guide its exercise of this right. However, it should be noted that the Department of Agriculture’s most recently published The Rule-Making Process: a Guide to the Rule-Making Process of the Ohio Department of Agriculture is dated January of 2010, though agency guides to public participation in rule making are required to be prepared, published and revised as necessary or advisable by O.R.C. § 119.0311. While guides are not deemed rules by the General Assembly under O.R.C.§ 119.0311, this, again, poses a source of confusion as to the proposed rule that should not be overlooked.

As professed by the philosopher Michel Foucault, we must look to how the rules governing discussion and debate ideally facilitate or, instead, lessen participation. Discourse is a means of transforming procedural structures into the material facts of our day-to-day existence. Ohio’s agriculture relies upon the Department of Agriculture to provide good government that encourages profit and prosperity to the utmost. Perhaps it is the case that both the Department of Agriculture and the general public would benefit from mandatory Chapter 119 hearings in agrarian rule making. But, perhaps again, this agency, like others, and the general public as well, would more greatly benefit if this were to be achieved by the General Assembly, and not the proposed rule, even with the aid of the agency’s manual.

I thank you greatly for considering my comments on this rule. And, I may certainly be contacted as indicated above.

Sincerely,

Lori G. Nuckolls

Post-Election, The “Rule of Law” in America

Perhaps we should begin a discussion about our reliance in America upon words, as both citizens and residents. Our governing legal documents are written, and we rely upon the exactness of their words. They are: (1) the Declaration of Independence; (2) the Constitution of the United States; (3) the United States Code, and the implementing Code of Federal Regulations; (4) the Constitution of each of the 50 States, and their supporting statutes and regulations; and (5) the laws passed by the local governments within each of our States.

Our written documents are to be read and understood by all. We should respond in writing to both the words and thoughts of our governments, as well as private commercial entities and individuals, when they act or speak in a manner that conflicts with, or contradicts, the laws and rules which we are all obligated to respect and abide. The supremacy of our laws secures our individual rights as citizens of the world. Our national, Federal government is omnipotent and supreme. Our central government is the government!

A Proposal of Tenets and Theses:

(1) We must not engage in individual, anarchical acts of direct democracy.

(2) We must rely upon and demand the freedom of our press and media.

(3) We must ensure that our Courts remain hierarchically reviewable both in law and in practice.

(4) We must secure our individual personhood, liberty and freedoms, and not permit informal and or administrative arrests or detainments, and also demand just and fair juries.

Life in America requires education and hard work, by each of us. To be free, we must each know what freedom requires and how to ask for it. We must seek law and freedom from those who most immediately govern us, from our local officials to the zenith of our national. The theory of a Federal government, especially in our newfound era of GOP conservatism and “small government,” is that we rely upon the “trickle down” of rules, laws and financial privation, from capitalism, commerce and government. This may not be all to which we look. It is our personal and individual responsibility to ensure the Humane Rule of Law.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Are Our Politics Determined by Money or Self-Reflection?

As someone with a theoretical, rather than a practical understanding of our political system, I ask how we reconcile the popular view that money is ever present in the Republican party with the popular view that money dominates both the Democratic and Republican political parties? Some believe that only with the overturning of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), and the enactment of new Federal campaign contribution limits on individuals and corporate entities, will American government be accountable to the electorate. The influence of the wealthy does dominate and determine our elections. Yet, there are large donors on both sides who are benevolent and offer a view of the common good in which they sincerely believe. And, some on both sides are less sincere and more self-interested.

Journalists covering campaigns do bring controversies to the public regarding those who are influential by virtue of political power derived from financial assets and not a given expertise or experience. So, the public is aware that the views of the majority do not determine elections, and that voters defer to those with known views who they feel have a better vantage point from which to decide what is best for the country. Even in the American history of not long ago, the public conceded to the Railroad Tycoons and the FDRs with an appreciative deference, though a resentment resulting from socio-economic status. Since that time, the majority has sought to cast off the yoke of paternalism. Our society possesses a more equal sense of opportunity, as well as of access to information and knowledge.

In America today, there is a greater sense of adequate materialism and a secure safety net. Yet, are the American working and middle classes of today more familiar with the profound blessings and power of the highly educated who have an understanding and role in society which they will never achieve themselves? They do not truly have economic want and they possess opportunities for their children of which they could not dream. Is their resentment, though existing without want, producing a disrespect for hierarchies and authorities generally?

Do those of the working and middle classes now resent the very academic institutions which produced their individual freedoms and the ability to exercise them? Are they not voting because they feel truly unable to duly consider the issues of government for want of formal education in the very complex and specialized subject matters citizens consider when evaluating candidates and reaching decisions on issues of referendum? As they do not participate, they cease to have a vested interest in the growth and development of their communities, commerce suffers, new residents are sparse and the communities decline.

In “off-year” elections, when voters are not moved by the issues of a Presidential campaign, few vote. In 2014, 40% of those eligible to vote in Ohio voted. This is local government by an interested few. Would more have a sense of personal interest in government if we brought before them the ideals and lessons on the manner in which they can affect government and their communities? With a sense of personal efficacy, would they then appreciate what they have amassed, can amass and what their children can amass.?

Even if new campaign contribution regulations are elusive in the anticipated future, I think that perhaps a sense of the efficacy of individual participation in politics might be achieved if we look to the basics of the American philosophy of government and encourage people to ask those offering ideas and public policies to explain how their suggestions are premised upon and strive to achieve our fundamental principles. To do this, we must frequently discuss the ideology of American representative democracy and ensure that all citizens and residents of our country, regardless of age, may look within and develop a sense of self-governance that believes in America. This November, and in the interim days, will you vote and or express your views and opinions?

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

We Should Share Our Political Faith

This November, we determine our choices for government. And, we should look to the momentous advances in American society over the past few decades to guide the decisions we make as to our State, County, City, Town, and Village governments. In the minds of many, the great English philosopher John Locke expressed the concern that, without the ownership of property, a member of society does not live with justice and fairness. One would imagine that this would include both the due and proper definition of property, and its enforcement. Thus, justice and freedom require that one first have a government upon which one may rely in order to possess and own property.

Americans live in the hypothetical, as to our right, power, and privilege of self-governance. Our personal decisions and life choices are individual, yet based upon a common understanding about the world in which we live. We each possess a theme, an abstract view of ourselves, our family and our community. This theme guides our particular opinions, both negative and positive. It constitutes our political faith.

So, how do we achieve political faith? Our individual tenets of political faith are derived from our social customs, and our understanding of how we relate to society and our community. All of our governmental leaders: national, state and local, are empowered to invoke the authority of government. And, in doing so, they should look, collectively, to our individual tenets of political faith. Thereby, they enact the federal laws and regulations, state statutes, and local ordinances that create and enforce our rights of property. This might constitute a Lockean sense of justice, for our political beliefs and opinions create and provide the property we bequeath to our children, and how we participate generationally in our country.

In evaluating candidates and referenda this election season, we should ask certain questions. First, how do I view the relationship between the candidates offered for my political subdivision and our American governing officials? Second, in what manner do the offered candidates express a view on the ownership and development of my property rights? Third, do the offered candidates look to our nation’s reliance upon principles of capitalism and the marketplace to enhance and secure my property and prosperity, and that of my political subdivision? Fourth, which of the offered candidates for my political subdivision may best collaborate with the officials of our State and Federal governments to so revise and enforce definitions of property?

In asking these questions, so that we may participate and comment upon society and government, we must each individually have a sense of our own property. We could look to a sense of the traditional Anglo-American common law definition of property as derived from John Locke, namely, that individual property rights are created from our individual investment of labor in the act of property creation. In this sense, how is our labor to be defined and described, and what is the property it creates? Our property rights as individuals determine our political and social power.

We must each provide a description of our property, both to share amongst ourselves in the course of ordinary conversation, and in offering our comments to candidates and elected officials. Our definition of our property is determined by what we know and how we know. As Locke might say, these rights are based upon each individual’s perfect control and dominion in right of ownership of property. As to property, this would be a tenet of political faith.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Should the Federal Government Pay Tuition for Higher Education to All for All?

Admission to American colleges and graduate schools is duly regulated by several nongovernmental organizations, notably, entities such as The College Board, the Educational Testing Service and the American Bar Association. And, our secondary and elementary schools are similarly reviewed and ranked as to merit, both within political subdivisions and across the nation, by educators, journalists and governing officials.

Would an assumption of tuition payments for all American college and graduate programs by the Federal government undermine current private governance by those currently governing and affiliated with America’s private schools of higher education? Would it undermine the aura and efficacy of local history and culture within our publicly owned and governed colleges and universities?

Perhaps, the objectivity of the nongovernmental organizations responsible for admissions testing and school ranking in American higher education already provides and requires obligatory accuracy and fairness as to merit and quality across the nation in a way that state, local and private control of funding currently may not affect. Private and state decision-making in higher education must currently yield to duly enacted legislation and promulgated regulation, and a replacement of the monetary source for tuition, from the student, parent and or school to the Federal government, could not transcend present governmental procedures. Our schools would, in every respect, remain fully self-governing and retain due and fair competition.

The question then is whether Federal tuition runs only to the public good and public interest, and if the American economy can afford to pay the tuition of all college and university students? There seems to currently be neither an economic necessity nor an economic value in requiring students and parents, as the recipients of the goods and services of American colleges and universities, to make the tuition payments, when the ultimate beneficiary of educated Americans is America. Educated Americans determine America’s reputation and goodwill and the relative efficacy and value of its democratic government. In doing so, the American public receives goods and services provided by those who do not earn the true value of the service they provide over the course of their careers.

Salaries of ordinary citizens and residents barely pay living expenses, no less do these salaries provide for college tuition. And, it is hoped that American families contain more than one child. College graduates and licensed professionals earn less than professional athletes and corporate executives. Our governing officials, doctors and lawyers provide more to keep America sane and rational than do CEOs, pitchers and quarterbacks. How can CEOs and athletes work day-to-day without professionals and government officials overhead. And, non-managerial employees and traditional small business men and women, who would receive college tuition for their children, would still benefit from American capitalism. Students and graduates of the long existing 2-year colleges, who receive learning in the technical arts and vocations, would certainly provide more to the public good as interns during school years in subjects related to their studies than as employees of those within their community who offer the highest pay in part-time employment regardless of the task.

A parent’s future payment of tuition to American colleges and universities is a for-profit incentive in the American and international marketplace. Currently, parents look to a child’s academic achievement, and the competitiveness of admission to America’s colleges and graduate schools, as an incentive for business success. Federal tuition would lessen stresses unrelated to achievement, regardless of parental income. And, the once thought long entrenched competitive advantage of students attending private elementary and secondary schools, is, now, rarely a concern, for advances in teaching, curriculum and college recruiting have provided economies of scale within local governing political subdivisions, and create a just capitalism in education.

If America’s professionals and college graduates are deemed, as our governing principles intend, to grow and raise children who make the most of our academic institutions, how do these professionals provide for their children’s tuition, even in two professional households, and even if with only one child? How does such a family pay for its children’s college and graduate school attendance, even if they are, themselves, among the American socio-economic elite? And, are not these very children of American professionals and college graduates socially obligated, themselves, by our social contract as citizens and residents, to not squander what has been provided to them by their parents and secondary school educators?

The centuries-old legal principle of discerning the merit and value of prospective legal and or governmental reform, as I profess to personally coin and denominate: “experimentation among the States,” may be in order. For, it provides that, if not all Americans are ready for a proposed reform, one State, or a few, in the Federal Union might enact a variation upon the proposed reform, for review and evaluation by citizens and judges. Today, governmental payment of tuition to public colleges and universities, especially as recently announced in the State of New York, may provide a basis for Federal reform, especially by our current President and noted businessman Donald Trump. For, President Trump professes a belief in the economic competition, efficiency and small government that Federal tuition payments to all American schools of higher education would provide. This may be achieved by President Trump from now through the inauguration of his successor in 2025!

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Are Our Politics Determined by Money or Self-Reflection?

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Philosophy, Law and Politics: an Introduction

This Blog is devoted to a discussion of philosophy from ancient to modern times and how it might provide insight and guidance in today’s world. This first post appeared on Facebook and provided the inspiration for the creation of this Blog.

Lori Nuckolls

A Theory of the Development of American Law

In light of current political controversy over reconciling public opinion and partisan ideology during this election season, perhaps we should give a look to ideas of many years ago. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a philosopher of the 19^th century, offered a view of the manner in which society engages in self-governance over time. For Hegel, human history is an achievement of rationality and understanding. In an incremental process, society struggles to develop thought, reason and culture. Our pursuit of our own individual ethical order is expressed in our devotion to the universal principles arising to govern society at each stage in its development. In doing so, individuals must expend great effort to transform their personal, particular opinion by engaging in speculative inquiry as to what constitutes the laws and customs of government. Rights, ethics and justice are universally appreciated and incrementally progress and develop. The content of our own law is then, at various points in social history, our universal understanding. While truly presuming that this is not a scholarly presentation of Hegel’s thought, perhaps we as a community may begin to look within and share in productive discourse.