Timothy Wilken
A long time reader, Dexter Graphic, recently forwarded me an article about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s proposal for a Second Bill of Rights, which was initially suggested during his campaign for the American Presidency in 1932. But the proposal was lost in the shuffle of getting America out of The Great Depression and then successfully through WWII. Twelve years later, President Roosevelt returned to his proposal for a Second Bill of Rights.
Those proposed rights were enumerated during his State of the Union address to the Congress on January 11, 1944:
It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed. Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.
Unfortunately, Roosevelt did not survive to see the end of World War II. On March 30, 1945, he went to Warm Springs to rest before his anticipated appearance at the founding conference of the United Nations. On the afternoon of April 12, Roosevelt said, “I have a terrific headache” and was carried into his bedroom. The doctor diagnosed that he had suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Later that day, he died. As Allen Drury later said, “so ended an era, and so began another.”
Harry S. Truman succeeded Roosevelt, and when informed of the existence of the Manhattan Project and nuclear weapons decided to end the war by destroying Hiroshima on August 6th and Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945 with nuclear fire. This experiment in mass killing ended the lives of over two hundred thousand men, women, and children.
Where might we be today, if Roosevelt had lived a few more years?
A Synergic Bill of Rights for All Humanity
Independently of Roosevelt, I first suggested a “bill of rights” for all humans based on the principles of synergic science in 2001. The preamble to this “bill of rights” along with a description of how it could be implemented is presented in my six-part series: A Synergic Future.
The following is from the fifth installment of that series: Trustegrities – Protecting the Future.
It must now be obvious to the reader, that most of human wealth is a gift and cannot be claimed as property by any individual or group of individuals. I have divided this gift into three categories: the Earth Trust, the Life Trust and the Time-binding Trust.
I propose the creation of synergic trustee organizations charged with the responsibility to protect, conserve and administer the synergic trusts for the benefit of all humanity—both the living and the unborn. This organization could make use of the Organizational Tensegrity synergic mechanism which utilizes synergic consensus and the synergic veto to eliminate conflict. These Synergic Trust Organizational Tensegrities will simply be called the “Trustegrities”. The Trustegrities could form the basis for a synergic government in the future. They could perform all the positive functions of present government with none of the negative consequences. The Trustegrities would exist to serve humanity as community as well as humanity as individual.
The Trustegrities will be three with separate but complementary missions in service to humankind.
The Earth Trustegrity will provide:
1) Access to land and natural resources for personal use at minimal or no cost, and
2) Access to land and natural resources for synergic production with appropriate charges payable to the Earth Trustegrity in lease or rental fees, licensing fees, and/or revenue shares. All rental fees, licensing fees, and/or revenue shares are entrusted to the Earth Trustegrity for Humanity as Community.
The Life Trustegrity will provide:
3) Safety from crime and war, and full access to:
4) Comfortable, safe, healthy housing.
5) Good nutritious food
6) Good preventative health services and comprehensive cradle to grave medical care, and access to the privilege of Reproduction based on fairness, equality, and mutual benefit to both humanity as Individuals and humanity as Community. This would include monitoring administrating, adjudicating the Trust privilege of Reproduction.
7) Access to animals and plants including native flora and wildlife for personal use at minimum or no cost.
8) Access to animals and plants including native flora and wildlife for synergic production with appropriate charges payable to the Life Trustegrity in rental fees, licensing fees and/or revenue shares. All payments made are entrusted to the Earth Trustegrity for Humanity as Community.
The Time-binding Trustegrity will provide:
9) Full education to an individual’s ability and interest regardless of age,
10) The opportunity to participate in synergic organization and invest their action and leverage to earn revenue shares and acquire property throughout their full lifetime.
11) Access to communication with humanity as individuals and to humanity as community for personal reasons, for synergic production and consumption, and for synergic consensus utilizing Unanimous Rule Democracy.
12) Protection of the intellectual discoveries and inventions of Time-binding whether they be in the Time-binding Trust, or the Property of living humans.