The Intelligent Conversationalist

by Imogen Lloyd Webber

  I digress. We begin at the beginning. The American Constitution. If you’re American, you’ll have been taught all about this, but we remind you of the parts that would be helpful to have nearer the front of your brain. Despite being a document of unparalleled brilliance with astonishing execution (just look at the way Egypt struggled to come up with a constitution that people stuck to), for some reason, this subject rarely makes the basic school curriculum in foreign parts. Especially Britain. Speaking of limeys, there is a way to blame the Second Amendment gun drama on them. Quite. We have it here.

  This will be followed up with a look at American law. Apart from unraveling some noteworthy legalese, we will focus on the headline bits of federal law enabling you to further compliment—or more likely criticize—Congress, POTUS, and SCOTUS. As a latecomer to your Constitution, I’m rather fond—indeed, protective—of it, so I clearly go off on a bit of a rant about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which was established by Congress in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. Disclaimer: This is not a lawbook and you can/will need to hire an actual lawyer if you have any actual brushes with the law.

  We then turn to political scandals. Which are hilarious when they don’t actually have an impact on you or your life or your time. If it’s the latter, they do become a little sad even if they involve a Weiner. In Cheat Sheet 20 we give a bit of historical context on scandals and then focus on some case studies of American politicians’ naughtiness, from which we derive some top behavioral tips for anyone contemplating a run for office. Setting the scene right now, we would be remiss not to give a honorable mention to a few international classics. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, International Monetary Fund head and supposedly future French president, allegedly assaulted a maid in a New York City hotel room, and was later removed and arrested from an Air France flight at JFK (fitting, perhaps, bearing in mind Kennedy’s predilections). Charges were later dropped. Possibly the most amusing thing British Prime Minister David Cameron ever uttered was his quote about then Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, king of the bunga bungas: “I’ve learnt if the queen asks you to a party, you say yes, and if the Italian prime minister asks you to a party, it’s probably safe to say no.” The Brits of course came up with what many consider the classic scandal benchmark, the Profumo affair of 1963. Party girl Christine Keeler was supposedly sleeping with a Soviet spy and John Profumo, secretary of state for war, at the same time. Profumo lied about it to the House of Commons, got found out, and had to resign, seriously screwing up the Macmillan government. However, some Americans have done their best to sweep the disgrace stakes and you can read all about it here.

  Finally we provide a stellar set of election talking points, mainly focused on the never-ending presidential race. Look on the bright side—at least America’s taking the process seriously in electing the leader of the free world. Or keeping pundits like me in work. Please. You know you want to. Point is this, read Cheat Sheet 21 and you will be properly armed through every presidential debate and election-night drinking game.

  Right, to the oldest and shortest written Constitution of any major government in the world. As a foreigner, I do have to hand it to you, America. You’re not a country that’s normally in need of an ego boost, so us outsiders don’t usually hand you one, but in this next Cheat Sheet you do display unparalleled brilliance.

  CHEAT SHEET 18—THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION

  BACKGROUND BRIEFING

  Foreigners habitually perceive various American concepts as dubious. Football, to the rest of the world, is played with the feet. Yet Americans insist on calling their version of handball football and everyone else’s football soccer.

  However, there is little international (in fairly friendly places, at least) debate that Americans are justified in their pride in the United States Constitution. To remind you, it was written in 1787 and ratified in 1788, when Massachusetts became the ninth out of the thirteen original US states to agree, thus reaching a sufficient number to accept it. The Constitution has been in use since 1789, making it the world’s longest utilized written national constitution. The supreme law of the United States, it’s the source of all government powers—with built-in limitations that define the basic rights of citizens.

  Why did it appear? When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, there was the thought that the Continental Congress’s powers via the Articles of Confederation, the United States’s first constitution, weren’t actually up to the job of governing the country. You know when it’s not about money, but it is? It was. George Washington admitted as much: “No money,” he said. The central government couldn’t raise funds itself.

  So the Constitutional Convention was called in May 1787 and the framers trotted off to Philadelphia to sort it all out. They were a collection of stellar names, with Thomas Jefferson going so far as to label them demigods. They included Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, with George Washington as president of the convention.

  * * *

  KEY TERM: THE FOUNDING FATHERS

  The Founding Fathers is an umbrella label. There are two important main groups within it: those who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and those who framed the Constitution. Another group is made up of those who signed the Articles of Confederation.

  * * *

  The following is all deeply relevant for when you discuss the current crop of discordant politicians. For the US Constitution was drawn up with appropriate levels of falling-out and secret debate: splits between patriots and nationalists; the Virginia Plan (preferred by the big states) versus the New Jersey Plan (preferred by the small states). After much discussion between and within the thirteen states—Federalists supported, Antifederalists didn’t—the Constitution was completely ratified when Rhode Island finally came on board in 1790. This was important, as everyone agreed that everyone should be seen to be agreeing.

  * * *

  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: THE SEVEN ARTICLES

  The framers provided the framework of America’s government via the preamble and seven articles. Whichever way you look at it, the separation of powers between the three branches of government is pretty genius. The headlines:

  Article I—Legislative branch (Congress).

  Article II—Executive branch (president, veep, cabinet).

  Article III—Judicial branch (Supreme Court, lower courts).

  Article IV—Relationship between states and the federal government. Also rules about admitting new states to the union.

  Article V—Allows amendments.

  Article VI—Constitution is the highest law of land.

  Article VII—Ratification rules.

  * * *

  The Constitution began a tradition that lives to this day in American politics—the need for compromise, for it was a Great Compromise. Representation in the House would be based on population and members could serve two years; each state got two senators who could serve for six.

  * * *

  NOTEWORTHY NUGGET: THE FEDERALIST PAPERS

  • In an attempt to convince New York that the Constitution should be ratified, between October 1787 and August 1788 Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published eighty-five articles in New York newspapers under the pseudonym Publius.

  • They came to be labeled The Federalist Papers and have become a key source in understanding some of the framers’ motives.

  • Especially notable: No. 10 (warns against factions) and No. 51 (justifies the Constitution’s structure).

  * * *

  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY

  The demigods were self-aware enough to know they were not perfect, that they could not be the be-all and end-all and that the Constitution needed to be a living document. Hence Article V exists. Amendments.

  * * *

  WISE WORDS

  The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

  —Franklin D. Roo
sevelt

  * * *

  America can amend the Constitution and it has managed to do so twenty-seven times. Although only twenty-six are in effect, as the Eighteenth, prohibition, beginning in 1920, is trumped by the Twenty-first Amendment of 1933. Thank goodness. I clearly wouldn’t have bothered to go through the American immigration process if I couldn’t have had a drink at the end of it.

  The first ten amendments were all ratified in 1791 and are collectively known as the Bill of Rights. They were done in a speedy fashion, as for many it was somewhat a sticking point that there wasn’t a Bill of Rights in the first place.

  Since there have been only seventeen subsequent amendments, it is obviously not an easy process. Basically, an amendment can be proposed by a two-thirds vote of BOTH Houses of Congress or if two-thirds of the states request one. Ratification requires three-quarters of the states.

  * * *

  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: AMENDMENTS YOU NEED ON SPEED DIAL

  NB: one through ten, part of the Bill of Rights, all 1791

  1st: freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press.

  2nd: right to bear arms. Been confirmed over time by SCOTUS, not going anywhere.

  4th: right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

  5th: includes rights against double jeopardy and self-incrimination (so you can “take the fifth”). Also due process (which is also in the 14th).

  6th: speedy trial by jury, etc. Right to counsel (also linked to 5th).

  8th: “cruel and unusual punishments” banned. Gitmo, anyone?

  13th: 1865, abolishes slavery.

  14th: 1868, due process (linked to 5th). Equal protection. Citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African-Americans. This amendment got applied for Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)—racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional—and Roe v. Wade in 1973.

  15th: 1870, voting protection on race, color.

  19th: 1920, women’s suffrage vote.

  26th: 1971, voting allowed for those eighteen and above.

  * * *

  TALKING POINTS

  • The first three words of the US Constitution, “We the People,” affirm that the US government exists to serve its citizens. Remind politicians of the preamble’s beginning on a regular basis.

  • The demigods got their inspiration from all sorts, including:

   Right of due process came from England’s Magna Carta (originally issued in 1215; the barons forced it on King John to protect their privileges—see Cheat Sheet 15).

   The English Glorious Revolution of 1688, when Parliament told the monarchy that the concept of ruling by divine right was an absolute no-go.

   The English Whigs Edmund Burke and William Blackstone were especially popular.

   Thomas Hobbes on theory of government.

   There were fans of Edward Coke’s civil liberties and John Locke’s philosophy.

   It wasn’t just the Brits. The French Montesquieu had some stellar thoughts on divided government.

  • Controversial policies of racial profiling such as “stop and frisk” are always a case of demography versus the Constitution.

  • As is true of every nutcase out there, the more extreme politicians’ views are, the more they think they’re right.

  • The last amendment, the twenty-seventh, was in 1992 and was about Congress’s salaries. If you sneer about this to your nearest politician and he or she retorts that the idea of it had been floating about since James Madison in 1789, just point out that American politicians taking 203 years to do something is about right.

  • A couple of “crisp facts,” as one of my Cambridge professors called them, to show your superiority: Neither House can meet anywhere else without agreement and a congressman cannot be arrested for misdemeanors on the way to the Hill.

  RED FLAGS

  • Article VI of the Constitution prohibits religious tests for officeholders. If you’re trying to win votes at a Christian right meeting, best you don’t bring that up.

  • With a lover of the Second Amendment who claims that owning a gun is all-American? Probably wise not to mention that some suggest that it’s actually a British idea and that the Brits later thought better of it while Americans failed to.

   A case can be made that the right to bear arms stems from a proviso in the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Of course the Brits subsequently started introducing gun control laws in 1824, and since then they have developed to some of the strictest such laws in the world. Most limeys believe this is the reason why their gun deaths are around 150 a year and America’s are at well over 30,000.

   With an estimated 300 million guns in America, not worth bringing this up to a gun aficionado, who undoubtedly has immediate access to one.

   And just to throw it out there: The American per capita rate of gun ownership is nearly 50 percent, higher than any other country’s.

  * * *

  WISE WORDS

  The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

  —John F. Kennedy

  * * *

  SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY

  Argument: “Changing course is sometimes the right thing to do. Even the framers of the Constitution knew they were not perfect. Hence it is a living document and Article V exists and it can be amended.”

  This is to be utilized when someone is being inflexible. Monarchy still exists in Britain because it adapts. All men were created equal in 1776—unless they were female and/or had a skin color that wasn’t white.

  Crisp Fact: “America’s Constitution is the oldest and shortest written Constitution of any major government in the world.”

  Subtly get this one in if you’re an American feeling underappreciated amongst a bunch of foreigners—you’ve earned it.

  Pivot: “Shall we make use of the Twenty-first Amendment and have another drink?”

  Heading to the bar may be the oldest distraction in the book, but it’s one of the best. How on earth did law-abiding people cope during Prohibition?

  CHEAT SHEET 19—AMERICAN LAW

  BACKGROUND BRIEFING

  Stating the obvious, America’s legal system makes its world go round. Much of American law can trace its roots to English common law, which was practiced at the time of the Revolutionary War. Fascinating as all this is (seriously, but admittedly I’m a nerd who regrets not doing postgrad law), this Cheat Sheet is not here for obscure bits of information you should be hiring a lawyer for. Apart from touching on some noteworthy legalese, we will focus on the headline bits of federal law enabling you to further compliment—or more likely criticize—Congress, POTUS, and SCOTUS.

  Ostensibly Congress’s job is to make the law, since it is the legislature. Which is why its approval rating hovers around that of Iran’s and North Korea’s. Congress is made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and both need to agree on the law to pass it.

  The executive branch—POTUS, the vice-president, department heads (cabinet members), and heads of independent agencies—is responsible for ensuring that the law is carried out. Meanwhile the judiciary—the federal (not the state) courts, all the way up to SCOTUS—interprets the law. Whatever the Supreme Court says is the end, because there is no higher appeals court. If judicial review decides the law violates the Constitution, it prevents the law being enforced.

  * * *

  KEY TERM: HABEAS CORPUS

  • Translated from the Latin: “that you have the body.”

  • A writ of habeas corpus is used to bring a detainee before a court to determine if the detention is lawful.

  • The origins of habeas corpus can be traced in English law to as far back as Henry II’s reign in the twelfth century.


  * * *

  WHY IT MATTERS TODAY

  Congress has the capacity to improve or ruin your life—or at the very least, to confuse anyone who fell asleep in certain high school classes—with their vocabulary. Any member can introduce, or sponsor, a bill to create a new law. Once it is introduced, it is then assigned to the appropriate committee for review—perhaps hearings, testimony from special interests and the public—and revision, or markup. If the committee really doesn’t like the bill, they table it so the House can’t even vote on it. Otherwise they release it, reporting it out.

  Now this doesn’t necessarily mean that the bill will see a bit of floor action. In the House, that’s down to the Speaker and the majority leader, and in the Senate, to the majority leader. If the bill makes it to debate, it may be passed, defeated, or amended. A vote passes by a simple majority—House 218/435 and Senate 51/100.

  * * *

  NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: THE 113TH CONGRESS

  • Ran January 3, 2013, to January 3, 2015.

  • Had the lowest approval rating of any Congress since they began polling for it.

  • The “Do Nothing” Congress denounced by Truman in 1947 passed 906 laws. The 113th Congress just beat the 112th Congress, passing 13 more—296. Be wary of pushing this point too much—it comes down to the quality of the laws, not just the number.

  * * *

  To put it simply, in the unlikely event that you think any of this procedure sounds simple, it isn’t. Before a bill can become a law, both houses of Congress must pass identical versions of said bill. Thus most legislation ends up in conference committee, made up of representatives and senators trying to come up with a compromise solution. If they manage it and both houses agree, the bill is enrolled (printed) and the Speaker of the House and the vice-president, who is president of the Senate, sign it.