Now is the Time for All Good Men

I have written extensively about the federal government’s drift away from its constitutional moorings over the last forty years, culminating with President Bush signing the patently unconstitutional mortgage take-over bill several weeks ago. Now the prospect of a President Obama (God forbid) yoked up with Pelosi and Reid looms large on the Republic’s horizon. Such an unholy troika would devastate what remains of our constitutional liberties and protections. He would pack the federal judiciary and Supreme Court with far-left radical activist judges who would change the legal and cultural landscape for generations for the worse. Barry has even voiced his support for a long-touted second Bill of Rights which would include a federal constitutional right to a job, a home and health care. Not to mention the backdoor disarming of the citizenry and a no-holds-barred abortion juggernaut. On top of these abominations he would gut the military, one of the few legitimate and critical federal functions thereby ceding our vital positions around the globe to those who would cut off our oil and our heads.

This anti-constitutional orientation infects all three branches of the federal government and sadly both political parties, though I would judge that there is a much greater dose of it in the Democrat party. Lord Acton was quite right when he observed that, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Judge R. Barclay Surrick of the federal district court in Philadelphia stated in his dismissal of Democrat Philip Berg’s suit questioning the birth certificate of Barack that we mere people have no standing to raise constitutional issues about our candidates running for President. His belief is that only the Congress has such standing. Are you kidding?! So our only recourse against constitutional infractions is to wait for Congress to bring the issue forth? They are as guilty and complicit or more of such heinous constitutional infractions as Obama. That’s tantamount to me handing a pistol to a thief breaking into my home in the dead of night and begging him to arrest himself! We the people through our states own the Constitution. We do indeed have standing. The federal government does not own and is not a party to the constitution. The states wrote it and created the federal government to serve the needs of the states and at their pleasure, not vice versa. The states are not mere governmental subdivisions of the federal government. The federal government is charged to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare of the states and the people through the very specific enumerated powers and restrictions within Article I, Section 8 and the various amendments. And that’s it! It is NOT carte blanche for the federal government to tax, spend, regulate and run every minute aspect of American life.

Now is the time for the people acting through their states to rise up and enforce the absolute tenets of the constitution upon the federal government. We must not be intimidated. The states can amend the constitution and call a constitutional convention. I hope it does not come to a convention. Let me say that I am not an advocate of state secession, but I do think that states should consider ways that they can reign in a rogue federal government and perhaps operate as more sovereign, independent states while remaining within the republic. States choosing not to participate in unconstitutional federal programs would become laboratories of liberty which would attract or repel people and industry based upon their success or failure. As a parting thought I pray that we do not take up arms over these issues as we did in 1775 and 1860. That course of action though is the final recourse of a people oppressed by tyranny. It is for this reason that the Second Amendment was written into the Bill of Rights. History teaches that one of the first actions taken by a despot is to confiscate the people’s arms. What better way to protect himself from forced removal? The American people must never cede that right. Let’s look back to our very own Declaration of Independence for guidance from our Founding Fathers:

…”We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”…

And a few final thoughts from Thomas Jefferson, the liberal’s favorite Founding Father:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."

God save the Republic!

October 29, 2008