As a nation we have reached a tipping point. Our country is more strongly divided now than
it has been since the outset of the Civil War.
We have Senators and Representatives that have been in office for
decades, we have a Supreme Court that has abandoned its duty as stewards of the
Constitution, we have a President that will use any means at his disposal to
push his personal agenda, even at the expense of the Constitution. We have Liberals and Conservatives at each
other’s throats across the nation over issues of Gun Control, Abortions, Voter
Identification, National Security, Immigration, and countless others.
If WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, the individual
CITIZENS, the VOTERS, do not step forward and do our duty, I fear for our
nation. Historically, the course we are
on leads only to death, destruction, civil war and violent, bloody revolution,
and not necessarily from invasion, Islamic Extremists, terrorism or any other
source of outside ruin. We have a small
chance to stop this. I am not a
politician, I am not a certified Historian, I am not a lawyer, I am simply a
man that has read history, and believes in Liberty and Justice for all. I firmly believe, with a conviction that runs
to my bones, our country faces a trial like no other it has seen since the
Revolutionary War.
My father always taught me that the first step to solving a
problem was DEFINING the problem. Many
would point to the divisive issues as the problem, indeed that is where our
elected legislature is pointing, drawing our attention away from the real
problems. The problems we face as a
nation are numerous, but I will limit myself to the most critical in my own
eye.
First and foremost, we have corrupt, bought and paid,
representatives and senators that have been in office for decades. No person should wield the power of
aristocracy in a democracy. Mark Twain’s
quote: “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason”
has never been more apt. The simplest
solution for this is for the voter to not re-elect incumbents after they have
been in office for more than two terms. However,
given politicians ability to campaign on strongly held beliefs on divisive
tertiary issues described above, it is difficult to vote out an incumbent without
compromising individual beliefs and principles.
This brings us to the necessity of Term Limits. We cannot expect the sitting legislature to
pass a law, or amendment to the constitution that is so contrary to their own
self interests, no matter the ethical or moral justification. Article V of the Constitution presents the solution
to imposing term limits: “…on the
application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call
a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to
all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the
legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three
fourths thereof…”. In short the
States themselves can bypass congress to first propose an amendment, 2/3 of the
states legislatures, at present 34 States required, and then to ratify the
amendment, requiring ¾ of the states legislatures, or 38 States required. This must happen to reassert our nation as a
democracy, if we do not we will continue the slide into a Capitalist
Aristocracy.
The Second major issue we have in our country at present is
the practice of attaching unpopular or special interest riders to unrelated
critical legislature. This practice
prevents meaningful, high impact, necessary legislation (i.e. Federal Budget)
from being passed in a timely fashion, and allows many unpopular, special
interest pieces of legislation to become FEDERAL LAW when it would never pass
on its own merits. This leads to lengthy
and poorly understood bills before the House and the Senate, long off topic debates,
and in short, ineffectual government.
Due to this we must also write, propose, and ratify and amendment to the
constitution preventing this practice.
Each law must be considered on its merits in turn, and voted on based on
those same merits, untied to a piece of “must pass” legislation. I was appalled to hear Nancy Pelosi’s
statement “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it” in
regards to the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), this should never, ever,
ever, in a million years, ever be the case that a law can be passed without
full and comprehensive review and debate.
To allow anything else is negligent.
Thirdly, we must find a way to support and reward unbiased,
responsible journalism. At current it
seems there is no source of news that is free from the taint of party
politics. Despite living in the digital
age it has never been more difficult to find truth, and factual information
regarding the actions of our elected government. A vast majority of media outlets have
reverted to spinning every statement, sound bite and shred of information to
support one side or the other. This
leads to a misinformed constituency and that in turn leads to poorly cast
votes. We must demand more from our
fourth estate than half truths, spin control and agenda based propaganda. Every journalist in our nation should feel
ashamed to the point of censure at their ethical and moral vapidity at allowing their profession to become embroiled in advancing and entrenching party politics.
Finally, we must stop the precedent of our government
ignoring, minimizing or overruling the constitution in the name of
expediency. To allow this process to
continue is to render the constitution irrelevant and allow the Federal
Government to usurp unlimited powers. We
must limit the Federal Government to only those powers enumerated in the
Constitution and the Amendments thereof.
To this end we must, as voters, demand that our states stand up in
Federal Court for the 10th Amendment, which grants the individual
states all other governmental powers not reserved by the Constitution for the
Federal Government. As individuals we
must be ever vigilant as to the actions of our Federal Government and challenge
it every time it ASSUMES a power, no matter whether we agree with the reason
that power was assumed or not. We must also demand that the final arbiters of these disputes take a limited view and interpretation of the Constitution. In all other aspects of the American Judicial system we follow the letter, not the intent of the law. We cannot allow the Supreme Court Justices to infer intent of the founder fathers, reinterpreting the constitution based on emotion or the political winds. We have a mechanism to amend the constitution, we must demand that if change is needed we use that mechanism, and ONLY that mechanism.
In short, unless we reassert the rule of Constitutional Law
in our nation we face a rapidly approaching precipice beyond which peaceful
reform within the confines of the Constitution will no longer be possible. When we reach this point we as PEOPLE will
face no other options beyond relinquishing our freedoms to an omnipotent Federal Government, or taking up arms to
defend the Constitution from a runaway and ever more powerful Federal
Government. With the technological
advances in warfare over the 20th Century the latter promises to be
a far bloodier, devastating conflict than the 1st Civil War and something no one in their right mind should advocate or wish for. We need to step forward as voters and citizens and focus on the major issues of corrupt elected officials, unlimited federal government, and constitutional violations NOW.
