When Checks and Balances Fail

I feel that the United States is currently more ideologically divided than at any other time in history, including the civil war.  The only thing that has prevented the country from coming apart to date as it did in 1860 is that the division is not drawn across geographic lines.  Nevertheless, the trajectory that the nation is on now will result in violence if it’s not corrected.

For the last three years a very well funded and completely unqualified president has systematically dismantled the constitutional system of checks and balances, unhindered by an out of control congress that abdicated its power to control the Executive long ago.  Today the final protection that the framers of the constitution devised to protect the citizens of the country from the government abdicated its responsibility to check and balance, in essence stating that the court had no responsibility to protect the citizens from the consequences of their election-day decisions.

Perhaps Chief Justice Roberts is merely playing a dangerous game, thinking that if the citizenry want socialism, they should get it, good and hard.  By pulling the political pendulum ever farther to the left, perhaps he thinks the reaction to the right will be correspondingly more pronounced.  This is a stupid way to think, and if this was his motivation, then Chief Justice Roberts should be impeached for playing politics.  The Supreme Court sets precedent, and this decision has set a very dangerous precedent for future courts to deal with.

The system was set up as three separate branches, under the theory that if any one branch would do its constitutionally mandated job it would be able to prevent the other two from running amuck. The congress has failed the American people.  The President has failed to reign in the excesses of congress, and the Court -  the final bulwark against tyranny - has failed to restore sanity to the government’s relation to the governed by hiding behind legal fictions and the twisting of meanings.

Conservative Americans are a law abiding group of people, and will always try to resolve things within the framework of the law.  This has been the strength of America, which has witnessed 43 peaceful changes of power, even when the handoff has been between diametrically opposed ideologies.  The rule of law prevails.

The current administration pays lip service to the law, and actively seeks to subvert that law to its own political ends by  a variety of methods.  It actively opposes common sense election law enforcement, such as voter ID laws and the purging of ineligible voters from the election rolls.  It encourages illegal immigration through inaction – and in some cases active opposition to attempts to enforce immigration law, the theory being that an illegal immigrant’s vote is as good as any other. Overt voting place intimidation, voting multiple times, dead people voting, “discovered” ballot boxes in the trunks of election officials are all documented tactics of the left to steal elections. This government routinely violates the constitutional rights of the citizens, subjecting them to illegal searches and seizures, harassment, and illegal detention without trial, all sanctioned by unconstitutional legislation from an out of control congress and a court that looks the other way when called upon to do its duty.

The next election in November will determine the fate of this nation. Only a Republican House, Senate and President have a chance of steering this ship off the rocks.  The orderly transfer of power in this election is the last peaceful bulwark the people of this nation have against tyranny. 

Should this election not result in the retirement of the leftist activists that control the Senate and the white House, the American conservative movement will be left with only one remaining tool with which to control an out of control government, as outlined in our Declaration of Independence:

"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [i.e., securing inherent and inalienable rights, with powers derived from the consent of the governed], it is the right of the people to alter or 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."

To that end we take further wisdom from Mr. Jefferson:

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them."

--Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787

This is the variable in the equation that the liberals underestimate: The conservative movement is very law abiding, as long as there is a law to abide by.  But when it becomes plain that the people are not being ruled by laws, but by the capricious whims of a government that does not answer to the People, and does not govern by the consent of the governed, the conservatives are not above taking up arms and abolishing that government.  In the last two years, private American citizens have bought more personal firearms and ammunition than is necessary to arm the largest army in the world.  If we cannot control the government by peaceful, lawful means, we will control it nevertheless.  The people of the United states will not be governed without their consent, and that consent is rapidly eroding.

I tremble for my country.  Civil wars are the most destructive, deadly conflicts imaginable, and I fear we are closer than anyone cares to admit to just that. 

Vote in November.  Make your voice heard, and be very watchful against election fraud. This is our last chance at a peaceful way to roll back tyranny. After November it will be too late to apologize.