Our Last Chance

Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived or so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a small portion of that field, as a final resting place, for those who here gave their lives that a nation might live. It is all together fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate…we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion, to that cause to which they gave their last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

—-A man named Lincoln

“This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the people of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the revolution in 1776; the freedom to govern themselves.”

——Antonin Scalia

“The Constitution is not a living organism. It is a legal document and it says what it says, and it doesn’t say what it doesn’t say.”

—— Antonin Scalia

A new friend, recently introduced to my silly penchant for writing down that of which I think, asked me recently if I had composed anything about what I’ve witnessed during this run up to the next presidential election. This reminded me that I have not. I’ve watched the circus, and noted the monkeys have gotten loose, and I’ve stated that these are not my monkeys and this is not my circus. But with the moment of contemplation raised by this friend’s question, I realized that I have in fact noted what is going on, and what is at stake, and how blessed terrified I am at the prospects. But no, I have written nothing.

In a moment of quiet contemplation, I realized that the main reason I had not written anything, anything I would place out there on the net, was because of the fear. Where once I could speak my mind, criticize to my heart’s content that nonsense which has become our government….I have now realized that this puts me at risk. Risk. Not from those who disagree. Not from those with other opinion. Nope. Not from my fellow citizen. I realized that I must now fear my own government. That which I say in public, that which I write and post on line, can very much end my freedom when the government finally gets around to me. 

Crazy, right? Ole doc has finally gone round the bend. Maybe so. But maybe not.

Way back in the late 1700’s those silly old white men, misogynist racist slave owners and land barons, rebelled against the rule of the king of England. And they won. Probably because the French helped and the militias didn’t. And certainly because they approved of slavery and white supremacy and the institutional oppression of women and they weren’t Christians. And thus the worst nation in the history of the world was born.

Oh wait, I’m relating the other version of history. The one they teach now. The version of history I was taught, that outdated pack of lies, was somewhat kinder to America, and somewhat different from what they now teach.

I remember learning that a group of exquisitely educated and motivated men argued over a whole bunch of notions, and then settled upon a Constitution that was specifically designed to limit the power of government, so they designed a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, rather than for the usual gaggle of monarchs and despots. 

They had seen the harm that ruling elites bring to those they ruled, and these men designed a Constitution that would resist the mendacity of governments, or more accurately those people who wished to be the government, to eventually end up with the unreasonable control of a few over the bulk of the people.

We are at a turning point. What we do next in America, in the next year or so, will determine if this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. For the rule of a few over the bunch of us is standing by to take over, and they will not ever give back, our freedom.

Yeah, we are there again. WE ARE THERE AGAIN.

Wise men saw this coming. And the usual enemies of freedom around the world stand by, holding their breath, hoping for the demise of American freedom.

“In a democracy, every nation gets the government it deserves.”

———Joseph de Maistre, 1811

This notion has been repeated, reinvented, and recounted many times since. Most governments don’t give a choice. At all. Here is your government, and you are stuck with it. But yeah, in America we have a democracy (actually a republic) so we get to choose our government, i.e. THE PEOPLE (us) have a say in choosing those people who will rule us. Strange as this seems today, this was once considered a good thing. THE PEOPLE actually benefit from this deal, and they continue to benefit, if they don’t piss away this opportunity. 

History shows that most civilizations have eventually pissed away this opportunity. The rest lost this opportunity when they were conquered. 

“The American Republic will last until the politicians realize that they can bribe the public with the public’s money.” ——Attributed to many over the years.

Wise men saw this coming, a long while ago. And what they saw coming, that which destroyed all the other democracies one after another, and what is destroying our republic today…..well they saw this coming too. The lie that is socialism has destroyed nations time and again. It did this by inducing THE PEOPLE to sacrifice freedom for the false promise of security. It put into power the people who lied to THE PEOPLE, promising much but taking away more.

So these wise men argued and compromised and finally wrote a Constitution designed to organize a government, and limit a government, so that the power rested in THE PEOPLE and not in the government. For these men knew that a government is not an entity in itself, but it is a collection of people in the role of government. And these wise men knew what happens EVERY TIME people in government realize that they want to remain in control of government, and in control of THE PEOPLE. These wise men foresaw the corruption, and the dishonesty, and the eventual oppression of THE PEOPLE by that collection of people called government. 

The wise men predicted the inevitable. They predicted that the people who constitute government would eventually be the people who would oppress THE PEOPLE. And we are watching this happen now.

Confused enough?

The founding fathers who wrote our Constitution built in protection against the people who would strive to rule over THE PEOPLE. They built checks and balances into the Constitution. The executive branch can only do so much harm, but then the legislative branch will have its say to counter, and then finally the judicial branch will step in and assure that the Constitution will limit the harm that may be done. Good plan. But with one fatal flaw, as noted by the astute Justice Scalia. 

Turns out that the executive branch is to nominate an individual to the Supreme Court, and then the Senate will confirm, before a justice serves on the Court for a lifetime, so said justice should be immune from the corrupting influence of politics. This system works right up to the point where a ruling elite assumes control of both the executive and legislative branch. With such power, they can place on the Supreme Court drones who will do as they are told, and thus all control of the government, circumventing the checks and balances, the power over the PEOPLE, leaves in the possession of the few who are crooked enough to set this up in the first place. Control of the Supreme Court nets the ability to create law independent of the executive and legislative branch. From this we get a dictatorship.

THE PEOPLE have been living under this curse for some considerable time. Now. And our Constitution sits unused, over in the corner, not protecting us from our government as our freedom slowly sifts away. We watch our primaries, as the mob competes to become captain of the sinking ship. The more we tumble into socialism, the greater our debt and the worse we perform, so the ship sinks faster. These flawed people compete to be captain of a sinking ship, doing all they can to make things worse, instead of trying to avoid the ice berg in the first place. The elephant in the room is  socialism. 

We really need to get our Constitution back, intact, and in the role for which it was intended. And this I have concluded is the reason why this entire insane stumble up to the coming election is so important. And of course, this is why those folks who wish to be the ruling elite are trying so hard to disappoint us. They intend to disappoint us by promising us, THE PEOPLE uh, pretty much anything any fool might ask for, in order to get themselves elected, before they take away our freedom. Because they are lying sons-a-bitches.

Those who wish to be the ruling elite have been slow disassembling our Constitution for most of my adult life. They’ve tried when occupying the executive branch. They’ve tried while in the legislature. And particularly, they’ve done it whilst seated on the Supreme Court. Pretty much everything the founding fathers tried to protect us from, every abuse of power imaginable imposed at the expense of THE PEOPLE has resulted from this exercise.

Sadly, only a few intrepid individuals stand in their way. Justice Scalia endured this role for many years, squatting directly in the path of the evil ones. Lately, I cannot think of a single individual in that one political party who is so inclined to stand in the way. Virtually every member of that one political party is dedicated to dismembering the Constitution. This is not done out of malice toward the Constitution, but it is merely about opportunity. Everything this political party wishes to do to us is prohibited by the Constitution. So they have no choice but to dismember the Constitution if they wish to remain as the ruling elite.

A minority of the other major party would like to preserve the Constitution. Some of these individuals are competing in this primary, and they catch my interest. The rest of the lot are no different from their so called opponents in the other party. Ruling elites don’t care which political party elevates them to power. They only care about the power.

So yeah, this is an uphill fight.

Our enemies will tell us that the Constitution is outdated, that it must morph to blend in with progress, which of course is what the so-call progressives want. I contend that although times have indeed changed, human nature has not. 

That fellow Alexis de Tocqueville who wandered over from France to study those upstart Americans and their new Constitution marveled at the good job our ancestors had done. He appreciated democracy, and called socialism “a new form of slavery”.  He stated that democracy and socialism could not exist together. This was in the mid 19th century. Our Constitution as written made no mention of accommodating socialism. But a guy named Marx published his wishes about that same time. The struggle for our freedom began that long ago. Times have changed, but human nature has not.

Now we have an avowed socialist running for president against a socialist who lacks the honesty to admit this, and in fact only clings to it because of the votes it may yield. Nothing of consequence has changed since de Tocqueville railed against socialism and blessed the Constitution for resisting it in 1848. 

At the end of the 20th century, PJ O’Rourke again mentioned socialism, in words that our socialists today should recognize: “It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights- the right to education, the right to health care, the right to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery- hay and a barn for human cattle.” 

What I hear from that one political party, free college, free medical, free this and that, housing food clothing, the chance to rent from the government, the chance to work for the government, the chance to keep what we earn, minus what the government takes….well this sounds a whole lot like share cropping, or serfdom. If this is what ya want, vote for that party. I likely will go the other way.

Nothing has changed, with socialism or with the need for our Constitution to stop this perversion.

The enemies of our Constitution will mention the Bill of RIghts. They claim the first Amendment is outdated, until those who usurped the control of the Constitution to protect from the wishes of society, using the 1st to defend the fashioning of religious symbols from cattle dung, or the burning of our flag, or the most obscene perversions yet invented. 

The enemies of our Constitution claim the 2nd Amendment is outdated, yet anyone who is paying attention realizes that the freedoms protected by the 2nd are even more needed now than when written. Small wonder that one political party wishes to dismember the 2nd. 

Go down the bulk of the first ten Amendments, our Bill of Rights, and we need them all more now than ever before. 

Progressive folks are lining up, each claiming they will leave the country, move to one socialist workers’ paradise or that other, if the wrong person is elected president. They hate the very possibility that we might resist their race to mediocrity and oppression. They have lots of choices, countries that offer this or that in exchange for freedom and prosperity. 

You won’t find many advocates of the Constitution threatening to leave this country. Maybe this has to do with the serious absence of countries out there who offer any freedom and prosperity on a par with what’s left of ours. If you favor freedom, you have no place to go when this country goes down. No where. America is all that is left.

So yes, we need our Constitution, more now than ever before. And our Constitution is more at risk now than during the Civil War. 

The current president, a man who has done more harm to our Constitution than any other in our history, would hand pick an enemy of America to sit in the seat vacated by the late Justice Scalia. From that party, the two hoping to inherit the throne proclaimed by the pretender in chief, would do the same. This one chess move would lead us to the end of freedom in America. Yet it would be cheered by all of one political party, most of the other, and the bulk of our media, teachers, professors, and entertainers. In a democracy, such a majority would win…..they would win their own destruction, and not realize it until it is too late. By then the ruling elite would be completely in charge. History is filled by such mistakes.

Somehow, we must elect as president someone who will fight for the Constitution, rather than against it. This likely is our last chance.

“That this nation, under God, shall have another birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not vanish from this earth.”