Posted by
Steve on Monday, August 24, 2009 7:59:54 PM
Over the weekend, I saw a video of a former Marine taking his Congressman to task in Washington State. The question he asked that I felt was the highlight was: “I lived up to my oath. When are you going to live up to yours?” I may have misquoted him a little, but the point is the same. The ex-Marine felt that his Congressman had not been living up to the oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic.
All members of the military take an oath to defend the country against any enemies, both foreign and domestic. The President, Senators and Congressmen also take an oath that says pretty much the same thing. They are to defend the Constitution against any enemies, both foreign and domestic. We then have to ask, what does that mean?
For a member of the military, it means that the soldier, sailor or marine has to be ready to fight against any enemy that might threaten the United States. That responsibility is rather easy to see and understand. The threats basically come from foreign sources, so the people involved are not Americans.
For a President, Senator or Congressman, the situation is a little more nebulous. They do not have the specter of some enemy coming over the hill. They have more subtle pressures to deal with. For them to defend the Constitution, they have to understand the Constitution and be aware of any threats. They do not have to face real bullets. They have to face words and pressures to bend the Constitution to fit the wants of different constituent groups. Once they learn they can bend the Constitution to whatever issue they want, then it is almost impossible to put up any kind of defense against these threats.
Thomas Jefferson said that if the public ever discovers that it can vote itself money and power from the public treasury, the country will fail. The country discovered that gift a few short years ago. As a result, we are finding it more and more difficult to keep the wants of the public within proscribed bounds. We who study such things call it socialism when this situation gets out of control. With the Obama administration, the situation has gotten out of control.
The public has some responsibility in this mess, too. We elect these “servants of the people”. If we elected people that actually knew what the Constitution was and what was contained in it, we would not be in the trouble we are in now. The problem is that we have elected far too many politicians who have no idea what is in the Constitution. If you run quotes from Karl Marx in front of them, they think they come from the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. We need politicians that know what the Constitution says and how to get there. We may not like the medicine required to get us where we are supposed to be, but it would be better for us in the long run. That would require about 75-80% of the members of the House and Senate be voted out of office. That would be 100% of the Democrats, 100% of the Socialists and about 50-60% of the Republicans.
I am not advocating a one party rule by any means. I believe in a two party system of government. We need open and honest debate in this country. We just need people in office that believe in the Constitution at every level in and out of the elected bodies. An example of two people that understood the Constitution and disagreed on how to implement it was Hamilton and Jefferson. Both were strong supporters of the Constitution. Both understood how important it was to have a Constitution. Yet, both disagreed on what the role of government was in this country.
We need to get back to the Constitution having a central role in our government. Right now, people talk about the Constitution as if it was some sort of document that would bend to every wind of doctrine. That was not the intent of the Constitution. It was intended to be the rock upon which we could build the country.