Category Archives: Politics 2024

Biden, Crime, Economics, Education, Elections, Family, Governance, Immigration, Politics 2024, Representation

CITIZENSHIP (SH)CITY

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The most precious commodity in the World, hard-won and yet expansive, is United States citizenship. Our history as a nation, and as colonies prior, is as well-recorded as that of any nation. Our reasons for independence from our British colonizers and the philosophies upon which we have based our form of government – unique among the nations – are also well-recorded and, indeed, among the best studied in the World.

Sadly, our own citizens – there are some – are among those LEAST AWARE of our own remarkable history and founding purposes. To our shame we have fallen into the communist trap of politicizing our past… not that we can change it, but great effort is being made, even in schools, to change our beliefs about it. With new beliefs rampant – not new truths, new beliefs, we can create new tensions, divisions and social decay in the present. It’s a “plan” of action for some, part of which is the denigration of citizenship and of the United States, itself.

The “plan” has a greater purpose than attacking our nation and citizenship in it. We can see it actively pursued daily and hourly: the denigration of fellow citizens as being somehow “White Supremacists” for our belief in the values and purposes of the U. S. A. That epithet can erase any truths we might speak, as though anyone ACCUSED of White Supremacy is so vile that he or she need not be listened to or acknowledged for our opinions about, well… anything. That is, even if our statements are true and evidence-backed, our having been accused of white supremacy makes them automatically hateful and UN-true. Tails we win, Heads, you lose. What are the values of U.S. citizenship that people have died to protect?

First among all is the protection and guarantee of unalienable rights under our exceptional Constitution. Nowhere else on this planet are people so protected – at least in intent – as in the United States. The most common relationship of governments to citizens / residents of their countries is one of dominance and control and subjective law enforcement. Despite the declamations of Barack Obama and others, the United States IS exceptional and our history proves it. Nowhere else has ANY nation fought a civil war in order to improve its legal structure and end slavery. Indeed, in many places, SLAVERY is still practiced! Even more, it is practiced here in America because of the Mexican cartels and the open-border policies and misfeasance of the Biden administration! Sex slavery and indentured labor is taking place under the guidance and policies of one our most racist presidents since Woodrow Wilson. To our shame… and his.

Next among exceptional protections is equal application of the laws. We have virtually emasculated this protection to our long-term danger. No one is “free” if some are punished according to the law while others, for non-legal reasons, are not. That is, if some are punished extra-legally or only through unusual stretching of word meanings in order to craft charges upon which unique prosecutions may be based. In the latter cases, the typical Constitutional protections are rendered inapplicable for some citizens. Perfect examples of this can be seen in the recent New York State conviction of Donald Trump for financial fraud where, in fact, no fraud occurred and no damage was done to anyone taking part in the questioned transactions. As part of his “judgment,” the judge required that the full value of his outrageous fine must be posted in cash or bond in order to exercise the common right of appeal. The Attorney General for the State of New York had campaigned for that office on a promise to “get” Donald Trump because of a series of unsubstantiated opinions of his political statements and policies during his 2017 – 2021 term as President.

The standards of jurisprudence should apply EQUALLY to all citizens of the United States, else the unique value of U. S. citizenship is cheapened to worthlessness. The politicization of law is the corrosive undermining of the United States that cannot be accomplished by external enemies… only by those of our neighbors who have turned against their own country: purveyors of treason.

In the current atmosphere of “open borders” and conscious failure to enforce immigration law, so-called “Constitutional rights” are being freely sprinkled upon illegal aliens, including, but certainly not limited to, guarantees of legal representation if charged with a crime. That is, upon encouragement for political reasons, to breech our legal, national borders, those entering our country ILLEGALLY, are immediately offered legal representation at the expense of the legal residents of the country. Adding to the IN-justice of government promulgated law-breaking are the cash and other direct benefits to people who have no statutory right to those benefits.

The concept of PRESENCE is, step-by-step, replacing the rights of CITIZENSHIP. Various regulations and laws have been emplaced that prevent agencies of governments that are legitimized by the votes of CITIZENS, from even asking about citizenship status in matters as diverse as drivers’ licensing to renting of housing, census surveys, qualification for public welfare, and, effectively, VOTING! One can fairly question how these rights, privileges and expenses can not only be legally conveyed to illegal entrants, but such questionable conveying may then be hidden from the citizenry on whose behalf, ostensibly, the government agents doing the conveying are supposedly SERVING (“public servants,” they). “It’s the law,” they say.

There must be something wrong with this. The “rights” of illegal entrants have taken precedence over the rights of citizens… citizens who are the ONLY LEGAL CONSTITUENTS of elected officials at any level of government. That is, the covenant between government and those who CREATED the government can apply only to citizens, the protection of citizens, the protection of the rights of CITIZENS and the protection of the property of CITIZENS. There is NO COVENANT with non-citizens. Whoever says or acts differently is a traitor. Simple.

Recent acts by leftist jurisdictions are diluting citizenship at an accelerated rate. In various cities non-citizens are being permitted to vote in “local” elections. Residents of Washington, D.C. even went to court to challenge an ordinance that permits non-citizens to vote in local elections and for ballot measures, even to serve in city government offices! Logically, and what ought to be, reasonably, they argued that U. S. citizens have a right, protected by the Constitution, the 5th and 14th Amendments among other provisions, to govern themselves. Therefore, no non-citizen should be able to govern them. The judge, displaying an all-too-common ignorance and bias against Constitutional Republicanism, ruled that since the plaintiffs had not articulated any damage to themselves, THEY HAD NO STANDING to bring the suit! The reasonable among us would immediately see that any non-citizen’s vote that opposed a citizen’s vote has disenfranchised the CITIZEN. This sounds – and is – illegal to do. Judge, are you paying attention… to anything?

In the immediate travesty-treason of the effective elimination of immigration laws and border protections, U. S. citizens have watched an estimated NINE MILLION illegal entrants swarm into U. S. territory with no meaningful resistance from the federal authorities whose legal charge is to prevent those very actions and results. To pour burning salt onto an open national sore, Democrats have fought off a recent attempt by Republicans to require that Constitutionally mandated census counts be limited to CITIZENS, only. What is the result of this intentional ignorance of the Constitutional covenant with the citizenry of the United States? A foul and subversive distortion of the Electoral College and other “representative” relationships of cities, states and citizens to the federal government.

The Democrat subversion effectively changes the number of representatives in Congress to which a state is entitled under the Constitution! Any reading of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, makes clear that it is the CITIZENS of the United States who are ratifying and PLACING THEMSELVES SUBJECT TO the conditions and RIGHTS embodied therein. Illegal entrants DO NOT HAVE THESE RIGHTS regardless of levels of empathy or sympathy from actual citizens. Ours is a nation of laws… until it isn’t. Shame on ANYONE who claims otherwise or who acts to unseat that truth. For shame.

Compounding the subversion of representation, the counted presence of illegal entrants distorts the number of Electoral College votes to which a state is entitled in the election of a President. This effect shifts elections to works of fraud. They are automatically tilted toward left-leaning states where the largest, strongly Democrat cities are located. It has the potential of disenfranchising large fractions of the states, where the election of Presidents is supposed to reside. It is such a blatant crime that reasonable people cannot believe it is actually happening. Democrats walk among us and even look like regular citizens. They live and work in our neighborhoods. Normal Americans who are concerned with external threats to our existence as a free and self-governing Republic, can’t imagine that fellow citizens would be working so deviously against the existence of our nation and our Constitutionally protected unalienable rights.

How wrong we’ve been. It would be Prudent to fight back and reclaim the legal basis of the United States. We have citizenship, after all. May God bless America.

Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Family, Governance, Immigration, Politics 2024, Representation, Taxation

THE PARTNERSHIP COVENANT

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Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, Oil on Canvas, Howard Chandler Christy

There is a term that is never heard in modern discussions about governance and government and citizens and citizenship. People who care – and pundits who often do not – spend much breath on politicians and on certain policies, issues, fads and economic problems… but, none employs the term, PARTNERSHIP. It is worth our consideration.

Understanding the place of partnership in the American system requires our grasp of the Constitution and its original intent. The Constitution is a COVENANT, not a LAW, necessarily, but a sacred agreement between the people who ratify it – us, at every election – and the people to whom we have granted power to create and protect an orderly society. It’s a bargain… an agreement to treat people equally under the laws that are passed ON BEHALF OF THE CITIZENS, the private half of the covenant, and it is a set of boundaries to restrain the human tendencies of those blessed with political, legal power, the public half of the covenant, to protect the citizens and to sanction those who commit criminal acts.

This is all well and good, but it is not the real story of the formation of a Constitutional Republic. Why establish a nation, no matter how beautiful or philosophical? Is it because God instructed mankind to take dominion over the Earth, so why not this piece of it and why not our self-selected fraction of mankind? That’s too much hubris for any group.

No. The Constitution was created because people had already formed – and fought for – a nation and national identity called America. People had moved here and were moving here to create better lives in a basically Christian and capitalist format, and their society could neither protect itself or its members without an agreed set of rules and bounds, recognized from within and without. As the Declaration of Independence had proclaimed, upon separation from an unjust form of dominance, the right to “…assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…” It is part of the Covenant that the existing population clearly proclaim its claim to certain territory AND the right to govern themselves as they see fit. A Covenant.

It seems Prudent to describe that covenant as a PARTNERSHIP. It is formed to protect the SUCCESS of the citizenry or, at the very least, to protect the opportunities to succeed for each citizen and family. Any government that ceases to “partner” and commences to “provide,” will shortly become tyrannical, for its “provider” attitude is based on a belief in the incompetence of its citizen-partners. It is a tiny slide from that attitude/altitude to believe that those at a “lower” altitude of competence will need rules to live by. This is not to say “rules” to avoid criminality, at least initially, but rules to govern daily, family and personal life. Almost abruptly, the sanctions for failing to follow rules governing one’s person, become new laws, the breech of which demand sanction as if criminal: a “police” state.

Lately, since, say, 1964, American politicians have concerned themselves more with countering or imposing incompetence-inspired “rules” for everyone’s life. Prudent contemplation shows this to be true. Combined with a relatively communistic takeover of education at all levels, the average intelligence, competence, maturity and self-reliance of Americans born since 1960 has plummeted. At the same time, as the administrative state has found reason to multiply the number of rules necessary to enable less competent citizens to survive, those who are more competent and politically connected have become wealthier and commercially controlling, often allying with government to impose even more rules on those of lesser economic standing… rules that political forces have been unable to impose. This is called Fascism, a slightly different-colored form of socialism, but still a police state

How refreshing it would be if a candidate for, well… ANY office, would introduce two rare policies into his or her campaign rhetoric and promises: clear, open honesty, and determination to render his or her future office as a tool for PARTNERING with citizens so that each might be more successful in life. Partnership and truth-telling. What remarkable promises to make, let alone fulfill.

How would a government-citizen partnership operate?

First, it would examine weaknesses in current systems, but that implies that it knows what the countervailing strengths ought to be. We could start with strong families.

There is no structure, program or law in the world, let alone in the United States, that is more effective in creation of “good” children and adults, than functional FAMILIES. At risk of offending a few, those are families with a married mother and father, who are able to provide for themselves and their children. Every threat to successful child-rearing is dramatically lessened in a married-couple environment. Sadly, our own governments, federal, state and county / municipal, are geared up and funded to encourage single-parent family units – the opposite of what actually works the best. We know this to be true in every single jurisdiction, yet we keep growing the socialist, administrative welfare state.

Should our “governors” choose to become partners in our success, the welfare state would be the first place to reform almost everything that comprises it.

The overarching question for any successful society as for any family: “How are the children?” – obviously connects with the state of education, public and private. A true partnership between citizens and government would dictate that government schools, at least, be employed to perform their primary educational mission, while reinforcing the desires and intentions of parents. Fighting with parents over alternate ways to raise children is a decided breech of that partnership covenant implied in the Constitution.

Economic freedom is the key social pillar of success in the modern economy. Partnership by a government granted its powers by the people, would imply that government would neither punish citizens through taxation nor destroy the value of the money they earn. Clearly, Washington and the 50 States’ governors have a long way to go to restore partnership in place of financial serfdom. Not only are those on welfare rendered financial serfs, but so are most taxpayers. On our behalf, our “representatives” and governors have contrived a debt greater than the economic output of the entire nation, soon to require payment of nearly ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in annual interest payment. No effort is underway to reduce that debt or to reduce the deficit spending that adds to it. This is a strange partnership.

Economic independence from the government and from welfare, should be the goal of the government in a Constitutional Republic. That is, the success of our Constitutional structure can be measured only by the reduction in dependence upon that government. A bloated, largely uncontrolled administrative state is the glowing example of FAILURE of our Constitutional system. The only reason it has survived as long as it has is its ability – shrinking ability – to coddle the population and businesses with borrowed “money” and comforts. Now that a roughly communistic presidency has been installed, the ability of the government to continue on this path is nearing its end. Both internal and external forces are gathering against the administrative / executive state. The partnership promised by representation is dissolving with every failure to budget the people’s money, and with every thousand-page “bill.” Soon the nation will be unable to afford to defend itself.

The FIRST job of partnership is to protect the citizenry, not the last.

A true partnership… which is to say, the truth of the Constitutional covenant, would be marked by partnering with every CITIZEN to facilitate his or her enjoyment of the RIGHTS guaranteed by the Constitution. Sadly, the federal and states’ governments are currently consumed with using the Constitution and tens of thousands of laws and rules to CONTROL the people rather than helping each succeed in life. “Expertly managed failure” is how our governors measure their success, not ours. Our success merits some form of punishment amidst a set of accusations and sanctions, even to the point of separating us from our own children. Soon, Americans will be looking for partnership with fellow citizens in order to return our Constitution to supremacy. Certainly the present government will not do so.

May God grant us the ability to accomplish restoration through elections, and the strength to prevail should they fail.

Governance, Politics 2024, Responsibility

ARTICLE V

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There is a genius element to Article V. It’s short, providing for the Amendment process, including the option of what amounts to a non-government, people-driven process. It is time for people to get to work employing this Constitutional stroke of genius.

There are two paths to amendment. The first 18 words describe how two-thirds of BOTH houses of congress can propose amendments to the Constitution. The next 21 words stipulate that upon application of two-thirds of the LEGISLATURES of the States, “The Congress” SHALL CALL a Convention for the purpose of proposing amendments. In either case, the proposed amendments shall be ratified when three-fourths of the legislatures of the States ratify it/them, or when conventions in three-fourths of the states ratify it/them. It does say that The Congress may state which Mode of Ratification shall be used in either case. Americans are not taught much about the Articles of the Constitution, although a lot of time is spent on the Bill of Rights and other hot-button amendments. We should consider carefully what the founders did in Article V.

Article V is the ONLY provision that allows for “re-balancing” our government in the likely event that powers carefully delineated and divided among what seemed to be natural interests in a Republic, became concentrated or ignored as government types trended toward authoritarianism. Wisely, the authors of the Constitution did not trust government. They did their best to send it forth as a government deriving its just powers from the governed. Human nature – and communism, the antithesis of human nature – has come dangerously close to overthrowing the structure of and our existence as, a nation… except that we have a “frame-straightening” tool in Article V. It is referred to as the “Convention of the States.”

Most, if not all of the changes that need to be made to the structure and function of government, have to do with archaic rules and procedures that have become arbitrary and authoritarian in an age of instant and readily manipulable media. In addition, most, if not all, have served to increase the powers of government types, their agencies and departments, while restricting and limiting the freedoms and sovereignty of citizens. The results include near destruction of our fiscal standing and ability to respond to national threats, and to nearly discard the concept of a Constitutional Republic and the majestic nature of American citizenship. Article V provides a way for CITIZENS to petition their State’s legislatures to approve participation in calling for a “Convention of the States” that is not controlled by Congress or any other component of the Federal government. The importance of this CIVIL RIGHT cannot be overstated. 34 states must approve the calling of such a Convention.

There are no limitations on what may be considered for amendment or guidelines as to what must be considered. After 50 to 60 years of diminishing education about the Constitution or about the exceptional nature of U. S. citizenship and our responsibilities as citizens, coupled with severe slippage in moral instruction, religious input or classical philosophy, our existence as an independent nation-state is facing its greatest threat. One element of that threat is how to control the quality and philosophy of delegates from the States to the Convention of the States. Without question, leftists will fight to dominate every delegation, seeing the potential power of amendment as a short-cut to destruction of the American idea and ideals. Those who are in favor of utilizing this unique Article V tool for “fixing” government, must be strongly organized to guide the makeup of delegations that will adhere to the greatest extent possible, to the ideas that underlay the original drafting of the Constitution, itself. What are some corrupting practices that it would be Prudent to correct?

1) Term Limits. Dozens of House and Senate candidates – and Presidential candidates – claim to support “term limits” for elected federal office-holders, but each knows that there is virtually no path for achieving that change if the Congress is to be depended upon to propose that amendment to Article I, Sections 2 and 3. Immediately we hear that… “there already are term limits: they’re called ‘elections.’” While strictly true, it didn’t prevent the worthies in the House and Senate from proposing the Twenty-second Amendment to impose term limits on the office of President. Franklin Roosevelt showed that elections couldn’t be relied upon in the modern era to limit the accumulation of power by elected office-holders. The very same is true for Representatives and Senators.

It doesn’t seem Prudent to create a class of people who CAN’T run for Congress, so a term-limiting that is based on consecutive terms and a stipulated number of terms out of office may be fairer and more practical.

2) Budgeting. Every line item in the ridiculously monstrous Federal Budget deserves SOME oversight and literal forensic analysis. In other words, the actual nature of the work being funded should be analyzed as to effectiveness of achieving the purpose(s) for which the office, title, agency or department was created and originally funded. With somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 such “executive” line items, it is practically impossible to oversee them all. A Republic – a Constitutional Republic – cannot survive or even function according to its covenant with its citizens, when THREE-FOURTHS of its spending is untouchable by the People’s and the States’ representatives. Even more threatening is the flood of regulations that emanates from the “Administrative State” with the force of law, penalty and punishment with virtually no accountability to the People’s and States’ representatives. Standards should be stipulated for retention of ANY federal program.

3) Budgeting. Except in times of declared War, the Federal Government should be limited to collection and expenditure of a maximum percentage of 18% of the Gross Domestic Product of the U. S. economy. Further, the Federal budget should be balanced at that level of expenditure.

4) Taxation. Taxes must be neither punitive nor manipulative, and… everyone should pay his or her fair share. This includes people on public relief as well as billionaires. Rather than the huge jumps in rates that our current “progressive” tax tables use, there should be 28 steps: 1 basic and universal rate and 27 marginal rates up to a total of 28% with very few fixed rates for special types of investment. All 28 rates should adjust every two years in order to balance the federal budget, which should also shift to bi-annual budgeting, set for two-year periods.

5) Entitlements. There is no free lunch. There are a hundred “entitlements” baked into federal expenditures. Disingenuously, Social Security is lumped together with various forms of “welfare” when it is, in fact, a set of contracts with mandated investors. With its codified duplicity, the federal government, spurred on by our Citizen and State representatives in the Congress, has stolen the money in the Social Security Trust Fund, and they’ve done so for about 8 decades. As a band-aid of “exchange” for spending that money on all sorts of unrelated expenses, the Treasury deposits United States interest-bearing bonds in the so-called “trust fund.” Sadly, the ability to continue paying out to legitimate S.S. recipients is dependent upon federal taxation AND borrowing from the future. This makes Social Security, one of the largest taxes on American workers, also one of the largest contributors to U. S. insolvency and a target for leftists whenever challenged about “overspending.”

Today, Social Security is grouped along with other “entitlements,” which makes it subject to the calculations of Congress when it ought to be sacrosanct as a regulated “pay-in, pay-out” system of investment for retirement. Workers and, ostensibly, their employers, are forced to “contribute” up to 15% of payroll to Social Security. The government spends the cash – many hundreds of billions – on numerous critical needs, not least of which are the needs of individuals who never paid into the system. Not only do government bonds generate insufficient returns to cover lawful payouts to those who paid in, but requirements for how long one must pay in and what their payouts will be at certain ages of retirement, are changed for political purposes, not for financial ones. For the past 50 years it has been obvious to the clear-thinking that Social Security was at risk of going bust. Some financial changes have been made, including changes to approved retirement ages, but political calculations have never changed. The attacks on Republicans, who are usually the ones who want to make changes aimed at continued solvency of the Fund, never change. There is a political fear of being accused of “taking away your Social Security” that causes even the smartest politicians to campaign on a promises to “always protect your Social Security.”

What should be included among amendments that can reign in authoritative government, is the essential “privatization of Social Security. That is, that the mandate to fund retirements should be a requirement the dollars of which are owned and carefully managed (by regulated financial advisors) by individuals in funds that will grow at more the twice the rate of the Social Security Fund typically has, and will be part of a family’s estate upon the death of the employee/investor. This will place government into partnership with its citizens in the ultimate success and independence of each one and each family. This will change the current relationship which effectively dictates how independent – or DEPENDENT – every worker and family can be. Individual retirement should not be subject to the historic financial idiocy of the Congress.

6) Federal employment and related costs. Working for the federal government in its hundreds and hundreds of offices, agencies and departments, has become a better career than is common – or average – in the private economy. Federal employees are far less likely to be fired for poor or mal-performance, enjoy more time off and better health coverage and pensions than most workers. Little by little, the role of servant and served have reversed: American workers are basically working and going in to astronomical debt for the benefit of public employees, most of whom are also unionized. Those same are able to use forms of police powers to regulate and restrict the citizens they “serve.”

The relationship of federal employees and their employment security and rates of pay and benefits should be limited to a fair ratio to that of typical employees in the private sector. There should also be upper limits to maximum pay for federal employees and executives. Federal employment needn’t be unpleasant or inadequately compensated, but not so richly, either, that it exceeds the economic safety and comfort of other workers. Further, the ability of supervisors and managers to fire poor employees should be no more difficult than is found in private industry.

It isn’t Prudent to limit the ideas brought forth in the “Convention of the States” to those of any one patriot. The Convention itself, however, is our last best hope to save the future of the United States of America.

Elections, Foreign Policy, Governance, Politics 2023, Politics 2024, Responsibility

AMERICA – Article II

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The second-most important “branch” of our Republic’s government is the Executive. To most people, this means the President, or “The White House.” It is much, much larger than that – grievously so. There is no accurate count of the number of Departments, Agencies, Offices and Titles that are funded, almost without question or oversight, in the sloppy budgeting process that Congress standardly fails to control. The total is well over a thousand; how close to two thousand, no one can tell. If Congress were forced to oversee every line-item in the budget, we’d probably see a quick reduction, consolidation or elimination of hundreds of these tax-consuming, practically parasitic entities. But Article II is about the powers of the Executive, how he (or she) is elected, and to what actions the President and his/her appointees are sworn.

Mostly, voters and other citizens (we hope, citizens) are concerned about and are told about how well the President is fulfilling his promises in office. The President is NOT the most powerful person in his “administration.” Who is, varies.

Among the “big” Departments – “Cabinet-level Departments” – are Defense, Treasury, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Labor, State, Transportation and Veterans Affairs. Originally, there were just 4 men who comprised Washington’s “cabinet,” a relatively informal group of advisors: Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War, Henry Knox and Attorney General, Edmund Randolph. Each was a “founder” of the new nation and involved in the creation of the Constitution. Each had his views of how the government should be administered and what the Federal Government’s interactions with “the people” and with the States, should be. We are still deciding.

Washington’s status was such that no one was prepared to attack him directly, but political parties soon developed as politically powerful leaders like Hamilton and Jefferson, Madison, Adams and Monroe, among others, and Jackson, later, sought followers to their views. These were the “factions” that were feared by Madison and others writing in the “Federalist Papers.” Washington sought statesmanship from his advisors… like his own. But it became rarer and rarer as party factionalism took hold. The framers of the Constitution expected loyalty to States to be the competing interests that would, in effect, strengthen the new Union of States. Party factionalism, as we can see today, has nearly obliterated those sovereign concerns, as Federal power has become the big prize… and source of wealth both licit and illicit.

The election of a President is done by the Electoral College, one of the earliest topics in Article II, to which 376 words are devoted. The framers, fairly fresh from the Revolutionary War, were very concerned about the creation of an executive officer, having lately fought against executive excess. They did not want the selection process to be “democracy” without severe restrictions that protected the rights of States. The model Republic they hoped to create would have “checks” and “balances” on executive power and even on legislative power. As much as was workable – if not practical – they wanted a chance for statesmanship and reflection to filter out “faction” and emotion in the selection of a President. Their wisdom resulted in the Electoral College. Today we can see the Constitutional mechanisms that are most worth defending by the nature of the heated emotions that wish to sidestep them, altogether. Every Presidential “election” is blanketed with statistics about the “popular vote,” especially when the Electoral winner received fewer votes in gross total than the person who did not win in the Electoral college. That he or she did or didn’t is immaterial; but the “popular vote” is announced by all media as if it mattered.

The Constitution does not provide for National elections; we have State elections, now 50 of them, by law on the same day. Every 4 years, citizens of the 50 states elect slates of Electors who will later vote in the “Electoral College” for the President / Vice-President “ticket” to which they are committed, having gained a majority or a plurality of the popular vote in their respective States. Every State’s election stands on its own, irrespective of the size of the majority or plurality of the popular vote in other states. We employ democratic process to elect people whose Constitutional function strengthens the REPUBLIC. The REPUBLIC is strengthened by the federation of its sovereign States; the rights and sovereignty of those States must be protected and defended by the powers ceded to the federal government. It was the citizens of States – States that pre-existed the federal government and the federation, itself – who ratified the Constitution and the Bill of Rights: the first ten amendments without which ratification would have been impossible.

The two keys to our Republic’s success and endurance include an EXECUTIVE who is checked by the power of the people – expressed in Congress – and, as John Adams incisively stated (one might say, predicted), “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We have embarked on a course of denying government responsibility for promoting morality. Indeed, we are rushing to make legal immoral actions in order for governments at every level to share in their illicit proceeds. What a foul recalculation of the meaning of liberty.

Presidents after Washington have pressed for greater freedom of action without the slow action of Congress, almost continuously. Abraham Lincoln was the first to suspend basic rights due to the emergencies of the Civil War. The relationship of the federal government to individual citizens changed dramatically in the years following, and even before the end of Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation applied Executive power to the problems of black individuals in multiple states. Following the war a federal agency, the “Pension Office” under the authority of the “Commissioner of Pensions” organized to evaluate claims due to both physical and mental injuries incurred during the Civil War. Today there are, as noted above, well over 1,000 federal agencies and departments. Ostensibly, the President directs their work and function but, in fact, most of the Executive “branch” runs on its own, including lobbying Congress for never-ending funding and support.

The President is charged with being the “Commander in Chief” of the Army and Navy (and added military branches, now) AND OF THE “Militias” of the several states when called into service of the United States. Who those “Militias” are is not well-defined, although referenced in the Constitution and in the Second Amendment. Pre-existing the Army, the “National Guard” grew from colonial militias who defended against “Indian” attack, especially as the “frontier” encroached on Native lands, and later against the French and their native allies.

The “Army” was created from the Militias and State “Guards” during the Revolutionary War. Had it not been for General George Washington’s personal leadership, the Revolution would have failed as soldiers completed their periods of voluntary service, but who stayed to complete Washington’s mission of independence. It is difficult to grasp the privation and sacrifice required to pursue the war with Britain; few in today’s America are capable of what Revolutionary soldiers endured.

The Minutemen of Massachusetts grew, purposefully, out of the regiments of Militia. They were trained by veterans of the Indian and French-Indian wars and were the defenders against the British at Lexington and Concord, as the British sought to disarm the colonists. More regiments from Massachusetts served in the “Continental Army” than from any other colony/State, and formed the basis of the United States Army. The President is charged, ultimately, with command – and DEPLOYMENT – of all of the military forces, including calling up Reserve troops and the National Guard(s) of the several States, WITHOUT a declaration of a state of War, which only the Congress can effect. The “War Powers Act” in 1973, changed the basic relationship dictated by the Constitution.

In response to President Nixon’s secret bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, Congress attempted to reign in the creeping expansion of Presidential powers as Commander in Chief. Still, it recognized the perceived need for swift response to armed actions almost anywhere in the world where the PRESIDENT can articulate (within 48 hours of taking military action for up to 60 days without further Congressional approval) a “national interest” of the United States. This is a codification of the U. S.’s perceived role as “the world’s policeman,” and a dangerous relinquishing of Congressional, and, therefore, States’ authority over the commitment of their citizens to actions of deadly threat. All in all it is a stark example of how the Executive has become the super-representative of “the American people,” basically in opposition to Congress’ Constitutional power of representing the will of the citizens of the several States.

Since the end of World War II, and most particularly following the assassination of President Kennedy, the “federal” government has rushed to become a “National” government, directly undercutting the design of the Constitution for a Republic of united, somewhat sovereign States. Every heated declaration of “threat to our democracy” or “protecting our democracy” is premised on the desire for pure “majority rule” in the wielding of “national” power, no matter how temporarily a majority might be created for any cause or idea, rather than a republic-like careful deliberation and application of wisdom before action is taken or changes to governance made.

Constant reference to the Constitution and its amendments, is necessary to measure how far we have drifted from, and how much further some wish for us to drift from, the ideals and responsibilities of the American experiment and the “limited” Executive thereof.