April 8th, 2012 - The Week That Was

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The above quote is the last sentence of the Declaration of Independence. Though not a document that speaks to the operation of democratic self rule government in the manner of the United States Constitution, the Declaration does clearly demonstrate the belief of the seriousness concerning the undertaking the framers and founders were about to undertake in the battle for and creation of their fledgling new nation.

Two news events this week speaks to how far askew the body politic has gone in abandoning the serious understanding the framers and founders had about the nature of government and the governmental structure clearly embedded within the Constitution.

Consider this from the theater of the absurd.

The recent GSA party scandal has been blamed by the current administration as being the fault of the previous administration, one that left power over three years ago. The responsibility for assuming the reins pf power apparently extends only as far as potential good news; the straight faced pronouncements of laying blame elsewhere, anywhere, seems to be taken by the White House press corps as fact. Consider the implications of assigning responsibility to a previous administration without any trace of culpability by the current residents of power: our current strained relations with China could be blamed upon the initial overtures made by the Nixon presidency back in the 1970’s. The nonsensical possibilities for political mischief stagger the mind. The American people will allow for a short term shift of responsibility; history shows that there is a roughly six month grace period as the new administration settles in, but to assign fault after three years must be viewed as the imbecilic political stance that it is, and thus be held up for ridicule.

From the ridiculous to the serious takes us to comments made by the President this week. President Obama, in discussing the Supreme Courts’ upcoming decision on the Affordable Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare, actually stated that it would be “unprecedented” for a “group of unelected individuals” to overturn a democratically passed  act of Congress.

(The tragic hypocrisy is that while at literally the same time the President was making this point his administration was presenting  its case to a federal appeals court to overturn the congressionally passed Defense of Marriage Act.)

The President taught constitutional law, and the scope of this statement is beyond troubling. It is no way ‘unprecedented’; the Supreme Court is constitutionally mandated to be comprised of appointed jurists, and the President recently appointed two members of the court.

His summation point was that the court should not overturn the law, because of the negative effect it would have upon those who are currently reaping benefits of the Affordable Care Act.

The statement is either ignorant or laying the foundation for an assault on the Constitution. The Supreme Court, or any court, is by definition required to adjudicate the matter before them solely on the facts; the Supreme Court is to decide issues solely upon their constitutionality. Attempting to inject emotional quotients into the deliberative process is nothing short of political grandstanding and at its heart shows contempt for the Constitution.

President Obama has already spoken on his belief that the Constitution is a series of ‘negative rights’; what the government cannot do; he believes it should state what the government CAN do under its governing document.

The Constitution was specifically written as it was to delineate the equal bodies of government, and limited the extent of their powers exactly to provide for a greater liberty and freedom for her people.

These two events speak to the threat upon our august document, and  to the beliefs of our framers and founders.

We must remain vigilant to the assaults upon them, or we shall indeed perish from the face of the earth.