I'm sure most of my readers saw or heard Mr. Biden's pronouncements yesterday about COVID-19 and new measures to deal with it.
There's just one little problem about most of his decrees. They are not constitutional. The President does not have the legal authority to do those things. Therefore, those of us who have sworn to "support and defend" the constitution, and who take our oaths seriously, are going to respond to his decrees accordingly.
The same goes for any organ(s) of government that try to enforce those decrees. They, too, lack the constitutional authority to do that; therefore, their actions will be ipso facto and prima facie illegal. A great many Americans already know how to deal with those who try to force them into doing something by illegal means.
As I've said before, we're dealing with usurpers of power who have to double down on their illegal seizure of power, because they have nothing to lose. They know what will happen to them if when they're deposed. We can therefore expect them to try to impose Mr. Biden's plans upon us (or, rather, not his plans, but the plans of those behind him), any and every way they can, in order to force us into compliance, compel our obedience, and overcome our resistance. It's up to us to stop them in their tracks. By all means, let that be through legal methods if possible.
St. Francis of Assisi is reputed to have said, "Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." Those of us who've sworn an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and promised to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same" can understand his words. We are now called upon to "support and defend" legitimate, constitutional authority against its illegitimate, unconstitutional enemies, wherever they may be found. To do so is (or should be) a way of life, not mere words. If we have to live up to our oath, well, we won't be the first Americans who've had to confront that reality. May we be worthy of, and live up to, the example the best among them have set us.
Let's accept, too, that fulfilling our oath is likely to come at a price. Let us not flinch from paying it, if necessary.
On social media yesterday, this clip from the TV series Babylon 5 was circulating. It's eerily prescient about how disdainfully and contemptuously the current denizens of the Capitol and the White House are treating our constitution.
Let's make sure the powers that be don't get away with the same thing in our non-fictional time.
I'll let Samuel Adams have the last word.
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Peter
14 comments:
An awful lot of Babylon 5 is looking eerily prescient these days. Including that Psi Cop from "Spider in the Web" who's now appearing as the White House Press Secretary. Oh, and the giggling tyrant-in-waiting, Cartagia Harris.
As for actions being blatantly unconstitutional... within living memory, one worried about public officials having dirty secrets that could be used to apply pressure to them. More recently, it's become acceptable to manufacture dirty secrets out of whole cloth. And I fear we're getting into the final pressure category: "Nice kids you've got there, Justice. Be a shame if anything was to happen to them."
Don't expect much from the Supreme Court. Outright threats from the pro-Government Left will not draw the attention of Federal law enforcement. The Court has no enforcement arm of its own. And, after all, the Deimocrats have spent the last four-plus years trying to delegitimize the Court.
I'm not getting the current batch of "vaccines" and I'm sure as hell not paying for the weekly tests that the bill says will be required for work either. At what point do we push back?
The problem with this is: Who decides what is Constitutional, and what do they do about it if it isn't? Everyone is sitting around, waiting for someone else to do something about it.
Are you going to be the one who quits his job? Or are you going to say "I don't work for a company with more than 100 people, so I won't be forced to get the jab. However, that guy over there who DOES should quit working to prove my point."
Or are you waiting for the courts to take your side? Perhaps you think we can vote our way out of this. You just wait for the next election! We will show them!
The CDC didn't have the power to suspend evictions, either, but they did it and people respected and obeyed it. Just sayin'.
I was a youngster, but I remember 1964 when the Supreme Court deliberatly and without any authority destroyed representative democracy within the individual states. After that ruling, entire counties ended up without a single representative or senator in the states' legislatures. It took a while, but finally high-population counties ruled the states. One-man-one-vote is exactly what the founders feared most.
See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964):
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/377/533/
It was Samuel Adams' second cousin, John Adams who, when he became president, begin the dismantling of the Constitution with his "Alien and Sedition Acts" in 1798. Newspapers were shut down, reporters were tossed in the slammer, and criticism of the government was made illegal.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall continued the destruction of "the law of the land" with Marbury (1805).
It has been downhill since then. The Antifederalists were right. They claimed that the Constitution would result in an usurpation of the States' powers and lead to federal tyranny. And it is to the Antifederalists---Patrick Henry among them---that we owe the Bill of Rights.
The Federalists, naturally, thought such written rights were unnecessary.
Does any politician today use the Constitution to justify his actions? These jackdaws do not even know what sort of government was founded back in 1787. They yelp about "our democracy!" when the fact is that the form of government founded by the Constitution was a Constitutional Republic.
Hm...seems to me old Sam Adams is saying, "if you don't like it here; leave". Amazing isn't it; that isn't a new sentiment.
Steve: That’s exactly what he was saying.
I should have added that the signing of the Constitution in 1787 was itself---wait for it---”unconstitutional”. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention were given no authority to usurp the law of the land, the Articles of Confederation. They were sworn to simply modify it. But like our politicians today, they ignored the law and invented an entirely new government. We call such things a “coup d’etat.”
The Articles were a superior form of government. They did not allow slavery in the territories. They did not allow a coercive income tax. They sold all new land added to the nation at remarkably cheap prices, thereby allowing the creation of a substantial middle class. They gave the States more power than the federal government.
We are ruled by lawless men and an unlawful regime.
Authority comes from the barrel of a gun.
The Constitution is no longer worth the paper it's written on. Creepy Uncle Joe the Usurper already told the Supremes, "Come over here and make me!"
Dammit, Babylon 5 was supposed to be a warning, not a playbook!
And we're stuck between Season 2 and 3, and the Shadows are ruling the land through their little puppet creatures that live on our 'dear leaders' ' shoulders.
Gah.
And... Dammit, "The Hunger Games" was also supposed to be a warning, not a playbook. Dammit.
All I wanted was to be left alone, to die of old age, to leave my small mark on the world and pass on. I just wanted to be left alone.
There are so many people now that it is hard to organize resistance, unless we just want to go out and destroy everything like the lib groups do.
NTTAWWT.
@Mike Austin:
The Federalists counted on honor and decency to control those in power.
BWAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
@Beans: Same for Orwell's "1984", Huxley's "Brave New World", and Bradbury's "Farhenheit 451".
@Aesop: Did you see I quoted you in one of my recent pieces?
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