I am prone to applaud any effort restoring the constitutional form of republican government. As our nation finds itself in an increasingly debilitated state, the mandate is clear; the time is now. Right now!
A companion to the previous though is the importance of considering the requisite outcome and the lead-time required to affect it. As was/is the case with the current economic and political environment, bear in mind these things just didn’t happen overnight. They took years to evolve and metastasize in to the purulent form we observe today. Rest assured their correction will consume an immense amount of time and discipline all of which begs the question; Can We UnDo what has been done?
I’m considerate of two key areas that need to be addressed; political and economic processes. The risk of oversimplifying the remedies is quite severe and lumping the maize in to these two distinct terms, considering issues of space and time, seems to be the best possible approach to convey the following observation:
“The greater risk of government is its tendency toward submission to spontaneous bias whereby it applies the artifice of government perpetually expressing the influence of the influential. What evolves from this process is not a representative result but a system that becomes both indifferent to and reliant upon its own abuses.”
And,
“The People become forever burdened by the unknown good intrusive government silences.”
So then let me offer a few quick comments of how these (above) observations appear to play in the domain of the two distinctions referenced above:
Political:
- Partisan Politics: In a representative form of government, the fundamental ideal is to express the will of the people who grant the very existence of said government. The process of representative government evokes its form, strangely, by drawing ranks as to those it will represent (by the way, this is not how our system was designed or intended); either Democrat or Republican which begs (or should) the question: How is the will of the people dutifully represented when there is one controlling or dominant interest? How is the expression of the ruling party capable of representing the will of the people when it excludes the unrepresented? The most obvious example of this is the Health Care Bill passed in the first quarter of last year as well as all of the actions of the 111th Congress “lame-duck” session.
- Constitutional Reference: With no intension of mocking the new Speaker, Mr. Boehner, but isn’t the newly suggest requirement that all legislative submission be accompanied by a constitutional reference seem a bit anemic? After all what possible proposal offered by a congressperson would not slither through political muster when filtered thru the extraordinarily thalic interpretations of the Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) and/or the Necessary and Property Clause (Article I, Section 8, clause 18). More over, looking to the past actions of both branches (executive and legislative) there are few efforts of government debasement that haven’t been affirmed by invoking these provisions as their foundational reference. The current legal battle over Health Care revolves around the applicability of the Commerce Clause and clearly ignores issue as to its lack of form and function or for that matter the fact that the people are firm in their opposition to it.
“…a system that becomes both indifferent to and reliant upon its own abuses.”
Economic:
- Debt Limit: Soon the public will hear more and more on this issue. It will appear as or along the following hot-button mediums: …if we don’t increase the federal debt limit then the government will default on its obligations. Another; …I will not vote for a debt limit extension unless we have assurances that we have a strategic plan for addressing ‘jobs’ and ‘budget cuts’. The federal debt ceiling is a statutory mechanism limiting how much debt the Federal Government can either hold or accumulate. To be sure, it is not a simple issue fortunately though its complexity is limited only to the extent of the nature and type of securities and instruments; in the end, it is easily defined as being (only) the total notional (dollar) value of debt. My thought on the subject is this: No increasing of the debt limit. The debt limit is presently at $14.3 Trillion (however know that it is nearly double that if you consider instruments issued directly by the Federal Reserve, an unregulated Agent of the U.S. Government, that the U.S. Treasury is also responsible for) not to mention all of the debt that the government guarantees to Wall Street Bailouts, TARP, FHA, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, the VA, unfunded liabilities and so on. The Debt the Government has miss-managed to accumulate is not because the Debt Limit isn’t high enough, it because there is no prohibition against Government accumulating the debt in the first place! Cure the debt problem by controlling spending, not by increasing taxes and increasing debt. The uncontrolled urge of the Politician to gain influence through uncontrolled spending must stop. On point: I believe there should be a constitutional amendment prohibiting government debt-spending.
- Economic Remedy: This will be a short one! This nation’s economic problem, like health care, is not the result of a malfunctioning economic model or economic process. It is the direct fault of government interfering with the process due to its uncontrolled urge to legislate the bias of influential interests. Government, and much of our population, is under the impression you can legislature a desired and organic outcome; that is never the case. Our government proves the truth of this statement, habitually. Until such time as the overburden of government (including tax code and trade agreements) is removed from the process there will be no economic recovery. This nation is too far down the road of economic disintegration to be able to pick-up at the point of failure and resume.
“…the unknown good intrusive government silences.”
This could be a year that history will record as a turning point in the process of recovering the Nation; demonstrating once again the sovereign resolve of a people who will forever defy the odds posing deceptively in opposition.
Can We UnDo? Yes, I believe we can but first we must UnDo the processes that allow, accommodate and/or license the processes that have brought this Nation to its knees.
Participate at every level and let you representatives know of your resolve insisting that they understand and deliver on the promise which is implicit in your Declaration of Independence:
“Man must be Free for Independence to be at Liberty to be expressed!”
We must remove the assignment of political reference in favor of the common ideal obliged to all or as Thomas Jefferson expressed:
“The freedom and happiness of man… [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.”
This nation finds itself in its present state more so because of government doing what it was never intended and not because of it doing to little of it.
UnDo this and the balance of consequence will resolve unopposed.
Curtis C. Greco, Founder
