A bunch of rag-tag, revolutionary, youngsters were trying to decide how best to establish a new form of government, from scratch. They had just defeated the preeminent military power of their time, winning freedom when all smart betting money backed the establishment British. Well, the long shot, dark horse combatant won the war. Now what? Let’s dig.
Our Founding Fathers, at the time mere lads in their teens, twenties, and thirties, had an idea: self-governance. But how? Human Nature is an even more difficult foe than the British (or the French, or the Spanish). If given an opportunity, those that govern will RULE those that are governed—whether established via monarchy, military junta, or with pure political upheaval (the latter is applicable). So, they borrowed some structural basics from British Common Law. Sprinkled in a bit of John Locke. And added in their own paranoid features to their blueprint of how our government should work: a Republic of States, governed by the US Constitution. Yeah, they tried and failed miserably under the existing Articles of Confederation. So much so, that the new Constitution was also an attempt to solve the problems created by the Articles: they HAD to have a consistent Federal presence, since the States were not truly independent countries, as the Articles had perceived them.
They HAD to have a single currency, a way to settle disputes among the States, and a single voice of Foreign Affairs when dealing with other countries. So, the US Constitution was born, but it was not a smooth delivery. Every word of that document was painstakingly debated, both at the Constitutional Convention, and in the public media, via the Federalist Papers. They truly wanted enough checks and balances in place to prevent the government from overreaching its powers—they wanted a system where freedom was the default setting, with rock-solid ‘rights’ codified by the Constitution, but granted by their Creator. Note that the Bill Of Rights was not intended to be comprehensive, but just the most noteworthy of the citizens’ rights. They succeeded in creating the greatest political document in history. They separated those that create laws from those that administer those laws, from those that adjudicate them. They defined a two-House system, with one House, the House of Representatives, as the voice of The People; a second House, the Senate, as the voice of the States. Both Houses had to agree on the content of new laws, or they simply were not passed. As a further constraint, the head of the Executive Branch, the President, must sign off on bills for them to become LAW. They even created a method to override the President’s veto, if the bill had enough support of both Houses. They even codified a method to change their handiwork document, a process called ‘amending’, so that future challenges could be dealt with by the people of their times. The Founders even put in place ways for the Branches to police themselves, up to and including ‘impeachment’ (removal from office) of Presidents and judges! But the biggest flaw our Founders had to overcome: the statesmen of the time were highly educated, mostly selfless, and most assuredly honorable and honest men. There was an expectation that legislators and statesmen of the future would retain those qualities, but there was no way to enforce those characteristics upon future men (and women).
Fast forward a few hundred years. Nearly every word of the US Constitution is under legal or procedural attack. Even the bedrock Bill Of Rights is under siege. And those ‘rights’ not under attack are just ignored entirely (see: 10th Amendment). The checks and balances between the Branches are either ignored or overstepped on a routine basis. Judges create law from the bench; Presidents create law via Executive Orders (which were intended to clarify enforcement and priorities of existing laws, not create new); both Houses of Congress routinely propose legislation that is clearly outside of the written meaning of the Constitution, and most definitely outside the spirit of the document. The individual States are now just agents of the Federal Government Leviathan, with the only differences between the States being local taxation and criminal law variances—all superseded by that Federal Government.
But more importantly, the statesmen legislators have given way to career politicians. Some of these rascals have been in office for DECADES—some have had no other job BUT politician! And the assumption of learned, selfless, moral representatives? Yeah. We currently have the entire Executive Branch ignoring the laws they do not like, and over-enforcing those they do. We have Federal ‘policies’ in place regarding immigration that are blatantly illegal regarding written, passed laws—we even have our military tasked to transport illegal immigrants to all corners of the country! If anyone can find the legality of that process, please inform this author. Then we have our famous ‘insurrection’ of January 6, 2021. I put ‘insurrection’ in quotes because not one person has been charged with that specific crime, but that is exactly the enforcement method being bandied about by the Executive and Legislative Branches (aided by a complicit media). Remember those ‘rights’ mentioned above? See the 4th and 5th Amendments. Those rights have been conveniently ignored for all arrested for their alleged part in the protest. So far, those people have been jailed for nearly a year (no ‘speedy trials’ here); they are silenced as if they were guilty without a trial. There is no bail. Yet the most severe ‘charge’ so far: trespassing and minor property damage. Normal handling of such charges would be an overnight jail stay, followed by a low- or no-bail release, with a court date set. Not here. These are true ‘political prisoners’, in every way—the kind of treatment our Constitution was intended to prevent.
So, the overreaching problem we now have: what do we do when the Branches of Government break the law? What recourse do citizens have when the Executive Branch operates illegally? What method do we pursue when citizens are completely denied their rights, yet illegal aliens are given precedent over those citizens, exercising ‘rights’ that citizens do not have? Whom do we address our grievances to when the criminals are the government themselves? Thus far, the Supreme Court has been of no help in either case. Maybe they will correct such wrongdoings, but I have no faith in them—especially since they have no enforcement mechanism anyway. Perhaps our Founders knew the precise answer of what to do with a government that exempts itself from following the laws it passes for the rest of us. I was looking in the wrong document—I should have been reviewing the Declaration of Independence.
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