Voters often complain about what they see as a lack of meaningful choice on the ballot, about rarely having the chance to vote for someone other than a Republican or a Democrat. Because Alabama has some of the most stringent ballot access laws in the country, that’s not likely to change without an overdue revision of the rules.
What does the President’s speech on immigration and amnesty, delivered Thursday, November 20, 2014, mean for America and for Americans?
The American system under the Constitution is divided into three separate branches, each having distinct sets of powers and responsibilities. Overriding it all is the knowledge that rights come from God, not from government. This is the American system of law and government that generations of Americans have fought to preserve. It has never been intended for power to be embodied in a single person but rather in a system governed by the Constitution.
The framers listed the powers of Congress as Article 1 for a reason. Congress is the preeminent body – the representatives of the People. Article 1, section 1 is the most important section of the entire Constitution. It states, “All legislative power herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”
The President then has no legislative authority, none! Congress, under Article 1, section 8, paragraph 4, has the authority to establish uniform rules of naturalization and it has done so. The point is that Congress has enacted immigration laws (contrary to what the President asserts) through which naturalization is a path to citizenship for those legally in this country. It is against this system that a coup has been accomplished.
President Obama has now gone forward with his lawless, unconstitutional act of defiance against the American people. He was right when he said that his policies were on the ballot in the mid terms and the American people voted their strong rebuke. He apparently thinks he is a monarch – a monarch does not have to compromise, he gets everything he wants. But our Constitution requires compromise to get new laws through the House, the Senate, and the President. When the President purports to take on the characteristics of a monarch, it is incumbent on Congress to act and prevent subversion of the Rule of Law. The President has usurped the legislative power of Congress, and Congress should act immediately to take it back.
So, what does the Constitution Party platform have to say about the President’s view? “The Constitution Party demands that the Federal Government restore immigration policies based on the practice that potential immigrants will be disqualified from admission to the U.S. if, on the grounds of health, criminality, morals, or financial dependence, they would impose an improper burden on the United States, any state, or any citizen of the United States. We oppose the provision of welfare subsidies and other tax payer-supported benefits to illegal aliens, and reject the practice of bestowing U.S. citizenship on children born to illegal parents while in this country. We oppose any extension of amnesty to illegal aliens and call for the use of U.S. troops to protect the states against invasion.”
I submit to you, however, that the issue of concern in the President’s speech is not illegal immigration or amnesty. It is instead, the authority or lack of authority of a man who has assumed the role of monarch. The President laid out his justification for his action in the fashion of a true monarch. “Now, I continue to believe that the best way to solve this problem is by working together to pass that kind of common sense law. But until that happens, there are actions I have the legal authority to take as President – the same kinds of actions taken by Democratic and Republican Presidents before me that will help make our immigration system more fair and more just.”
The President knows he has no such authority. From an Obama speech three years ago, “Believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting, not just on immigration reform. But, that’s not how – that’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy functions. That’s not how our Constitution is written.”
He also knows that his order is different from those of Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush as neither man issued an amnesty order with no Congressional legislation. The President has no precedent to hide behind.
The President then seems to take the position that if Congress agrees with him that’s great, but if not, he is converted to absolute ruler. The President delivered his speech without any indication that he was ashamed of its obvious falsehood. Even much of the press, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post were at least mildly critical. All three papers expressed their strong support for the President’s position on amnesty but they all disapproved of a unilateral Presidential order.
Peggy Noonan in her opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition said it best. “The President’s executive action on immigration is an act of willful nihilism that he himself had argued against in the past. It is a sharp stick in the eye of the new Congressional majority. It is at odds with – it defies – the meaning and message of the last election, and therefore is destructive to the Reputation of Democracy itself. It is huge in its impact but has only a sole cause, the President’s lone will.”
The President’s actions will also encourage and invite more illegal immigration and shows clearly the President’s complete disregard for the working people of America. The reaction to the order is that Congress is considering several options. They wring their hands and worry that some members may overreact. Some states are preparing law suits based on an “unfair taking” argument. Congress is preparing lawsuits and budget attacks on the order.
For the American People, this means that if Congress fails to act in a meaningful way to take back its legislative authority, then the people have been disenfranchised and there is no longer a reason to vote if that vote is restricted to Democrats and Republicans. I predict that Congress will not act in a meaningful way because the Republican Leadership, judging from past statements, wants amnesty at least as much as the President. They are secretly glad he did it and they don’t have to take the blame. If that is true, consider voting for the Constitution Party in the next election. Let’s restore the Constitution – together!
Former Clinton Administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently called on the government to force young people to spend two years either “serving” in the military or performing some other type of government-directed “community service.” Neoconservative Senator John McCain has introduced legislation creating a mandatory national service program very similar to Reich’s proposal. It is not surprising that both a prominent progressive and a leading neocon would support mandatory national service, as this is an issue that has long united authoritarians on the left and right.
Proponents of national service claim that young people have a moral obligation to give something back to society. But giving the government power to decide our moral obligations is an invitation to totalitarianism.
Read the full article here.
The Constitution Party opposes all forms of National Service – military or civilian. Read the Constitution Party Platform plank on Conscription.
THE JOURNAL
– 17 October 2014 –
Letters to the Editor –
Jeff Becker, Constitution Party of West Virginia
The word marriage, or any reference to this sacred institution, is not found anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. As such, the Tenth Amendment applies and leaves decisions on marriage completely up “to the States respectively, or to the people.” Federal courts have absolutely no jurisdiction on the matter. There can be no argument here. Known as the principle of interposition, lead constitutional author James Madison confirmed this in his “Virginia Resolution of 1798” where he wrote, “…the States…are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.”
So it is a real shame that Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has decided so soon to give up, cave in and not fight for what is clearly an established rule of law – West Virginia’s long-standing ban on same-sex unions. But, is this really any surprise considering that for the past 30 years, Mr. Morrisey’s party has embraced the Log Cabin Republicans – a group of gay and lesbian conservatives and their allies? And until June of this year, GOProud was another Republican homosexual group that included so-called “conservatives” including Anne Coulter and Grover Norquist within their leadership.
It couldn’t be any more obvious to me that the word “conservative” no longer has any connotation of traditional American family values. Conservatives are only conserving the destruction wrought by the radicals and are not doing anything to restore our country. Instead, we need restorationists. Look for and vote for them instead.
With the 35-year marriage between Christians and the Republican Party already on the rocks, a U.S. Supreme Court with a majority of Republican appointees just put the religious liberty of every believer in the GOP base in unprecedented peril.
The GOP was already struggling to maintain the loyalty of its conservative base, and one of its last, best talking points was the importance of judicial appointments. Now that talking point has also been blown to smithereens. The John Roberts court gave us Obamacare, the narrowest wording possible when siding in favor of Hobby Lobby, got rid of the Defense of Marriage Act, and, on Monday, opened the floodgates for an onslaught against the First Amendment.
Read the full article here.
Read the Constitution Party platform plank on the FAMILY.
A new Gallup poll on Wednesday finds that the majority of Americans want a third major political party, as the existing two are doing a terrible job at representing their interests.
Read the full article here: Third Political Party
When it comes to understanding how our government works a shockingly large number of Americans have very little knowledge.
A recent Gallup poll found that fewer than 40% of Americans could identify which party controls each chamber of Congress.
Another survey, by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, found about the same number of Americans were able to correctly name all three branches of government.
Read the full article here: Civics Education and Voter Apathy
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Today we celebrate the 227th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution and ask the question, “is the Constitution dead?” Has it survived despite the many years of degradation it has suffered or did it succumb long ago?
The other day I was confronted with the idea that perhaps the Constitution is already null and void and has been for some time now based on the many unconstitutional acts of the federal government, some beginning as long as a hundred years ago. I’ll be the first to admit that much, perhaps even most of what the federal government does, is not allowed under the Constitution. But does that mean that the Constitution has failed, that it doesn’t work, that it is no longer valid, has become irrelevant and that we should quit contending for the founding principles of the American Constitutional republic? Or does it merely mean that we the people have ignorantly and foolishly elected persons who are now subjecting us to an unconstitutional, and therefore alien, form of government? |
I believe some people confuse conservatism with Constitutionalism and the conservative movement with the current efforts of Constitutionists. The two tend to be treated as synonymous and lumped together under one title. I admit that some who are called conservatives are Constitutionists, though not all, and Constitutionalism is what conservatism once was, or sought to be. However, Constitutionalism and modern conservatism are quite different entities. I contend that it is conservatism that has expired and lapsed into irrelevance while the principles of Constitutionalism remain ever relevant and worthy of our most valiant efforts to contend for.
Conservatism began as an attempt to “conserve” or “preserve” our Constitutional form of government and its accompanying liberty. Conservatism also came to include endeavors to preserve the traditional Christian morals of our society. Conservatism has been failing for a half century now as everything that it sought to preserve has been continually slipping through the fingers of the Christian-conservative-right. With each defeat, the banner of conservatism moves a little to the left and finds itself planted on a new piece of ground from which it attempts to preserve the new state of affairs. Much of what is being called conservatism today would actually have been fought against by the founders of conservatism. If Barry Goldwater, the acknowledged founder of the conservative movement, were to come back from the dead, he would slap John Boehner and the Republican leaders silly and call them liberal, socialist traitors and enemies of the Constitution. It could easily be argued that conservatism is dead, or at least that the “new conservatism” is irrelevant, useless and not worth spending effort contending for. But what about Constitutionalism?
If I may use an analogy to help us see the matter – let’s suppose that there is a small town of good, generally moral people, most of whom attend the town’s one church. There is no tavern in town and no vices are publicly practiced. One day a bar opens for business and the town’s people start getting drunk, including some of the church goers. The pastor starts a movement to “conserve” the morals of the community and preserve its current state. Over time, more and more people start hanging out at the bar until hardly anyone is left attending church. Then a nightclub with strippers opens up and the town’s people start leaving the bar and heading for the nightclub. So the preacher now moves out of his church and takes up residence at the bar where he begins pleading with people to “conserve” the current morals of the community by staying at the bar and not go to the nightclub. Next an opium den opens and… well, you get the picture, the cycle just keeps repeating.
Has the preacher’s attempts to “conserve” the morals of the community failed? Quite obviously. However, has the Bible been defeated? Have it’s precepts been disproved as irrelevant and no longer worth contending for? Absolutely not! The Bible is still as relevant as the day the bar moved in to town. The Bible still holds the answers to all the troubles of the town’s people and is the cure for all the woes for which they seek to become intoxicated enough to be able to cope. The counsel of God’s word can still fix every problem they have. The Bible is totally relevant, totally applicable to their situation and its preaching and teaching in the community is needed now more than ever.
The U.S. Constitution, as well as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, are to the nation much like the Bible is to the church or to the individual. The Constitution, and the Biblically aligned principles that the founders based it upon, are still relevant, still right and still hold the answers for what ails government and society today. The Constitutional principles have not been defeated nor disproved any more than the Word of God has been defeated or disproved, they simply haven’t been practiced in awhile, and that to the detriment of society.
Government may not currently be following the precepts of the Constitution, but the document and the principles upon which it was established are still true, are still sound, are still the law of the land and would still produce liberty, peace and prosperity if observed. Like with the Bible, it is when men are not following sound principles that those principles are in the greatest need of being taught, preached and proclaimed so that a wayward nation can find its way back by following the voice of the American founders crying out to us through our founding documents and through those who are still contending for the principles that they embody.
Constitutionalism has not been defeated nor disproved, it simply hasn’t been practiced, but that doesn’t mean we should stop contending for it.
Happy Constitution Day!
Robert W. Peck is a Christian, Constitutionist and political activist who serves as the chairman of the Constitution Party of Washington and is a member of the Constitution Party National Committee. Bob lives in Spokane Valley, Washington where he is a landlord-handyman. You can find more of his writings at: American Perspective
What’s involved in getting a candidate on the ballot? Do political parties matter? In this episode of Home Front, Cynthia Davis is joined by Jim Clymer, former chairman of the national Constitution Party, and Gary Odom, former national Field Director to talk about what happened with Ron Paul, what George Washington said about the way we do things and why we need better options when we go to vote. Both Jim and Gary discuss the situation from their own experiences — as candidates, Constitution Party leaders, lawsuits — and why they are pressing on with the battle.
Listen here: Free and Fair Elections
Cynthia Davis is a former four-term state representative in Missouri, ran for Missouri Lieutenant Governor in 2012, and is the creator of the Home Front with Cynthia Davis podcast.