CONSTITUTIONAL FIDELITY AND THE OATH OF OFFICE

Let’s start by consulting Article VI of the Constitution.

Paragraph three reads as follows: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution..."*

It would be a hell of a sensation if we ever heard of a federal official resigning his position out of respect for this oath; all the more if he said he agreed with his superiors’ policies, but doubted their constitutional authority. You might expect that would happen once in a while given the disputes over constitutional interpretation. But you really don’t, do you?

It would be only slightly less surprising if the media ever inquired into a candidate’s constitutional understanding or quizzed him to discover if he had any.

Child Frary Contemplates the Federal Budget

When Abraham Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus, ordered military arrests and exiled the copperhead Clement Vallandigham to the Confederacy there was a storm of protest, and rightfully so. The President sat down to write his own response. It was, after all, his oath of fidelity, not a speech writer’s. It is estimated that his plain and logical justification was read by ten million Americans. His reasoning persuaded the public and opinion shifted in his favor.

The modern custom is quite different. Presidents and legislatures pass measures and wait to see if the courts will let them get away with them. It’s hard to detect the soul-searching or independent thought that an oath implies. Pragmatic politicians want to get on with "problem solving" without a lot complications. Moderates recoil from conviction. It inhibits compromise, creates conflict and roils the smooth process of "finding the middle ground." Nearly as I can determine Ron Paul is the only candidate who takes his oath seriously and reflects intensely on his constitutional obligations.

Some people have asked for my constitutional views. A fair, if rare, question. So here they are. The Constitution was enacted to endow the national government with effective powers. These are implicitly stated in Article I, Section 8. This is followed immediately, by Section 9 with a clear set of restrictions on that power. Further restrictions were demanded by the people in the form of the Bill of Rights, all ten of which set barriers on the powers of the national government.

Article V lays down stringent requirements for amendments, requiring extraordinary majorities so that a national consensus for any changes will be assured. A five-to-four majority of Supreme Court justices does not serve that purpose.

The unique feature of our Constitution is its division of powers, safeguarded by a system of checks and balances. James Madison made the purpose clear---to "let ambition check ambition."

Finally, the "Consent of the People" that legitimizes all government power can only mean that the citizens must be able to understand it. And also understand any amendments proposed for their consent without waiting for judges to explain what they voted for. Anything less and the philosophical foundations of our government exists only as a rhetorical fantasy.

If elected I take an oath to uphold the Constitution AS I UNDERSTAND IT, not as some judge chooses to interpret it. Otherwise my oath is a travesty. My understanding is that the Constitution is intended to limit the exercise of federal powers. I believe that those powers are continually being expanded with scant attention to those limits.

My Solution for Maine, if Michaud does become Governor:

"Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable and most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can may revolutionize and make their own of so many of the territory as they inhabit."

Abraham Lincoln, January 12, 1848

Mike and "Friends"

AND FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT, A LITTLE THING FROM MATTHEW ARNOLD

The Real Deal

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

LIBERTARIAN OR CHEAP CONSERVATIVE?

Some of my friends, from time to time, have accused me of harboring Libertarian tendencies. While it is true that I deplore many of the excesses of our modern Cultural Wasteland (rap music comes to mind), it is equally true that I am unwilling to use the power of the state to force you to pay for its suppression.

In short, my policy might be described as "Do as you please, and kindly stay out of my yard."

For years now I’ve been noticing a peculiar trend in American thought. The vast majority of Americans would like to be free to order their own lives and pursue their own dreams with their own money - but they would also like to determine how their neighbor should order his life, pursue his dreams and spend his money. I, on the other hand, am perfectly willing to live and let live, as long as you aren’t costing me any money, and, as I have noted, are not in my yard.

The more full throated libertarians deplore even the roads. They say that if people want roads, let them build them, or let others build them and charge a toll. And if they don’t want to build roads, let them walk. While this might alleviate the obesity epidemic in our country, I am not totally sold on this proposition. On the other hand, why shouldn’t the proponents of the East-West Highway be given every encouragement to explore the possibility of a private toll road? If it makes economic sense, then it will pay for itself.

Other anarcho-libertarians want to abolish the Department of Homeland Security or repeal the Patriot Act. Their solution to air piracy?: “Arm the passengers!” While I am not certain the country is ready to reenact the Shootout at the OK Corral at 30,000 feet, I am perfectly happy to arm the pilots. I am, after all, a Life Member of the NRA.

And I for one am glad that we have escaped the scourge of dozens of attempted terrorist attacks over the last six years, but by no means certain our luck will hold.

But my biggest pet peeve with the current political dialog and one I wholeheartedly agree with libertarians on, is how many of the Republican candidates for President have come out for a National Identity Card. Of course all the Democrats are for it - they invented Big Government! - but Republicans?

The last thing we all need in our lives is a government that can’t figure out what THEY are doing trying to figure out what WE are doing.

GUEST EDITORIAL

Notes from a Ron Paul Revolutionary

A friend of mine sent me a "humorous" video, produced by some apparatchik at a labor union, which attempts to satirize the Bush administration by having Bush replace the currency with a new one based on Oil. It was pretty flat (ever noticed all the best satirists are libertarians?) but if it been a lot sillier I still could not have enjoyed it, because it took actual historical instances of abuse of government power and trivialized them. It's like the people who pretend to believe that Bush is Adolf Hitler - after all, they say, one staged the Reichstag Fire and the other blew up the World Trade Center. One killed the Jews and one killed the Palestinians for the Jews.

I blame the government schools for this sort of lunacy - after all, the less you know the more things seem possible.

But back to history. We DID have a government that did everything that was in the video. Altered the currency, moved vast waves of serfs into the industrial maw at subsistence wages, violated the Constitution at every turn, opened concentration camps, put enemy agents to death in secret facilities, debased the Supreme Court, openly defrauded the populace of their assets, you name it.

Do you know that President's name?