My friend, Ron Rose, posted this on Facebook today and I
enjoyed it so much I decided to share it with all of you - with his permission,
of course. Thanks for allowing me to share this, Ron. Maybe you should be the one blogging...
"The crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights or
submit to every imposition that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use
shall make us as tame and abject slaves." - George Washington (1774)
I've
heard that fruit doesn't fall far from its tree, and have often found that to
be true. A bright young Patriot, who also happens to be my high-school
daughter, demonstrated this principle just yesterday.
In a
post-election summary to our fellow Patriots last week, I included images of
election maps that exposed some facts Obama and his Leftist cadres don't want
you to contemplate.
Chief
among those facts are that the assault on Liberty we witnessed in the
presidential election was led, as in 2008, primarily by urban dwellers, most of
whom reside on "government plantations," and subsist on the spoils of
what Obama calls "redistributive justice." That collectivist
constituency now accounts for almost 50 (FIFTY) percent of Obama's voter base.
Socialist Democrats have mastered the practice of co-opting (read:
"buying") their allegiance and getting them to the polls. The good
news is that about nine million fewer Obama voters showed up in 2012.
The
county-by-county election maps clearly revealed the geographical delineation
between the Left-leaning urban centers and the Right-leaning rest of the
nation. Naturally, I observed that this delineation formed reasonable lines for
secession, and I recalled these words from fellow Tennessean Nathan Bedford
Forrest on the Second War for Independence (as it was known in the South):
"I loved the old government. I loved the old Constitution. I do not hate
it; I am opposing now only the radical revolutionists who are trying to destroy
it."
So,
you ask, what does this have to do with fruit trees?
My daughter walked into my home study (affectionately called "The Man
Cave" around our house), and she was sporting one of those expressions
that conveyed she was on a mission. She asked, "Can I sign a petition for
our state to secede?"
Apparently,
as you may have heard, some despondent souls across the nation, still licking
their wounds after Obama's re-election, are preparing to surrender the future
of the Republic. They have launched official secession petitions from all 50
states on the most illogical of places to undertake such folly -- Obama's White
House "We the People" page for online petitions, which promises a
response from the president to every petition that gathers more than 25,000
signatures.
Those
petitions are closing in on a million signatures.
My
daughter got wind of this, and she's now ready to grab her M-4 and a case of
5.56 and start over, with her brothers at her side! I love her spirit. She's
one of those "quiet girls," but if you're on the wrong side of
Liberty, you'd best get out of her field of fire.
After
telling her that she most certainly could sign a petition for secession (just
not one managed by Obama's lemmings), we had a discussion about the
frustrations that have led some of our countrymen to give up on ever restoring
Rule of Law.
I
explained that nine of the secession petitions on the White House website have
already exceeded the 25,000 signature threshold, and I anticipate Obama's
response will be some version of what he has already said about grassroots
conservatives -- something about those Tea Party people being an "angry
mob" who are "waving their little tea bags around" while
"they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like
them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain
their frustrations."
Obama
and his sycophantic Leftmedia will have a good laugh with these understandable
but ill-conceived petitions -- and that's unfortunate, because the petitions
provide an opening for Obama to further marginalize legitimate grievances about
the Left's collective disregard for our Constitution.
Now,
please don't flood our website's "Comments" page with a defense of
these petitions. I happen to agree with old N.B. Forrest in his assessment of
the principle cause of the first attempt at secession, and I take exception to
the gubmint schools' uncritical and unflinching idolization of Abe Lincoln,
whose reckless disregard of our Constitution exceeds that of any president in
our history, with the possible exception of Barack Obama. (I guess that
assessment may result in a flood of objections, too.)
The fact is, I don't support secession, and having been around a couple of
revolutions in Africa and Eastern Europe, I would much prefer constitutional
restoration over insurrection -- if the former is achievable.
So
why, in my assessment of the electoral maps, mention secession at all?
Because
an alternative worth contemplating seriously would be to pursue a
Constitutional Confederacy -- an alliance of those states that are not under
the mob rule of urban Leftists, whose delegations could assemble to re-ratify
our Constitution and the Rule of Law it enshrines.
As of
today, Republicans control 30 state governorships and 27 state legislatures,
and twice as many states are under total Republican leadership (governor and
both houses) as states controlled by Democrats. That is plenty enough muscle to
populate a Constitutional Convention for the purpose of re-adopting our
authentic Constitution in its original form, amended as prescribed, and thus
rejecting the so-called "living constitution" now obscured beyond
recognition by the "despotic branch" of which Thomas Jefferson so
presciently warned. Those states re-ratifying would then reject
extra-constitutional regulations and taxes in favor of Tenth Amendment federalism
as prescribed when each state first ratified our Constitution.
Now that is a movement in support of "We the People," which would
generate a LOT of heartburn for Obama and his legions of urban socialists.
OK, I
haven't completely taken leave of my senses -- but this notion of a
Constitutional Confederation is representative of the big ideas that need to be
considered in order to resolve big problems. And if you haven't yet taken leave
of your senses, you know our nation is beset with BIG problems.
Here
is where we find ourselves after the presidential election.
Our
nation is in crisis -- and given the post election "economic
revisions" this week, that crisis is not abating. The poverty rate was
revised upward to 16.1 percent -- a record 49 million people living in poverty
by American standards (up 3 million more than estimated the week prior to the
election). The Latino poverty rate was revised upward to 28 percent. Jobless
claims were up 78,000 this week, with Pennsylvania and Ohio hardest hit -- just
wait for the December jobless claims...
Here
is the short list of major domestic problems we face: Massive debt, crippling
taxes, mandated tax increases and budget cuts under the Budget Control Act of
2011 -- which will likely result in economic reversal (recession),
out-of-control welfare and entitlement spending, inflation (just watch),
overbearing government regulations and health care mandates, ever-expanding
government plantation populations, failed educational institutions, increasing
dependence on foreign oil, declining defense capability and the increasing
threat of another devastating strike by Islamofascists on U.S. soil.
The
short list of international problems: Chinese manipulation of debt markets, the
re-emergence of Russian authoritarianism, the meltdown of relations in the
Middle East and Africa, and Europe plunging back into economic recession.
Oh,
and the biggest domestic problem: The re-election of a "community
organizer," who has never so much as operated a lemonade stand, with the
expectation that he will solve all the other problems, even though he and his
"useful idiots" spent the last four years making matters much worse.
Barack
Hussein Obama has no legislative mandate, but neither do the establishment
Republicans. Obama did not win the 2012 election -- the GOP lost it. However, I
can assure you that Obama will proceed as if he won every vote in America, not
the thin 4/10ths of one percent that reseated him. That assurance was evident
in Obama's post-election press conference this week, the first in eight months,
when he doubled down on his list of Leftist mandates.
The good news is that Republicans can counter Obama's platform and restore the
integrity of our Constitution, but only if the conservative wing of the
Republican Party convinces the rest of the GOP to do what Mitt Romney failed to
do -- rally grassroots conservatives. That will require leaders in the House
and Senate who actually get "the grassroots thing," which the current
leadership does not. (If new legislative leadership does not emerge, see
"Constitutional Confederation" reference above.)
To
better understand what the Romney campaign did not, the last time a GOP
presidential contender genuinely identified with grassroots folks and they with
him, was 1984, when Ronald Reagan won 525 electoral votes to his Democrat
opponent's 13. The Reagan model was, and
remains, the right road forward.
The
current cover of Newsweek proclaims "GOP: You're History" (which is
ironic for a failed magazine in its final weeks of publication), but if the GOP
does not get it right from this day forward, the Republic as we know it will be
history.
The
fact is, almost every critical national problem we face is, in every respect,
the direct result of the gross political violation of the limits our Constitution
prescribes on the scope of our federal government. Period.
The
current crises are accompanied by great opportunities, both in terms of policy
and politics -- restocking our national and state legislatures with
right-minded leadership in 2014 and 2016.
We're
unlikely to win the support of any government plantation dependents -- those
welfare captives who make up the Left's largest constituency (50 percent).
We're not going to change the minds of ideological socialists who make up about
10 percent of Leftist voters. But the right appeal will win over a majority of
the remaining 40 percent of Obama's "middle constituency" and change
the political landscape in the next two election cycles. Recall that a mere
two-percent swing in the most recent election would have resulted in Obama's
defeat -- which makes his victory all the more bitter. The right conservative
leadership has the opportunity to win a 10 to 15 percent swing by rallying
grassroots America to the cause of Liberty.
It has
taken generations for our nation to become mired deep in the mud in which we
now find ourselves stuck. It will take more than a few election cycles to pull
us out. But there has been a great awakening among Patriots, and our ranks have
grown rapidly in recent years. With the right leadership, the march to restore
Liberty and constitutional integrity will be unstoppable.
Pro
Deo et Constitutione — Libertas aut Mors
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis
