Why Don't You Do Something?

Why Don't You Do Something?
by Diane Alden

A lot of people do not trust their government. What a concept! Some of us understand that allegiance to the state has replaced allegiance to the Constitution. Yet a majority of the citizens of the United States are criminally apathetic. Content in their apathy, they forget the importance and relevance of that unfashionable document to which all politicians, local, state and federal, the military, new citizens, government bureaucrats swear allegiance, to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America."

The INS raid in Little Havana is just one more instance when allegiance to government has overtaken allegiance to the Constitution. In this regard, next time I hear a TV pundit talk about the "rule of law" I think I will throw up. Like most people they think the "rule of law" exists because the jack booted thugs haven't bashed in their door yet. There is a pervasive and monumental failure to understand that over the years the Constitution has been replaced by the regulatory state. The citizenry don't want to understand because then they might have to do something about it. They loathe having their comfortable lives disrupted. They don't want to hear that the "rule of law" is busted, broken, folded, spindled and mutilated. They won't believe it if you tell them the Constitution and the "rule of law" expired a while back.

Some say all that is needed a now is a change in political parties. If only it were that simple. There is an attitude in certain quarters which is, "just wait until the Republicans get in." Such a happenstance might stop the hemorrhaging of liberty, but bleeding to death slowly is only a little better than bleeding to death in one breathtaking spurt. That would be the case should Al Gore be elected President and the Democrats take over the House and Senate.

The reaction to the raid in Little Havana by the so-called Republican leadership is the same reaction every time push comes to shove between principle and the polls. Therefore we are privy to a display of GWB advising the spineless Republicans to do nothing about an investigation into the
raid. There will be no one asking why it was necessary that over 130 ninja-warrriors had to act like a bunch of thugs out of a bad Saturday morning cartoon to go get one little 50 pound boy out of a private residence. Especially without any real authority from the court.

This time the jack-booted thugs were doing their duty just as they did at Ruby Ridge and Waco. The problem is they do it all the time for hundreds of reasons. Everything from paper tax crimes to environmental crimes like going onto private property to see what endangered species they can find so that the government can legally abuse the 4th Amendment by taking private property with a regulation.

The jack booted thug mentality starts with the President and goes through the court system into the congress and the press. Now it has reached the majority of the people. However, history will have its way with them so I will not rant about how awful it is. Rather I will say it may be too late to fix it - even in my beloved fly over country.

The overall effects of decades of welfare-nanny-regulatory state will take years to fix. Even if anyone in leadership wanted to address the problems I am not sure the republic has that much time. The majority of the people have lost sight and really do not comprehend that a constitutional republic depends on everyone understanding the spirit if not the letter of the law. More importantly they have lost sight of what law real is and which ones are most important. The only ones that count are in the Bill of Rights and they have become moot. At the moment there is a grievous failure to understand that over the years our Constitution has been turned on its head.

The "rule of law" at its base depends on the Constitution and vice-versa. It is the covenant between people and government. But this has been over run by the demands of the regulatory state which has us racing down the road towards a corporate police state. The head of Accuracy in Media, Brent Bozzell related in a recent column, "there are many things this administration has done, which the national media have defended, and which the public by its relative silence have condoned, that sadden, frustrate, even infuriate. This is different. This gets to the soul, the essence of what we as a nation believe. If we as a nation countenance what our government did on Saturday, April 22, we are embracing a police state.

The few people who really understand what has happened to the Constitution and the United States are in the minority. The majority of people make themselves feel better and more secure by acting like sheep or children, content in the notion that their government will care for them. But even more strangely and much more dangerously they think government actually does give a flip about what they think or want. While in nearly total silence they stand by and accept the destruction of the republic.

I have no clue as to their apathy except to reason that they are prosperous and sated and simply aren't interested. Part of the reason for this state of the national soul may be ignorance, an out of control bureaucracy, the press, or a rotten system of public education. In addition in all but in the most cursory way the separation of powers as defined in the Constitution is gone.

And Justice for All?

Does the "rule of law" exist? Personally I don't think so. The courts have lost the ability to define it and instead warp it in obscure language making any interpretation possible. They run from the simplicity of the Bill of Rights and Constitution because it is so simple. The courts are bogged down in the cultural and self-centered nonsense trumped up by greedy trial lawyers and an even greedier citizenry. The courts are an irritant rather than an adjudicator. Toying with language -- even they don't understand -- they add to the confusion of the citizens' understanding and increasingly make obedience to the law more difficult.

Add the justice system's various wars on vice and the courts don't seem able to find the bathroom with a map and a flashlight. Thousands of people in prison probably should not be there. Vice should be a national health problem unless it leads to violence against property or individuals. Substance abuse when it hurts the individual is a national health problem not a crime. The war on vice is a problem of the national soul which much like the portrait of Dorian Gray looks wonderful on the outside but is ugly and corrupt on the inside. This war on vice is giving the state a reason to expand and abuse our most basic rights.

However, in the case of Elian Gonzalez the courts spit out a confusing opinion which could be spun by either side to suit its needs. Now the court sits by while the federal government destroys the spirit of the law if not the letter. Government is allowed to grab the child with no consequences to itself even after the 11th Circuit Court delayed overt or provocative action to remove the child from Little Havana. The court seems to be doing nothing. Their most important function has become to uphold the regulatory state rather than making sure justice is served.

Most courts do not seem to care a whit about the Constitution. Evidence mounts that they have become as corrupt as the political system. Politics, power, propaganda and the whims of political correctness surround it like air. Like U.S. citizens they seem to have mistaken the rule of law with the rules of the regulatory state. The courts have accepted a situation where government and the state have replaced the Constitution as the point of reference, base and covenant for the legitimacy of the state.

It was brought home when Janet Reno recently stated: "We are in control." The operative words are "in control." What that means is that agencies of the federal government think they are above the rule of law. It means the "rule of law" is what ever some bureaucrat says it is. This has been proved by government actions long ago, long before a little Cuban kid took a boat ride into the stormy seas between the US and Cuba. Clearly the courts seldom do anything to reestablish and make clear the "rule of law." They only confuse the issue.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that there is a growing sense that government is out of control. While the majority may seem dead to the erosion of the Bill of Rights underneath it all a few realize something is seriously wrong. Nonetheless, one wonders what it will take to create significant outrage in the American people to end our rush towards fascism brought to us courtesy of the left.

If there is any hope I am not sure what it is. The congress has no clue, the Republican party is too weak and to unsure of its own principles to act, the voices of those who should speak up are silent lest someone accuse them of being "right-wing wackos."

One of the hundreds of e-mails I received on my constitutional series for the ezines was a letter from a citizen of the German Republic. He was saddened to see and hear that the world's last best hope, the United States of America, was drifting towards fascism. He said, " Jawol mein fuerher, that is what you Americans are saying to what is happening in your country. Why are you letting it happen?" I had no answer except to write back that the darkness in the human heart is winning out this time. If he is looking for hope from us he is placing his trust in the wrong place.

Eventually, truth and freedom win out, somewhere, somehow, sometime. I suspect history will look back at our era and wonder the same thing my German friend wonders, "Why didn't you do something?"

www.american-partisan.com