CommentsTHE VIEW FROM HERE - The DEMs and the GOP agree that the three virtues of cooperation, integrity and courage must go in order for democracy to replace the Republic.
Cooperation means that the populace comes to a general consensus on the issues which the government should address. Cooperation requires a significant degree of homogeneity among the citizenries. A heterogenous society’s first objective has to be to excise diversity from the political arena. Our foundation on inalienable rights, however, simultaneously requires that each person is free within their private sphere to believe whatever they desire. While each may believe as they wish at home, in public life they must ascribe to our founding ethos.
The Declaration of Independence recognized that each individual inherently had inalienable rights and the test of a legitimate government was its ability to secure Life and Liberty so that each person could pursue Happiness. The Declaration did not opine on the form of such a government. The United States Constitution in selecting a republic rejected two alternatives: a monarchy and a democracy. When the First Amendment included its anti-establishment and free exercise clauses, it excluded all religion from the government on the principle that “factions,” which we today call groups, were destructive to a Republic as such groups always try to impose their own beliefs and dogmas on others, and thereby, turn the government into the champion of some special faction to the detriment of everyone else.
The Doctrine of Separation of Church and State has been the prototype how to handle other ascriptive factions, e.g. religions, races, ethnic groups. The groups are barred, as a group, from the government, while all individuals are free to participate without regard for their ascriptive status. The Constitution, however, guarantees each person’s protection from interference in their private lives. It is of overwhelming importance that the divisiveness of groups’ asserting group rights which override individual inalienable rights not be permitted. When a religion, a race, an ethnicity or similar group tramples on individual inalienable rights, the public cooperation which is essential to the nation’s survival is destroyed. Instead, we become warring factions.
Integrity requires each person to adhere to facts and logic in all political matters. Unless people honor the role of admitting to facts and accepting logic, which may not lead to their desired conclusions, cooperation cannot yield beneficial results. A populace who had a passion for Integrity would reject 99% of our political leaders since they invariably lie and distort facts and use hyper-emotional memes to avoid logic in order to gain votes. If the electorate had the integrity to hold the leaders, whom they esteem, to a high level of adherence to facts and logic, then candidates seeking election would shun lies and deception.
The framers knew that Integrity was in short supply, and thus, the worst form of government would be a pure democracy. Nothing kills integrity faster than the need to gain the votes of the ignorant rabble. As a result, the Constitution reduced the role of voting as much as possible. They realized that a democracy is incompatible with the rule of law, because in a pure democracy, the will of the voters is supreme. When an election can eradicate anyone’s inalienable right, there is no rule of law. Everyone lives in fear of the tyranny of the majority.
As a result, the framers attempted to protect the Presidency and the Supreme Court from the voters’ passions. We’ve previously discussed the Electoral College and its failure to bar an incompetent madman from becoming President and how impeachment was designed to remove a President before an election could be held. We need not repeat those discussions. The Supreme Court was as far removed from the will of the masses of voters as possible. Its candidates were selected by the President who was not popularly elected and then confirmed by a Senate which was not popularly elected. The House of Representatives which was popularly elected was excluded from the process. The purpose of so isolating the High Court from the voters was to ensure that men of high integrity would safeguard inalienable rights and the rule of law.
As Benjamin Franklin feared, the Constitution’s effort to protect the rule of law by fashioning a Republic may not succeed. Hence, his saying, “A republic, if you can keep it.” As individual inalienable rights are the essence of our American way, nothing is more “secularly sacred” than the court’s ability and duty to defend them.
Courage is required for any person to have Integrity so that there can be a basis of facts and logic on which to based cooperation. As Federalist Paper #10 shows, there are always factions who would destroy the nation for their own selfish ends (the Federalist Society falls into that category). The public and elected officials need the courage to withstand the pressure of intimidation and bribery. Other than Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, our nation appears devoid of courage — with the stellar exceptions of Col. Alexander Vindman, Marie Yovanovitch, Gordon Sondland, Fiona Hill, among others who testified at the House’s first impeachment hearing in November 2019. As the law professors warned the House Dems December 5, 2019, CityWatch, Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman’s Roadmap to Nancy Pelosi’s Subversion of Impeachment, these witnesses needed to be protected by the House’s continuing to call more witnesses as not enough evidence had been secured to convict Trump in the Senate trial. In a treasonous refusal to perform her constitutional duties, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stopped the calling of witnesses, thereby guaranteeing Trump’s acquittal during a Senate Trial.
It is interesting to note that Pelosi’s constitutional betrayal came from the House of Representatives where democratic voting is of paramount importance. All 435 representatives are elected every two years so that winning elections is far more vital for a power-monger like Nancy Pelosi than performing her constitutional duties during an impeachment. As we have recently seen in various state primaries, the Dems have intentionally promoted the most extreme GOP. The Dems hope that the more Alt Right the GOP candidate in the November 2022, the more likely the Dem candidate will win. Has any Dem had the courage to call out Pelosi for such gutter tactics?
Some will say, “all’s fair in love and war.” That belief shows the evil of democracy in a polarized society – voting becomes an act of war! The election becomes one battle in a larger war where only violence will avenge the loss. Calling the other party’s ardent believers “Deplorables” or “semi-fascists” in order to gin up one’s own base is the proverbial gasoline on the fire. It would have taken courage for Biden to have shown the integrity to admit why some resorted to criminal behavior on January 6th. Understanding does not equate with approval. There is a season for everything and now is not the season for more polarization.
Group Rights Resulted in the Return of the Dred Scott Decision
Pelosi’s polarizing group rights agenda, Identity Politics, was core to her quest for power. She would put together a coalition of minorities who would wrest total control of the government from the GOP when the minorities became the majority of the voters. Inherent in Pelosi’s plan was to override inalienable rights by having a majority of voters vote reparations for Blacks without regard to the rights of everyone else. Until Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), there were no group rights. Brown fashioned a new right based on group membership, i.e. equality of outcome measured by comparing Black achievement with that of Whites and then altering the law and/or distributing income until the two groups had parity. (The more direct route to end Separate But Equal was to affirm that Blacks had the inalienable right of Liberty. January, 9, 2022, CityWatch, The Time To Repudiate Brown v Board of Education is Overdue While the Dred Scott Decision of 1857 had denied that Blacks had the inalienable right of Liberty, the Brown Court chose to withhold Liberty from Blacks by not mentioning it.)
Pelosi’s Identity Politics did not merely promote the desires of minorities, but instead became consumed with the vilification of Whites to the extent anyone of light skin hue was complicit in slavery and its aftermath, e.g. White Fragility, White Entitlement, the 1619 Project. Interestingly, most of this anti-White agitation came primarily from Whites. Group rights are antithetical to Frederick Douglass’ teachings and to Martin Luther King’s dream to judge each person by character and not by group. Under Pelosi’s Identity Politics, Blacks fell in public perception from “We shall overcome” to “Give me, Give me, Give me.” (Too bad, Blacks cannot sue Identity Politics and Wokeism for defamation of character.)
Backlash to Identity Politics Resulted in the Resurrection of Dred Scott
After Hillary Clinton used the woker term Deplorables for White voters in the Rust Belt, they voted for Donald Trump. As he promised, he placed right wing religious fanatics on the Supreme Court. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. ___), Justice Alito recapitulated the Dred Scott Decision by replacing Blacks with women, who no longer have inalienable rights. Just as Dred Scott left the freedom of Blacks to the will of the voters in each state (popular sovereignty), Alito has left women’s rights to the voters of each state. In brief, the rule of law is dead since voters, and not the Constitution, determine which rights a woman has.
When inalienable rights rest upon the whim of voters, the proper name for our government is not a Republic but an incipient tyranny, aka a democracy. It is only a matter of time before anyone’s rights can be voted away. Jews are not mentioned in the Constitution. Thus, in Pelosi’s and Alito’s government, Jews only have the rights which the voters in each state, county, and city decide Jews may have. The same goes for Gays and for anyone else whom the religious fanatics decide the Constitution chose to leave without legal protection.
Each time President Biden refers to America as a “democracy,” he is affirming that we are no longer a Republic and there are no inalienable rights – only the whim of the majority of the voters. There was the winning formula of cooperation, integrity and courage within the context of Republic with inalienable rights, but that was yesteryear. No matter who wins the future elections, America will become increasingly corrupt since “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected]. The opinions expressed by Mr. Abrams are solely his and not necessarily those of CityWatch.)
