Our federal government--the symptoms are not the disease | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Recent efforts by the majority of the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners may have sent crossed signals to Constitutional activists. Our resolution was titled to "Preserve and Defend the Constitution of the United States and the State of North Carolina". There is no doubt the right of the people to keep and bear arms as stated in the Second Amendment is a life and death issue for both the citizens and our form of government. Those who want a socialist government have a plan to slowly tighten gun regulations in order to ultimately take them away from us. We cannot blame this on just President Obama. He has a lot of help. The simple fact that we know the long term plan forces us not to give even an inch to them.

    Even though the gun issue is of supreme importance it is still only a symptom of our governance problem. We have a Congress that does not function. We have not had a national budget in almost four years. We are spending and borrowing like drunken sailors. Serious errors have been made by the Supreme Court in making decisions about Obama Care and the right of the States to protect themselves from invasion. This came when they struck down almost all of the Arizona immigration law. The President has assumed powers not enumerated in the Constitution. Almost all of his executive orders are illegal. All three branches of the Federal Government have serious Constitutional failures. These violations of the Constitution in any one of the three branches of government are serious enough during normal times to cause a public outcry. When all three branches of government fail there are no checks and balances. Ultimately citizens suffer.
Hood explains it all: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    Our Constitution - another way to say it is "our form of government" - took years of study and debate to formulate. The greatest fear our founding fathers had was that someday the Constitution, "our form of government", would fail to function. When a spectator of the Constitutional Convention asked Ben Franklin what kind of government they had given us he is reported to have replied: "A Republic, if you can keep it." Some people told us not to rely on the Supreme Court because it is made up of men who are subject to fallacy whether political or personally inspired. Others believed the Congress would bestow favors on themselves and their friends or use the National Treasury to hand out favors in order to insure re election. Others realized the President could use his authority to ignore the Supreme Court and the Congress or force his political will on all of us. It is not surprising that all of these wise men were right.

    Normally we have only one of the three branches of government that is flirting with violating the constitution. Our check and balance system requires the other two branches of government to race to make things right. I doubt the Founding Fathers, in their wildest dreams, ever thought all three branches could fail at their duty at the exact same time.

    The Founding Fathers provided us with a remedy to the situation we are now in. They were keenly aware we had just finished a bloody revolution. The English were winning during most of the Revolution with certain death and loss of property to be handed to the Colonists if they lost. Feelings ran high and many of the English loyalists chose not to live in the thirteen colonies when the British went away. The Founding fathers did not want future generations to have to shed new blood in order to have a free society. Their solution was to provide for Constitutional Conventions in order to correct excesses.

    Trying to nullify actions of the Federal Government regarding guns is simply not enough and will not be effective in the long run. Attempts to violate the Second Amendment are symptoms of a much more sinister and all encompassing disease. That disease is the break down of all three branches of government, the Executive, the Judicial and the Legislative. Take the Second Amendment. It is clearly written. It does not talk about hunting game; it talks about hunting people, the militia. At the time of the writing of the Constitution almost every family in the Colonies hunted wild game for the table. There were not that many pigs and cattle but there was a lot of forest and prairie land. Labor was dear, why break your back in a cornfield to feed a hog when there was an abundance of game in the woods. Hunting was natural. But that is not why the Second Amendment was put into the Bill of Rights. Taking our guns has more to do with enslaving us than protecting us. Taken at face value the Second Amendment empowers us to shoot who ever is trying to shoot us.

    Our remedy for the failure of the government to properly function is to call a Constitutional Convention. The Convention will address the issues at fault and through amendment make the proper corrections. Take the budget problem, it is easily fixed by simply saying "No payment may be made from the treasury until an annual budget has been passed by Congress and signed by the President, neither shall debts of the Federal Government be legally obligated to anyone or anything during the time the Federal Government operates without a budget. Budgets may not be enacted retroactively". That statement simply means the government shuts down until the budget is agreed upon and no one gets paid for the time or services provided while there is not a budget. Neither the President nor Congress can blame each other. They are in it together.

    Another problem easily solved "Members of Congress may not lay any benefit on themselves or any person that is not granted to the public. Henceforth Members of Congress shall have no retirement plan". That makes Congress one of us and takes care of those who want to make a career of politics with a big retirement check. Want to stop fat cats from buying legislation? "Members of Congress shall not accept campaign donations from lobbyists, any entity that has or may have legislation forth coming, or any entity that contracts or may contract with the government. Campaign donations to any Congressman may be by personal check only up to a maximum of one percent of the taxable income of the donor." That will stop a lot of what we are upset about.

    A lot of people are opposed to a Constitutional Convention because either they cannot control it or they have been taught that the Convention is a dangerous thing. At this time the benefits calling a Convention far outweigh any of the problems. One of the good things about a convention is that each state has only one vote. There are a lot more conservative states than there are liberal states. I believe those who are selected to be delegates will be just as serious and thoughtful as those who attended the first Convention. The eyes and ears of the Nation will be on the delegates. They will have a tough job and I would not be surprised to see a Convention last for a year or more, with most of the debate behind closed doors.

    A Convention is not to be feared simply because it would only have the power to recommend. Three-fourths of the state legislatures would have to agree to any amendments. That should prevent any mischief that some fear.

    In my opinion one of the biggest phonies out there is the so-called "Constitutional Lawyer". These two words taken together is an oxymoron when you consider the founding fathers took pains to choose every word in the Constitution carefully so the average person could read and understand it. They intended for all of us to comprehend at least the basic principles. Do not allow anyone to tell you to defer to some fancy pants who supposedly knows more than you about this basic document of freedom. We are all Constitutional Lawyers. The founding fathers told us.

    Please push for a Constitutional Convention. The process will be uncertain and difficult but worth it in the end. The prospect of a Constitutional convention is the only thing that will strike fear in the hearts of the Congress, the Supreme Court and the President.