If we’re serious 051225

About freedom and the rule of law

249 years ago, on July 4 (officially), 56 British subjects, later to become Americans, signed the Declaration of Independence and pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to support both the idea that each of us are endowed with certain inalienable rights, including those of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and the presentation of a bill of particulars written by Thomas Jefferson detailing why the King had breached the unwritten moral contract that bound the colonies to Great Britain. They did so knowing full well that their lives might indeed be forfeit if the colonies didn’t succeed in making their theoretical independence a reality.

Today, 53 days before we celebrate the 250^th anniversary of that pledge, we’re confronted with a narcissistic, self-possessed felon who would be king if he could and who wants to celebrate his birthday with a military parade through the capital and who has regularly violated virtually every clause of the Constitution that impacts on Presidential behavior and performance. He is aided and abetted by a Congress that has abdicated its responsibility and privilege as a branch of government by failing to exercise control over the legislative and budgetary processes and the single disciplinary responsibility is has, that of the impeachment process. Some members have tried to excuse their behavior by claiming to have been threatened with harm to themselves or their families if they fail to demonstrate fealty to the notional leader of their party but there have been very few details of what these threats have been and no reports of investigation, arrest, prosecution, or anything of the alleged threateners.

The current Congress, and their immediate predecessors have been far more concerned with building their own fortunes than pledging anything to support the Constitution despite an oath requiring just that. Whatever honor they may have had has long since been sacrificed in pursuit of money and whatever reward might come from such power as they retain and no pledge they’ve made is worth the paper it might have been written on. If we’re to move beyond the current morass, and we must assuredly have that as our goal, a key step will be to find and elect people to whom the ideals of the Declaration, the Constitution, and the spirit of freedom and equality under the law mean as much as their lives and who will have the courage, if threatened, to call out those who would make violence an integral part of our political process and see them properly held accountable under the justice system that is key to our ability to live together as a society.