"Issues" or America? (Thomas Sowell on Obama)

There are some very serious issues at stake in this year's election — so many that some people may not be able to see the forest for the trees. Individual issues are the trees, but the forest is the future of America as we have known it.

The America that has flourished for more than two centuries is being quietly but steadily dismantled by the Obama administration, during the process of dealing with particular issues.

For example, the merits or demerits of President Obama's recent executive order, suspending legal liability for young people who are here illegally, presumably as a result of being brought here as children by their parents, can be debated pro and con. But such a debate overlooks the much more fundamental undermining of the whole American system of Constitutional government.

The separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial branches of government is at the heart of the Constitution of the United States — and the Constitution is at the heart of freedom for Americans.

No President of the United States is authorized to repeal parts of legislation passed by Congress. He may veto the whole legislation, but then Congress can override his veto if they have enough votes. Nevertheless, every President takes an oath to faithfully execute the laws that have been passed and sustained — not just the ones he happens to agree with.

If laws passed by the elected representatives of the people can be simply over-ruled unilaterally by whoever is in the White House, then we are no longer a free people, choosing what laws we want to live under.

When a President can ignore the plain language of duly passed laws, and substitute his own executive orders, then we no longer have "a government of laws, and not of men"...

First time here that someone (Sowell) has called it right. Deflection of blame, sleight of hand, distraction, minutae. Keep people dwelling on the small things, and distract them from looking at the big picture. Like squirrels attracted to shiny objects, people tend to get too absorbed in tiny details, not seeing the trap that awaits them. Keep people bickering and squabbling over issues planted by the enemy, to distract them from the wholesale destruction that the enemy is perpetrating in front of their very eyes. This is something the conservatives need to learn: don’t sweat the small stuff, focus on the bigger picture. The left knows you fall for this every time, and every time you fall for it. The left is succesful because they force a common message of unity upon their minions, they march in lock-step to whatever decree their leader issues. The right and conservatives are too easily fractured and splintered because of their inability to overcome and agree on any one small principle or are unwilling to go 90% of the way to defeat the enemy, and resolve their minor issues at a more suitable time and place. The other major problem is that the conservatives have to stop worrying about what the left thinks about them. I see it here all of the time, and I could care less what the left thinks about me. I’ve ripped devout democrats up one side and down the other, reducing them to babbling idiots. Their taunts and threats mean nothing to me, because I can throw it right back in their faces, and nothing will keep me from doing it. My advice to conservatives is to join forces, rip the leftists a new one, and take our country back. Anything less is mere posturing and surrender.

Thank you!!! Sowell's wisdom: it is the essential principles underlying our liberty which this Administration consistently attacks, while it keeps "the People's focus on mere "issues." Sowell says:

"When we confine our debates to the merits or demerits of particular executive orders, we are tacitly accepting arbitrary rule. The Constitution of the United States cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution. But, if we allow ourselves to get bogged down in the details of particular policies imposed by executive orders, and vote solely on that basis, then we have failed to protect the Constitution — and ourselves."

The underlined statement here is critical to our liberty, and we can refer to the closing paragraphs of Justice Story's "Commentaries on the Constitution . . . ." for the reliability of Sowell's claim, as well as countless statements from the Framers of our Constitution and other Justices. Examples:

" If these Commentaries shall but inspire in the rising generation a more ardent love of their country, an unquenchable thirst for liberty, and a profound reverence for the constitution and the Union, then they will have accomplished all, that their author ought to desire. Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of fife, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." - Joseph Story -Final paragraph of "Commentaries . . . ."

"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court even can do much to help it." - Judge Learned Hand

After Thomas Jefferson, in his First Inaugural, had enumerated the principles which would guide his Administration in his First Inaugural, he added:

"These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."

So-called "progressives" of the 20th and 21st Centuries, in their arrogance, have removed (censored) the Founders' ideas of liberty from America's textbooks, but technology has outstripped their efforts. Every American school child and adult now has potential access to almost every word the Founders spoke and wrote, and their ideas are being rediscovered and circulated in a manner unheard of even 10 years ago, as if by the hand of Divine Providence. How else can one account for the events of 2010?

Enduring principles, according to the Founders were just that--enduring and "self-evident."

Sowell's perceptive directing of our attention to principles, not the "issues" which dominate most political discussion, is a first step for citizens toward regaining the Constitution's own Article V provision--that "the People" are required in any process to fundamentally "transform" or "change" its protections for freedom. It is that freedom which is threatened when the "rule of law" is replaced by the "rule of man"--no matter who the man, or combination of men and women, are!

"The People" are, indeed, by the Constitution's own provisions, as Justice Story asserted, its "ONLY Keepers." Executive Orders by Presidents do not replace that "People's" role.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security..."

-- The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

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