You’re hearing the proponents of never-ending war

You’re hearing the proponents of never-ending war, like McCain and Graham and these 37 frauds that claim to be conservatives that signed this letter that I read to you that they sent to House Republican leaders, said don’t you dare withdraw funding for our important mission, our American values-based mission in Libya. You’d better not do it. Here, “Conservatives Warn House Republicans.” These people are not conservatives. And if they are, well, then, you can count me out. That means that I’m not a conservative because they’re not trying to conserve anything.

But anyways, here, think about this. Here’s the point. You’re hearing these people saying, why, the public opinion polls are turning against the war now. Vast swaths of the American electorate are turning against the war. The public is diametrically opposed to the bombing of Libya. The public is diametrically opposed to bombing Yemen back into the Stone Ages, from conducting any more affairs or operations in Somalia or any place else, for that matter. Syria, you name it. And the public now is by a majority diametrically opposed to the continued occupation of Afghanistan.

Now, what does that mean? Well, if you listen to Lindsey Graham, and you listen to John McCain, and you listen to the rest of the DeceptiCons, that doesn’t mean anything. That means that the republic is a bunch of misinformed louts. “Why, these are people that don’t know what the hell – we know what’s good for you. Hah, screw ‘em, screw ‘em. You don’t know what’s good for you. I know what’s good for you. Screw ‘em. Screw you. We’re going to stay over there forever. If we say we’re gonna – we’re smarter than you. We’re politicians. We’re senators. We’re congressmen.” Oh, yeah? Think about this. And I have Lindsey Grahamnesty on this very subject. Here, play the digital media file here.

[Clip] Lindsey Graham: What the President does tonight, if he takes the political track of trying to basically play to the polls, then I think he will put our nation at risk at a time when we’re beginning to show success.

Rolling my eyes: “We’re beginning to show success.” Success as measured by whom? If he starts paying attention to the polls, if he starts doing this for political reasons, well, ladies and gentlemen, there is a reason why the power to declare war and the power of the purse which has to fund the war is vested in the House of Representin’, because the House of Representin’ was at the time the people’s house. This is where you sent your representative to go decide the great questions of the day, as it applied to the then-nascent union. Declaring war would have been one of those great questions. And if you chose wrongly, or if you chose war when the people wanted peace, well, then, you’d get unelected. And they’d send new people there that would upend what you had done and would bring an end to these wars. That’s why we weren’t engaged in any of these excursions. We weren’t engaged in any of these things until Teddy Roosevelt forced us into them in the Spanish-American War. That’s a different show for a different day.

But folks, the point is, is that the reason why the framers of the Constitution left this power in the hands of the representatives is because they wanted to leave it in the hands of the American sheeple. They wanted to provide a mechanism that would prevent presidents, tyrants, and rogue nut job senators like McCain and Graham from ramming war down our throats. They wanted to provide an out. They wanted to provide a check against it. So these people that are saying, why, you can’t read the polls on this, why, you can’t pay attention to the people, you’re missing the entire point, and you’re missing the entire point of why the Constitution and why our federal system was set up the way it was.

Remember, the Constitution was sold on the basis that it would discharge a very few, very limited set of things, very limited set of powers was it to discharge. And security, providing for the common defense, as the Preamble calls it, was one of them. But still, as Joe Pesci says in that famous clip that we have from “With Honors,” the people don’t trust the President, so they vest this power in the House. Why? Specifically so the House of Representin’ does have to take a poll. They do have to respond to their constituents. Have you ever wondered why there is a difference between the electoral terms? Have you ever wondered why there’s a difference between the term of a United States Senator and the term of a member of the House of Representin’? Has that ever posed a question to you?

You know what the explanation is; right?

No, okay. Well, this is talked about in the Federal Convention. The explanation is, is that the members of Congress need to be returned back from whence they came to go answer for what they have done, for what the federal government has done. So that if they got off track, they could be unelected. They could be kicked out of office, and someone new could be sent there to go correct the problem. The reason the Senate was chosen the way it was is because they were supposed to be the steady hand, the august body. And remember, ladies and gentlemen, under this system, the senators must be chosen by the state legislatures, remember that? Seventeenth Amendment changed all that, unfortunately. And now the senators are just long-term members of the House of Representin’. That’s all they are.

But the Senate was set up to be the august body that would provide clarity. It would be of the – the Senate was supposed to be comprised and composed of the wisest men of the era, those that had studied, those that were statesmen, those that were not kneejerk, and they didn’t have to be kneejerk. And the reason that they wanted the Senate to be like this is because they wanted the Senate to be a further check. They wanted United States senators in most instances to say no. To say no. This is why, if you study the debates on the Fourteenth Amendment, which is the greatest debate that was held on an amendment, you’ll find out that almost all of the important stuff that was ever said about the Fourteenth Amendment was said in the Senate.

And so my point is, and it’s a long way to get around to it, but I love talking about history, the point is, is that when the people are saying no more war, you people in the House of Representin’ better pay attention because we will elect people that are going to go there and are going to end this war. Whether you do it right now or whether we have to elect someone in 2012 to end this madness, we will do it.

Restoring Republicanism as the Proper Form of American Governance

go to ImaginativeConservative.org

There you will find Brad Birzer’s review of Mike Churches new movie "The Spirit of 76",  but it’s also a lot about the country. It’s a lot about the people. And as Birzer points out, the term “republic” comes from the Greek “res publica.” And that was Greek for that which is good. This is why the Greeks organized republics, because they thought they were good. We think that they’re good. We don’t have a republic anymore. And Birzer was recounting, and I found this amazing, being the history buff that I am. that as early as 1805, there were Mike Churches in 1805. Her name was Mercy Otis Warren. Yeah, I know. Go ahead and laugh.
Mercy Otis Warren was an early historian of the early country, of the early republic. And 1805, a mere 30 years, or 29 years after the American Revolution commenced in earnest, she was already seeing the beginning signs of the decay of the republic, the decay of republicanism. And she resolved, and Birzer quotes her here, to go ahead and write down what it was that the struggle for independence meant, what it was that drove and inspired the men that instigated it, that fought for it, that executed it, that stood by it, that pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to it and what have you. She did all these things. And she wrote them down, and it’s a history of the American Revolution, I believe is what – I think you can get it at Google Books. It’s probably in print, too. Mercy Otis Warren.

And what Birzer was recounting is that we have tried every remedy – and I just thought this was just so poignant and so relevant to today’s discussion. The people in this country have tried every remedy. We have bought every snake oil remedy there is out there. We bought porkulus. We bought stimulus. We bought tax cuts. We bought new presidents. We bought new congresses. We bought new policies. We created agencies. Why, we managed the air, we managed the land, we managed the sea, we managed everything. We regulated banks. We regulated stocks. We did this. We traded with the world. We entered world leagues. Hell, we fought the entire world. We fought terrorism. We did all these things, and we’re still continuing to do all these things. We managed our crops. We paid people to not grow crops. We ruined free trade in our own hemisphere. We tried that. We’ve tried everything. We’ve subsidized industries.
We’ve tried everything except – and this is Brad Birzer’s brilliant, salient point here. We have tried everything to fix our current malaise except republicanism. That gift, that glowing, burning, beautiful gift that those men called the Founders left us. We tried everything except that. That’s the only thing that is left on the damn table unused. That’s criminal. And there are some of us that see that as our escape hatch, as our way out of this. And there are some of us that recognize that it is not the best laid plans of men that lead to success, that lead to prosperity, that lead to happiness.



He also points out that, back in the Founders’ day, happiness was not to be found in an iTunes download. Happiness was not to be found in just abject economic prosperity. Happiness was not to be found at the end of a rainbow filled with gold coins. Happiness was being free. Happiness was having the liberty to govern yourselves. Happiness was having the liberty to move about the countryside without having to show ze papers. Happiness was knowing and was resting comfortable that you had finally established a government that was going to protect and safeguard your liberties, protect the value of your earnings through hard money, gold and silver coins. Happiness was being able to go to your town hall, your church, and debate amongst your friends and your peers and determine the answers to the great questions of that day. Not have them settled for you by nine bandits in black robes. That’s what they thought happiness was. None of this crap that we think it is.



So we’ve tried everything, Brad points out, except what the Founders left us. “Your probably asking why should we do what the fuddy-duddy idiot slave owners in the 17th, 18th centuries did, you idiot?” Well, dropping the slave-owning part, I would say that they were far more successful than Obama has been. I would say they are far more successful than any president in the modern era has been. Yes, that includes Ronald Reagan. I would say that a return to at least those ideals and at least those principles has to yield better results than Obama’s council of economic advisors, which is now poised to leave all of us high and frickin’ dry.

Why, there was going to be a new era, a new green energy economy we’re all going to prosper under so mightily. And the men and the women that designed this nightmare and engaged in it and forced us through the compulsion of government to participate in it, now that it hasn’t worked, now that it’s an unmitigated, inarguable disaster visited upon the good people of these states, now, what are they doing? They’re running for cover back in their universities. They’re running for cover. They get to go back and cash in. Do you get to cash in? What are we left with?
Thanks, Austan Goolsbee. Thanks, Christina Romer. Thanks, Lars Summers. Thanks, Peter Orszborg, Orszag. They’re all gone. They’re all making millions and millions of dollars – gee, I wonder how that happened – back in the “private sector.” But it’s really not the private sector any longer. They did just fine. What they did to us didn’t hurt them one iota. As a matter of fact, they benefited it from it mightily. Boy, talk about serving your country. Hah. How about serving yourself?