A call to restore the oath

Every day more and more Americans are convinced the government doesn’t have the nation’s best interests at heart. Despite the chance to elect new leaders every other year, it seems to us that nothing really ever changes and the nation sinks deeper and deeper into the morass created when the rule of man supersedes the rule of law.

But all is not lost. My friends at the Patriot Post are trying a new tactic to reverse the decline, and it’s called the Breach of Oath Project. As they state:

To enforce our Constitution’s limits on the central government, we believe a formal legal action is necessary. This action, if successful, would require that all members of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, first and foremost, abide by their oaths “to support and defend” our Constitution, under penalty of law, and thus, comport with its enumerated “few and defined powers” (Madison) of the federal government. The current scope of federal activities provides abundant evidence that many members of those three co-equal branches have long since abandoned their oaths, and, at present, there is no recourse for prosecution to enforce compliance.

So far, over 68,000 citizens (who may or may not run afoul of the Attackwatch.com website) have signed on in an effort to establish legal standing – failing that, the Breach of Oath goal is 500,000 signatures in order to codify this into law.

Obviously, this isn’t a last resort, but I’m sure most Americans don’t want to go through another War Between the States or a similar armed rebellion. When you have groups like the Three Percenters (which, by the way, predates the TEA Party) who are no longer willing to give in to the overreach of authority, well, something has to give. Obviously change by ballot is preferable to change by bullet, which seems to be the norm in Third World countries. While our economy is in the tank, we’re not at Third World status – yet.

Unfortunately, we seem to have a President who is hell-bent on ruling by fiat instead of going through the proper established channels. Perhaps that’s one reason “birthers” have continually questioned his citizenship, with a new development being a question about the Social Security number President Obama uses. (I suppose a good check on this would be to simply run the Social Security numbers of both President Bushes, President Clinton, and President Carter and see what comes up. And my other question – would the woman who did the original research be called a “Socialer”?)

Over the last century, pretty much since the Progressive Era of the early 1900s, we have seen an erosion of liberty on a number of fronts – some even trace it back to Lincoln’s very pursuit of the War Between the States as the beginning of the end of state’s rights.

The crowning achievements of the Progressive Era were the ratification of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments – the Sixteenth, as we all know, gave the government the right to tax income and all the power inherent within that right. The Seventeenth made Senators glorified members of the House since both bodies became popularly elected. No longer were Senators selected by the state legislatures in order to stand up for the rights of states under the Tenth Amendment.

Two decades later, we received an onslaught of big government with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, with the most lasting effect the creation of our largest entitlement (read: Ponzi scheme), Social Security. Thirty years later, the Great Society begat Medicare and Medicaid.

Nor were Republicans immune – President Nixon created the regulatory Goliath known as the  Environmental Protection Agency and President George W. Bush added prescription drugs to Medicare, yet another entitlement. On the other hand, no President – not even Ronald Reagan – has significantly reduced the size and scope of the federal government. What we need is another President Harding, who slashed the federal budget in half during his brief two-year tenure. Considering about 43 cents of every dollar of federal spending is borrowed, cutting spending in half would indeed bring us back to a slight surplus without raising taxes one thin dime.

(I realize we didn’t have the vast system of entitlement spending back then as we do now – Harding had the advantage of easy spending cuts from the military that was still bulky from World War I. But you get the point.)

And those who deride Warren G. Harding because of the Teapot Dome scandal which plagued the latter part of his short term in office – well, how about the Gunwalker scandal we have now? Seeking monetary gain through underhanded means is one thing, but trying to subvert our very laws to create a perceived need for change quite another.

If we were indeed a nation where the rule of law held sway, perhaps we would be in the midst of an impeachment trial right now. But Senators accountable to voters instead of selected by a state legislature aren’t the best of jurists – after all, they let President Clinton get away with clearly lying under oath. So what’s another coverup in the Oval Office?

Americans should expect better. Let’s get this situation cleaned up before bad things happen – sign the Breath of Oath petition.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.