Chief Justice Obama?

President Obama is a Harvard Law graduate with emphasis in Constitutional law.  He is a shrewd enough politician to get himself elected President.  He surrounds himself with advisers who, on paper at least, should be capable of simple tasks.  Apparently, at least one simple task is just too complex for President Obama's legal team:  understanding the difference between the executive and judicial branches of our Federal government.  If you retained attorneys who consistently advised you that you could do things that are unconstitutional, how long would you continue to pay for their services? Of course, if they advised you that you could ignore the Constitution and declare yourself the Commander-in-Chief, the chief executive of the Government, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court all rolled into one omnipotent juggernaut of personality, you might like what you are hearing from those attorneys. 

First the White House Counsel advised the President that a Democrat House and Senate, upon his signature, could enact a law compelling citizens to purchase health insurance.  Thankfully, federal judges are voiding that law as unconstitutional, most recently in Florida, and states are moving to halt implementation of government-mandated health care.  Ultimately "Obamacare" as many call it, will be adjudicated by the Supreme Court.  As it should be under our separation of powers.  The judicial system determines constitutionality of laws.  This power is, in no way, given under the Constitution to the executive branch, which is empowered only to nominate individuals to serve as judges.  Court decisions are steadily demonstrating that the President's legal advisers missed the mark.

President Obama's advisers, however, have convinced the President to take an unprecedented unconstitutional action that is even more alarming:  unilaterally declaring a law unconstitutional and intentionally refusing to perform his duty to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.  It would behoove President Obama and his advisers to review carefully the oath of office he swore to in January 2009 in light of his utter abandonment of a law:  The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  Currently this law is in effect, signed into law by President Clinton.  It is the law of the land until the judicial system, rising to the Supreme Court, declares definitively whether it is Constitutional or not.  Instead, the President's advisers, driven by the smallest percentage of his constituents numerically but loudest vocally -gay rights activists- convinced the President to announce that his Administration considers the DOMA unconstitutional and has directed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the law by declining to defend it in legal actions brought against it by plaintiffs seeking for Federal recognition of same-sex marriage.  Naturally, this refusal to defend the law was not accompanied by a citation of constitutional authority permitting such action, nor could it have been, since the power to declare laws unconstitutional belongs to the Judicial and not the Executive branch.

The political left and willing accomplices in the media are currently attacking former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich for pointing out the "Constitutional crisis" the President's action has created.  They have focused on one word Newt mentioned in an interview, "impeachment", and are portraying Newt, the impeacher of President Clinton, as simply being up to his old tricks, now calling for President Obama's impeachment.  However, as is usually the case in media coverage, the truth of what Newt actually said is being intentionally obscured.  Newt did not say that President Obama SHOULD be impeached at this time for his action.  What he DID say was that if a Republican president declared a law unconstitutional and directed the Justice Department to stop enforcing it, political liberals and the media would come unglued and certainly call for that president's impeachment.  Newt used an effective analogy in his NewsMax interview:

Imagine that Governor Palin had become president. Imagine that she had announced that Roe versus Wade in her view was unconstitutional and therefore the United States government would no longer protect anyone’s right to have an abortion because she personally had decided it should be changed. The news media would have gone crazy. The New York Times would have demanded her impeachment.

First of all, he campaigned in favor of [the law]. He is breaking his word to the American people. Second, he swore an oath on the Bible to become president that he would uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws of the United States. He is not a one-person Supreme Court. The idea that we now have the rule of Obama instead of the rule of law should frighten everybody. The fact that the left likes the policy is allowing them to ignore the fact that this is a very unconstitutional act.

The precedent that would be established by allowing a president to suspend a law, any law, that was passed by Congress and signed by a previous president, is indeed dangerous.  Capital Cloak believes that President Obama, in his heart, agrees with the DOMA, as he has spoken in favor of traditional marriage consistently until this sudden lurch off the Constitutional path.  The fact that he has agreed to this course of abandoning enforcement of law is a sign that in his Administration, the tail really does wag the dog.  A few loud voices representing gay advocacy groups appear to be convincing President Obama that their volume is indicative of how the entire nation feels about traditional marriage.  It is not, and if the President continues in this extra-legal action, he could find himself a one term President. 

Prop 8 vote breakdown in CA 2008

President Obama must keep in mind that 70% of African-American voters in ultra-liberal California supported Proposition 8Obama's advisers are already gambling that he can win reelection in 2012 with or without the support of traditional marriage advocates by steering him to suspend the DOMA despite having no Constitutional power to do so.

Times: Iraqis Too Dirty, Ignorant, Corrupt

Conservative and liberal news forums and Internet sites are filled with guest columns by contributors with bylines that create an impression of authority or prestige. I find myself frequently wondering why respectable publications would solicit and publish material from certain contributors, especially when their material is filled with simplistic clichéd arguments laced with malicious and overtly bigoted blanket statements about the peoples of entire regions of the world. As a regular reader of the conservative Washington Times (foil to the liberal behemoth Washington Post) I read with great consternation and disgust today’s “contribution” to the Commentary section by Daniel Gallington, a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Va. Washington Times readers should wonder what is required to become a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute, if Gallington’s work is any representation. Gallington presented generalized arguments with no supporting documentation and espoused the idea that certain people, in this case Iraqis, are too dumb, too dirty, and “just don’t have it in them” to make democracy work. That such a column appeared at all in the pages of what is considered the flagship conservative newspaper in America defies logical explanation.

Gallington titled his Iraqi character assassination piece, “Wanted: Iraqi Patriots,” but rather than cite any of the ample examples of Iraqis dedicated to democracy, such as the millions of voters who braved suicide bombings and snipers to participate in the nation’s first truly democratic election, Gallington instead crafted an indictment of all Iraqis as corrupt, greedy, ignorant, filthy, and backwards. In doing so he joined Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and others who are convinced the war is lost and that Iraqis are not and never were worth fighting for. I have written extensively on Capital Cloak about the issue of freedom and democracy, that those fortunate enough to possess them are obligated to offer them to others and support those attempting to acquire them for themselves. I have also previously pointed out the fallacies of the arrogant belief that only certain anointed peoples in the world are worthy of democracy or “have it in them” to organize and live under democratic governments. Gallington, better than Reid or Pelosi, captured the true essence and vile sense of superiority behind such bigotry.

The presumably esteemed senior fellow Gallington opened his anti-Iraqi diatribe by stating the three things he believed Iraqis need to do, which are rather obvious:

(1) Create a functional multicultural state, federal or otherwise.

(2) Institute or enable some fundamental social reforms.

(3) Work out a formula or policy for the division of oil revenues.

Is it all that hard?

Perhaps Gallington, in his search for “Iraqi patriots,” should reexamine American history to answer his own simplistic and sophomoric question. Yes, even accomplishing the first of those three things is a monumental task, one that required 11 years for Americans themselves to achieve after years of political wrangling, endless debate, and regional suspicions and hostility. The colonies declared independence in 1776 and operated under a loose confederacy cobbled together for wartime harmony. Yet it was not until the hot summer of 1787 that a constitution was born, which then required ratification. Creating a “functional multicultural state” as Gallington called it, was not easy for the Founding Fathers, who had decades of experience in statecraft and political theory on which to rely. Should we expect the Iraqis to resolve the issues in less than half the time?

Gallington’s second simple task for Iraqis, instituting “some fundamental social reforms,” begs the obvious question: what kind of reforms? No explanation of this cryptic recommendation is offered, no suggestions made, and no examples cited. Gallington could find work as a speech writer for generic political candidates in today’s America, who win elections by promising to “bring change to Washington” or “to reform the tax code,” or “to reform Social Security.” Such statements mean nothing because they explain nothing. If Gallington cannot provide specific examples of social reforms that need to be made by Iraqis, it seems rather presumptuous for him to lecture an entire people on their failures.

The third “simple” task Gallington expects of Iraqis is a nationally accepted formula for the division of national oil revenues. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has stated eloquently how difficult such a division is but that progress in being made on that front. I wonder if Gallington has given any serious consideration to the concept of dividing a nation’s resources. What portion of America’s revenues from its own wells is Gallington receiving? The likely answer, not just for Gallington but for all of us, is none. There has never been a great national political debate in which existing resources such as oil have been divvied up and revenues shared by all. Yet many are impatient that Iraqis are struggling to determine how to distribute equitably the enormous revenue generated by oil production. Everyone wants a piece of the economic pie, and finding a solution that serves the needs of the major religious or ethnic factions in a large nation is no simple task. Again, Gallington here offered no suggestions or encouragement, merely condemnation for not yet achieving what our own country has never attempted.

Unfortunately, Gallington more than adequately expressed his bigoted opinion of why Iraq’s factions have not yet united as cohesively as the Bush administration had hoped:

The various leaders have all seen versions of this same instability before and are hedging their bets — they all have contingency plans for political and economic survival in the event of our failure. Most have their secret offshore money, their escape plan to the villa in the South of France, the kids in Swiss schools, etc....It’s the malaise that probably most affects our day-to-day success or failure there: In short, if it often looks as if they don’t care how it turns out, they may not.

We shouldn’t be surprised about these intractable attitudes: Compromise has never been a part of politics in the Middle East and it’s not about to start in Iraq…

Mafia-like corruption is an embedded way of life in Iraq and the Middle East….
Widespread ignorance on a colossal scale, especially in the vast rural regions, is a huge factor that works against a unified, multicultural and modern Iraq…

…These are people who perform basic human hygiene with one hand and eat with the other.

In sum, the Iraqis don’t seem to have their hearts in it…. They must have their hearts in it or they will fail at it. Finally, as sad a proposition as it may be for us, we may have to understand — and accept — that they just don’t have it in them.

Many who have visited or fought in Iraq have returned with very different opinions of the Iraqi people and their capacity for self rule under democracy. Where Gallington sees people performing “basic human hygiene with one hand” while eating with the other, the world has also seen purple-stained fingers raised in the “v” symbol after voting in a democratic election, many of which fingers belong to veiled women who were never previously allowed any participation in political discourse. Where Gallington cannot see past hygiene, those who believe freedom and democracy are to be shared with all peoples see heroism.

The Middle East has not cornered the market on corruption, and it is no more a way of life there than it is in the world’s democracies. Recent congressional scandals help illustrate that fact, but it is instructive to note Gallington’s choice of words. “Mafia-like corruption” is used to indict the entire Middle East and forms the basis for his argument that democracy will never work in that region, yet the Mafia was not a Middle Eastern creation. Italy, a democracy, was the birthplace to that particular brand of corruption, and its tentacles spread throughout the free world. We have battled it here in America, yet democracy has marched forward even in nations plagued by organized crime. Gallington clearly implied here that Middle Eastern peoples are more corrupt than their western counterparts and are ethnically unsuited for the freedom and democracy the west has achieved despite corruption.

The idea that “compromise has never been a part of politics in the Middle East” is a remarkably bigoted and historically inaccurate notion. The ancient Middle Eastern cultures relied almost exclusively on trade, as agriculture often needed to be imported as it could not be grown in local climates. Trade agreements formed the basis of mutually beneficial international relationships that often endured for decades or centuries at a time. Compromise was most certainly the central ingredient of Middle Eastern politics long before western powers became actively involved in the region, with compromises controlling access to wells, seaports, aqueducts, and other essential resources. To paint the entire Middle East as a region incapable of compromise suggests that Gallington considers the peoples of the region inferior in all respects to his own and does not attempt to conceal his disdain for the “backwardness” of Middle Eastern peoples.

As for the search for Iraqi patriots or Gallington’s opinion that the Iraqis “just don’t have it in them,” perhaps a more suitable use of the Potomac Institute’s research resources would be to pinpoint when American’s reverted from an enlightened populace dedicated to the inalienable rights of man granted by Divine Providence to a citizenry that arrogantly believes the peoples of the Middle East are too backwards, ignorant, or filthy to be worthy of our freedoms. Perhaps we will find that millions of Iraqis, under threat of bombings and snipers in their daily work in parliament, possess more patriotic fervor for democracy than is found among many of our elected officials safely entrenched and protected in the nation’s capital who are so willing to surrender to terrorists and withdraw from Iraq before its government can adequately defend itself.

If Iraqi hearts are failing, as Gallington suggests, it is because Democrats and some Republicans in America “just don’t have it in them” to patiently support a free Iraq that is pleading, even in newspaper editorial pages, for us not to abandon them to the ethnic or religious oppression from which they were recently liberated. It took our Founders 11 years including fighting a war before a constitution and a truly functional central government was created. Why do we expect Iraq to do likewise after only 4 years?

Americans must rise above the arrogant superiority complex displayed by Reid, Pelosi, and “senior fellows” like Gallington and demonstrate to the world a model nation and people worthy of emulation by humbly embracing all peoples who strive for freedom and democracy regardless of their “hygiene, “corruption,” or “ignorance.” More important than these three indictments by Gallington are desire, effort, and patient assistance. Those are the three things Iraqis must have if democracy is to succeed. If Gallington doesn’t believe Iraqis are worthy of our blood and sacrifice, one wonders whom he would consider worthy? The continued upsurge in reenlistments for additional tours of duty in Iraq is evidence that our fighting men, though not “senior fellows” at an institute, understand the value of spreading freedom as a universal, rather than exclusively American, right of all men.

Technorati:
Nouri Al-Maliki Iraqi Democracy Daniel Gallington Potomac Institute for Policy Studies Bigotry Iraq War

Reagan Mantle Too Big for Ron Paul

Libertarian conservatives have been busy artificially bolstering the myth that their presidential candidate of choice, Ron Paul, has a strong grass-roots base and wide appeal. During Fox News’ sophomoric cell phone text message voting during the second GOP presidential candidates’ debate, Ron Paul’s boosters voted early and often, causing the post-debate results to appear skewed toward the opinion that Paul was the winner of the debate, despite his trip to the proverbial woodshed courtesy of Rudy Giuliani for his argument that America brought 9/11 upon itself. Initially I thought that perhaps some of Paul’s poll votes were coming from Democrats hoping to dilute strong performances by Giuliani or Romney by voting for the least likely and most provocative of the candidates. However, comments posted by Paul supporters on conservative Internet sites or in blogs indicate that Paul is viewed by some as the only true conservative in the race and a champion of the constitution. Of course, Paul himself declares that he stands for the constitution, and on the surface that sounds like an honorable position to hold.

When it comes to government spending and government involvement in social matters, Paul’s urgings to limit government only to the duties expressly permitted by the constitution have appeal and resonate well in conservative circles. What conservative doesn’t want to see certain federal governmental departments disbanded and their duties reverted back to local and state authorities? What conservative doesn’t want to see the dreaded income tax disappear? To some conservatives, the economic/social aspects of Paul’s libertarian-leaning principles are a siren song by which they wish to be led, if only someone holding those views could actually secure the GOP nomination. Paul clearly is not a candidate that can win a national election, and for clear-thinking conservatives who can look past their own personal benefits from no income tax and smaller government, the reason for Paul’s lack of appeal is easy to identify.

Ron Paul is no Ronald Reagan. Paul’s supporters may claim he is the true representative of conservatism in the current candidate field, but Paul has an Achilles heel that keeps Reagan conservatives and Regan Democrats alike from ever considering him as anything more than a campaign footnote: He is selective about which portions of the constitution he would adhere to strictly, and “provide for the common defense” is not among them.

In the second GOP candidates’ debate, Paul stated the following:

They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East [for years]. I think [Ronald Reagan] was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. Right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that is bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting…

…They’re not attacking us because we’re rich and free, they’re attacking us because we’re over there.

Reagan directly repudiated Paul’s isolationist foreign policies 23 years ago on the beach at Normandy, France, a site where American intervention in foreign affairs proved most decisive in freeing Europe from Nazi enslavement:

The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc
June 6, 1984, Normandy

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation.

Reagan conservatives and Reagan Democrats need look no further than Reagan’s statement to find sufficient reason to shun Ron Paul’s isolationist ideas. Paul claimed during the second GOP candidates’ debate that the U.S. has been bombing Iraq for 10 years, as if it were unjustified and indiscriminate bombing of cities. That is patently false. Prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, the U.S. had occasionally bombed Iraq’s air defense stations or shot down Iraqi aircraft because Iraq regularly violated the no-fly zone enacted by the cease-fire that halted the first Gulf War. Paul chooses to ignore the fact that the Gulf War was, as Reagan prescribed, a “response to a tyrannical government with an expansionist intent.” Saddam invaded neighboring Kuwait solely for expansionist and economic motives. He wanted Kuwait’s oil and Kuwait’s ports, and Kuwait’s accumulated wealth, and so decided to take it by force. World leaders in 1991 had the fortitude to band together and, led by the U.S. military, pushed Saddam back behind his original borders. Had Saddam not violated the terms of the cease-fire by targeting our aircraft, there would have been no need for any further bombing. The defense of the no-fly zone lasted from 1991 until Operation Iraqi Freedom made it a moot point by removing Saddam from the equation because of his failure to abide by any of the UN conditions for the cease-fire enacted in 1991. Thus the current Operation Iraqi Freedom is merely a resumption of hostilities and is a continuation of the Gulf War.

Saddam, like Hitler, was removed, and rebuilding a nation and protecting it from foreign interference by those with designs on fomenting chaos, much like post WWII, is why our troops remain in Iraq. Had Ron Paul been president instead of Truman or Eisenhower, all of Germany would have fallen under Soviet occupation and Japan would have been overrun by Soviet or Chinese forces seeking retribution because Paul would have pulled American troops out of both places and brought them home immediately upon conclusion of the war. There would have been no Marshall Plan, no rebuilding and friendship alliance with Japan. No BMWs; no VWs; no Hondas; no Toyotas. Likewise, in Paul’s isolationist world, there would be no democratic South Korea. There would only be communist Korea, since Paul would not have committed U.S. troops to defend the free people of South Korea.

Ron Paul wants America to approach foreign policy with a pre-WWI mentality, when the mindset centered on the idea that America should not involve itself in any foreign war, and we nearly allowed all of Europe to be defeated by Germany. That war was so destructive that the isolationists redoubled their efforts between 1919 and 1941 to keep America from ever entangling itself in a foreign war. That isolationism resulted in Nazi occupation of continental Europe and Scandinavia, and horrific bombings of England. It also cost 6 million Jews their lives while Americans, who thought then as Ron Paul now does about intervention, stood silently on the sidelines of history, much to their condemnation.

Paul’s supporters should consider another sentence from Reagan’s powerful speech at Normandy. His explanation for why America’s military remained in Europe to confront potential Soviet aggression long after WWII, was simple, profound, and prophetic of our continued presence in Iraq:

Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy.

Regardless of how Iraq’s democracy came into existence, it is there now. Iraq has a constitution. Iraq has a democratically elected parliament that represents the wide variety of religious and tribal divisions of its population. It is imperfect, and it is often contentious, but so was America’s in its early years. The question Paul should be forced to address is, “Does America have a duty or role in history to protect and defend democracy in the world?” As an isolationist he will argue that such is not America’s role as it is not defined in the constitution. Reagan understood history far better than Paul, who would like to believe that the world begins and ends at America’s shores and nothing that occurs in foreign lands is worthy of intervention unless American interests are directly threatened. Technically speaking, from an economic/trade point of view, would it have made any difference to isolationists like Paul if Europe had been enslaved by Hitler as long as Hitler let America alone? America could have conducted normal trade in goods with Nazi Europe, including lucrative arms sales. Rescuing Britain, France, and Italy from Nazi control certainly involved an enormously “entangling alliance,” something George Washington warned of and Paul concurs with wholeheartedly. Why then did America free Europe and remain there in defensive posture for decades? The answer, as Reagan stated so perfectly, is that isolationism has never been and never will be an appropriate response to tyranny. Tyranny must be confronted wherever it exists, defeated, and replaced by freedom. Ron Paul would rather put his head in the sand and selfishly keep democracy and liberty all to himself.

Reagan understood something that Paul does not: America does not hold an exclusive right to freedom. America does not possess liberty out of luck or superior intellect. America is free and powerful because it is destined to use that power to spread and preserve freedom throughout the world. Paul’s strict but selective constitutional adherence seems to ignore that the right to liberty is identified in the Declaration of Independence, not as an American, English, or French right, but a right that belongs to all men, presumably even those in the Middle East whom Paul would abandon as apparently unworthy of these Jeffersonian words:

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.

This is the great issue of our time, and Paul falls woefully short in his willingness to engage in the defense of freedom. His GOP opponents more closely resemble the Reagan tradition. For example, when asked in the third GOP candidates’ debate what was the most important moral issue facing America, Giuliani replied that the greatest moral issue is whether America will share its blessings of freedom and liberty with the rest of the world. Conservatives should not allow themselves to be fooled by the Ron Paul Internet “phenomenon.” Paul was declared the winner of two GOP candidates’ debates by MSNBC, CNN, Politico, Slate, ABC News, and myriad other left-leaning media sources. A review of Wikipedia’s Ron Paul page certainly could leave an undiscerning reader with the idea that Paul has widespread support and is whipping all comers in the GOP debates. The liberal slant is obvious. Clearly from an ideological perspective liberals do not embrace Ron Paul’s libertarian views, so why is he the darling of the media and many Internet blogs? Quite simply, it is because Paul is 2008’s Ross Perot. If even 3 percent of conservative voters are swayed by Paul, it could spell the difference in a tight race and throw victory to the left, just as Perot’s theatrics did in 1992 and 1996. The left knows this and is in fact counting on it for victory.

Libertarian conservatives should not worship Paul as the constitutional savior they hold him out to be, and Reagan Conservatives and Reagan Democrats should remember that Paul is an isolationist hoarder of liberty, unwilling to preserve it among nations who possess it or share it with oppressed peoples who long for it and implore America to help them obtain it.

Technorati Tags:
Ron Paul, Ronald Reagan, Conservatism, Libertarian, Isolationism, Interventionism, Iraq War, Democracy, Presidential Candidates

Electoral College in Crosshairs of 39 States

Is your state legislature quietly working to discard an important Constitutional provision established by the Founding Fathers? It may be, but it is hoping you will not notice until it’s too late. Several state legislatures have already done so and 38 states at last count were considering passage of legislation to destroy the work of the Founding Fathers with no fanfare and minimal public outcry or even awareness. What is this pressing issue that states are moving rapidly to address, and in many cases embrace? Eliminating the Electoral College and our republican form of government currently in place in favor of a winner by popular vote democracy.

The provision gradually being voted out of existence is important, as it balances power between large and small states in national elections and limits the influence that one highly populated region can wield in determining who will be President of the United States. The Constitutional provision is commonly misunderstood, as most voters never take the time to read Article V of the Constitution, and is thus easily misrepresented in the media by groups who favor eliminating the Electoral College. These groups cite arguments for the change that are disingenuous statistically and historically, yet they rely on voter ignorance to achieve their goal.

Americans should always be wary of any movement that claims the Founding Fathers could not have envisioned a particular circumstance and thus the Constitution must be altered to reflect “reality” or “modern developments.” In the case of the movement to abolish the Electoral College, the motive of the movement’s ardent supporters should be closely evaluated. In sound bites and news articles, the leaders of this movement claim to be fighting for minorities, for “making votes count,” and for the winner of the popular vote to automatically be elected. What is the reason for this renewed any rapidly advancing campaign to eliminate the Electoral College and republican system? Why, George W. Bush, of course.

Four times in American electoral history, the winner of the popular vote did not win the Electoral College and was denied the presidency, in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000. While some dissatisfaction with the Electoral College system arose from the first three of these occurrences, the 2000 election which denied Al Gore of victory generated multiple recounts, court decisions, and accusations of dishonesty unparalleled in U.S. history. No president since Abraham Lincoln took office with more animosity and bitter division confronting him than George W. Bush. Opponents immediately declared his presidency to be illegitimate because “the people” had chosen Al Gore. The rancor this electoral environment produced has hampered the Bush administration and has given added impetus to the current drive to abolish the Electoral College. Although that movement disguises itself as an innocent lamb Constitutional improvement, it is in reality a dangerous wolf counting on Anti-Bush sentiment to assure the desired change.

Maryland’s legislature recently approved a measure that will guarantee its Electoral College votes will automatically be given to the winner of the popular vote. Some Maryland legislators questioned the wisdom of giving away the state’s 10 Electoral College votes to a candidate the majority of its own voters may not have chosen, but the anti-Bush hotheads succeeded in passing the measure. State legislators have cleverly understood that changing the U.S. Constitution to abolish the Electoral College is a very lengthy and difficult process, while changing their own state constitutions can achieve the same end by simpler means. By automatically assigning a state’s Electoral College votes to the popular vote winner, the Electoral College would no longer have the ability to serve the purpose for which it was created: balancing power between large (highly populated) and smaller states. The Electors’ votes would be meaningless.

The recent World Net Daily article about this issue refers to two groups: one, National Popular Vote, is spearheading the drive to abolish the Electoral College. The other, Wallbuilders, is advocating against the change and for preservation of our government as a republic rather than a true democracy. The Wallbuilders Internet site offers historical explanations for the origins of the Electoral College, and detailed counterarguments to the claims that the Electoral College is undemocratic, outdated, unfair, discriminatory, or ineffective in balancing power. It is worth reviewing, as this movement to destroy our republican form of government appears to be gaining momentum.

Of equal importance, Wallbuilders also debunks the dangerously false assertion that the Founding Fathers would embrace the proposed change to a virtual democracy rather than a republic. Those who argue that the Founders never intended for a popular vote winner to lose an election have clearly never read, or are choosing to ignore, both Article V of the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, both of which strenuously work to convince Americans to avoid a popular democracy. The founders, in fact, mandated that all state governments also be republics rather than democracies. The following quotes from Founders illustrate that they knew the difference between a republic and a democracy and wisely chose a republic, courtesy of Wallbuilders:

[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. James Madison

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. John Adams

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be, liberty. Fisher Ames, a framer of the bill of rights

We have seen the tumults of democracy terminate . . . as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism. . . . Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt. Gouverneur Morris, signer and penman of the constitution

[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating, and short-lived. John Quincy Adams

A simple democracy . . . is one of the greatest of evils. Benjamin Rush, signer of the declaration

In democracy . . . there are commonly tumults and disorders. . . . Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth. Noah Webster, responsible for article i, section i, ¶ 8 of the constitution

Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state — it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage. John Witherspoon, signer of the declaration

The desire for large, densely populated states to wield more influence on elections has not changed since the days of the Founders. One need only look at the recent decisions by California, Florida, and several other large states to move their election year primaries to February to see why small states need protection. Why was this done? Simply, large states felt that smaller, insignificant (in their view) small states like Iowa and New Hampshire were having too much influence on national elections through their early primaries and caucuses. These same large states are also championing the back door approach to abolishing the Electoral College by passing state legislation dictating that Electoral votes are given to the popular winner nationwide.

If you are unsure whether you reside in a state that is acting behind the scenes to eliminate the Electoral College, contact your state legislators and voice your opinion. While it is true Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, President Bush carried 2436 counties nationwide as opposed to only 676 for Gore. Gore’s support was concentrated in a few densely populated cities on the East and West Coasts. President Bush’s appeal was truly national in scope, indicating that the majority of localities felt he best represented their interests and values. Spy The News! encourages voters to educate themselves about this issue and why the Founders established the Electoral College. Readers should work to prevent state legislatures from destroying a measure the Founders applied as a cement to hold the large and small states together despite population concentrations or popular trends.