The Destruction of Our Republic

The Destruction of Our Republic

The View from the Middle

 

As I have watched the confirmation hearings of the very gifted and qualified Amy Coney Barrett in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it has reinforced two things to me.  First, this kangaroo court, where the minds of the members were made up before the hearing even began, reminded me of the duplicity, depravity and hypocrisy that runs rampant throughout the people who govern us today.  Second, it confirms to me the wisdom and even genius of our founding documents, The Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.

Every American should study the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to appreciate the very difficult issues those men grappled with and the compromises they all made to protect the individual rights of American citizens.  They had just left a monarchy and they never wanted this new country to return to the tyranny that comes with a too big, too powerful or too one-sided government that could run roughshod over its constituents.  They were worried about “the tyranny of the majority” and concerned about protecting even the minority from the potential abuses of big government.

This is why we have two houses of congress and the electoral college.  Many of the founders were concerned that if we had just one house of congress, the House of Representatives for example, then the big states would overpower and ignore the needs and desires of the rest of the states.  Thus, the Senate was born with equal representation for all states (two Senators per state) and longer terms of office (six years).  Legislation had to pass both houses so, in theory, this protected the interests of the smaller states.  This bicameral congress was designed to encourage and even force compromise.  

The fact that ALL legislation had to pass both Houses of Congress and be signed by the President was a deliberate element in the structure of our government.  It was intended to slow things down, force debate and encourage, even demand, compromise.  And, as if this wasn’t enough to incent accommodation, the Senate used the filibuster as yet another tool to do so.  That rule became official over 100 years ago when the Senate required a 60 vote super-majority to bring cloture (end debate) on any bill.  Compromise and protection of the minority has, until recently, been the expectation of our government.

The separation of powers was another aspect of our Constitutional government whose intent was to protect us all from an overzealous government.  The legislative body has had the duty to create laws, but the executive branch has the power to veto such laws and the duty to enforce them once signed into law.  The judicial branch has the responsibility to interpret those laws and insure that they comply with the constitution.  It is particularly important that all laws comply with The Bill of Rights since it was designed to limit the power of the government and protect the freedoms of the people. 

But all of this wisdom and genius is at risk in this election.  There are questions that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will not answer, because they know that their intent is to violate the very spirit of our Constitutional Republic.  The first question they will not answer is whether they intend to “pack the Supreme Court”.  

If the Democrat Party would achieve even the slimmest majority in the Senate or even a 50-50 split with a Biden-Harris Whitehouse (hardly a mandate) they can change the rules of the Senate and pass any legislation they want, as long as they control the House, which they do now, and of course the Whitehouse.  They could pass a law requiring the addition of four new Justices on the Supreme Court. Not because this is right or needed, but because it would allow Joe Biden to select four new liberal judges whose intent is to create law, not interpret it.  They can then confirm all those judges, again with the slimmest of majorities, not because it is right or beneficial to the country, but simply because they can.  They can, and would, tell the minority party (nearly half of the country) to go to hell, pound sand, stick it wherever (You pick the insult).

I suggest, with complete confidence, that there is not a single sitting Justice on the Supreme Court who would agree with such a move.  Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg supported a court of nine Justices.  She reminded us all that we have had nine Justices for over 150 years and she felt that was the right number.  She also suggested that adding Justices to the court would only politicize it beyond recognition.  Her exact words were, “If anything would make the Court look partisan, it would be one side saying, ‘We’re in power and we’re going to enlarge the court so that we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.’”  That is a pretty straight forward statement, and from probably the most liberal Judge on the Court before her recent passing.

Democrats have also suggested that they will try to “pack the Senate” by making Washington DC a state and thus awarding them two Senate seats, which they believe will be reliably Democrat.  They also will try to turn California into four different states or offer statehood to Puerto Rico.  None of these moves are supported by good logic, but by a drive to give them a permanent majority in the Senate, even though it violates the very principles on which our country was founded.  It is gerrymandering on a national scale.

It is amazing to me that Joe Biden could even suggest that he intends to “unite” this country in one breath and then embraces these divisive policies in the next. Unless you want a tyrannical, heartless and ruthless slim majority defying the very principles on which this country was founded, then we must all demand that he and his party reject these divisive, power-hungry tactics.  We cannot accept him saying he’s, “not a fan of court-packing”.  He must REJECT it and explain what that means.  If these policies are ever enacted, we will become just another China, Russia or Cuba.  A one-party system that can ignore the will of the very people they are supposed to represent.