Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

In 1787 America was a lightly populated strip of North America bordering the Atlantic Ocean.  But our Founding Fathers were planning on a continental empire of liberty, and designed the Constitution accordingly.

One of their principal inspirations was the Twelve Tables, the foundation of the law of Rome and the Roman state.  Adopted in final form in 499 B. C., it was, as Will Durant states, “… the first written form of that legal structure which was to be Rome’s most signal achievement and her greatest contribution to civilization.”  It was a Constitution.

At the time Rome was one of many small, ambitious city-states in Italy, and only 360 square miles in area.  Then, for over three and a half centuries Rome expanded.  Now a mighty empire, Rome still, to a very great extent,  remained true to its laws.

That changed in 132 B.C., when Tiberius Gracchus, an impatient liberal populist, openly  flouted the Constitution by forcibly removing his fellow tribune from office, and thus overrode his veto of reformist laws.  Tiberius compounded his disregard for the Roman Constitution by seeking reelection as tribune, in complete disregard of the term limits in the Constitution.

Tiberius was quickly murdered by the Senate, but his willingness to ignore the law of Rome was not forgotten.  The Social and Civil Wars which followed ended with the ascension of Sulla Felix, who became a dictator.  A bit later, with Julius Caesar, the Roman Republic, and Roman law, were only memories.

The American Founding Fathers were familiar with this history, and determined to avoid it.  The reforms advocated by Gracchus, and prevented by the Twelve Tables,  should have been adopted.  There were necessary to avoid the civil strife that followed.   But the Twelve Tables contained a fatal flaw, which the Framers knew they would have to correct.  The American Constitution, unlike the Roman, would include procedures for amendment.

The Romans did have 367 years of constitutional governance.  They went from a bunch of mud huts along the Tiber to the greatest power in  the world.  But a Constitution designed for a small city-state was wholly inadequate for a world power.  The Twelve Tables contained no provision for change.  It was their downfall.

So the Framers decided to allow Congress, by 2/3 vote, to propose amendments, with 3/4 of the states necessary to ratify.  Not easy, but done successfully 27 times, about once every ten years.  But some of the Framers, Madison and Mason in particular, weren’t satisfied.

The Romans, like the Americans, were violently opposed to monarchy and the concentration of power.  The system of government set out in the Twelve Tables is designed to preserve liberty by diffusing power.  A bewildering array of offices was created, with overlapping jurisdictions.  What they all had in common was term limits.  No citizen would be allowed to remain in power long enough to pose a threat.  Political power was widely dispersed.

Actually, it was a mess, which the Framers wished to avoid.  So they designed other mechanisms to widely distribute power  — federalism, the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and a Bill of Rights.  And, ultimately, Article V.

Article V is not just an alternative method of amending the Constitution.  It’s a fundamental statement of federalist principle:  the federal government is subservient to the States.  If the central government is deemed a threat to our freedom, the States, through Article V, have a means of controlling it.

Most Americans now fear the federal government has, indeed, become such a threat.  Once they realize the Founding Fathers gave us a tool to defend ourselves, they’ll use it.

The first Article V Amendment Convention will probably convene in 2017, once the necessary 34 State Resolutions have passed.  We have 27 Resolutions calling for a Balanced Budget Amendment today, and might even get seven more next year.

Whenever it comes  — and it is coming — this Convention will begin the resurrection of federalism, and the Constitution.

 

 

Reuters has an article saying Islam is now an existential threat to the West.  In other words, a threat to our very existence, or survival.  Politically, this means Republicans and Democrats have cover for discarding the Fourth Amendment.  They’re busy this week, in a marvelous display of much sought for bipartisanship, in subverting our freedom as Americans.

If Islam were in fact an existential threat I might give them a listen.  But Islam?  These people don’t know how to make bicycles.  We could wipe their whole civilization out on a weekend.  The only weapon they have is terror, and if people refuse to be terrified they’ve got nothing.

Sure, they can kill us if our guard is down.  In Arab culture, the stab in the back is celebrated.  But terror attacks are disruptive, not destructive.  The next day commerce begins again.

But what if they get a bomb?  It could happen.  They could blow it up in Manhattan and kill a million people.  America would survive.  Our existence would not be threatened.

And this, really, is the summit of their imagination: a nuclear device killing a million Americans.  Then what do they do?  Blow up another city?  They’d never get a chance.  Detonating a nuclear device in the United States is signing your own death warrant.  We’d start by dropping a 100 megaton bomb on Mecca, and move on from there.  No Moslem shrine in the world would be left standing.

Islam is a threat to our freedom only if they scare us into taking it away from ourselves.

I have to give a hat’s off to Judge Andrew Napolitano on Special Report.  He tore young Brett Baier a new one on this subject.  Liberty and security are not on a balance.  Our liberties are supreme, and enshrined in the Constitution.  You can’t say it much better than the Judge did.

The night before I saw something truly pathetic on the same show.  An Asian Frenchman was talking to his little boy about terrorism, and the kid says he’s afraid, because the bad people have all the guns, and the father says, “Yes, but we have flowers.”  There are words for this, but this is a family blog.

We should all thank God for the internet.  It has liberated knowledge, and opened lines of communication, that are completely unprecedented in human history.  We are living in a brave new world.  A world of expanding freedom, and measureless promise.  And we’re going to let a bunch of 7th Century fanatics take all this away from us?  I don’t think so..

There have been contests between liberty and security before in our cultural history.  As Thomas More said, “…when the last law was down, and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?”

Politico has a story on the partisan divide which points out the one, big, defining issue for 2016.  The number one concern for Democrats is income inequality.  Republicans make economic growth their highest priority.  On substance, this may be the issue that decides the election.

The people who will decide this election haven’t been paying attention, and won’t until after Christmas.  They aren’t even Republicans or Democrats  — they’re independents, swing voters, middle of the roaders, and switch hitters.  Do they want Hillary leading the fight against income inequality, or a Cuban fighting for economic growth?

They’ll take the Cuban every day.  What does reducing income inequality do for them, personally, and their families?  What makes anybody think Hillary would be any more successful in this task than Obama?  Why does bringing rich people down do anything for the struggling middle class?  How, exactly, does all this work?

The Republican will have a clear and easily understood program for growth.  A plan which has been tested, most recently by Ronald Reagan, to great effect.  A plan which a century ago gave us the Roaring 20’s.

Fighting income inequality is inherently a job for an aggressive and powerful government.  Economic expansion requires the reduction of government, in the forms of taxes and regulation.  Do the independents of this country, after the experience of Obamacare, really want a more aggressive and  powerful federal government?  Or do they want it reined in?

If that’s the question I like the answer.

The Democratic Victory Task Force is out with its report, and we should be worried.  They nailed it.  We’re in trouble.

They’ve discovered their “disjointed style of communicating” makes them “lack a clear message.”  Debbie W-S makes clear that the failure to address any actual issues in this report is no accident.  On the issues, they’re just fine. No adjustment needed.  They need better messaging, that’s all.  The dog food is fabulous.  They need to sell it better.  They need a “clear, value based message”  to “promote innovation and prosperity for all.”  Oh, and they’re going to “reach out” to Southerners.

This is  what, at some point, is going to dawn on the independent “deciders.”  The D’s under Obama have run the federal government for eight years.  He only had the House and Senate together for two, and if Hillary wins she might take the Senate, but no one thinks the D’s flip the House.  So Hillary will face the same political circumstances that Obama has.  Why is she going to succeed in getting the economy going when he hasn’t?  What is she going to do different, and better?

With Hillary, is there any hope of change?

 

We’re pretty much birds of a feather here in the Sierra foothills.

When Babbie and I left Alaska after 27 years we looked at Healdsburg in the North Bay wine country, and at Ben Lomond in the Santa Cruz redwoods.  I knew I wouldn’t fit in.  Republicans are endangered species in both areas.  They’re both beautiful, pseudo-rural areas, but I felt a vague sense of discomfort.

So I decided to take a look at the foothills, and after a couple days in Sonora I called Babbie and told her we’d found a new place to live.  I fit in.  We’ve been here fourteen years and I still feel right at home.  Our popular sheriff openly refuses to enforce gun control laws he feels are unconstitutional.  I feel right at home.

This is an example of the great sorting, and it’s a good thing.  People are more comfortable around others who are similar to them.  This is not a racial thing.  Blacks feel more comfortable around blacks.  People like being in a “safe space”, having a sanctuary.   It’s human nature.  This makes some people uneasy, but it’s a fact:  diversity does not unite communities, it divides them.

As an American, I’m very supportive of diversity, of all kinds.  I like the fact that we’re not all a bunch of Deutschlanders living in Deutschland.  We come from all over the world, and I think that’s very cool.  We’re about to elect a Cubano as our President.  How cool is that.  Having a black President was cool.

I also like living around people who are a lot like me.  I can visit San Francisco and see all the diversity I want.  And people from San Francisco come to the foothills to recreate, which is great.  They’ve got their community, we’ve got ours.

I guess this makes me a racist.  But I’m not the only one.  I think a majority of Americans feel the same way.  It’s just the way people are.

The Democrats don’t like this kind of talk, because it smacks of segregation.  But a strictly voluntary, and unorganized, segregation, enforced by no law, surrounded by no barriers.  It is not racial.  Though they are few in number, ethnic minorities are welcome in the foothills, and can feel at home here.  It’s a  spontaneous clustering of like minded individuals who are at the same time full participants in the society at large.

This is what’s happening in America because this is what people want.  And in this country the people, eventually, get what they want.

This is a part of chasm between red state and blue state America.  We’re very different from one another, and don’t particularly enjoy each others company.   I don’t have any problem with the people in San Francisco living their progressive lifestyle.  Live and let live, I say.

I just wish they’d treat me the same way.

I’d rather not be a Democrat.  Obama and his party have chosen to stay the course after Paris.  No corrections or adjustment, just low intensity, politically supervised, and low risk operations.  No one believes this will take out ISIS.

At the same time we’ll take in between 10,000 and 65,000 Syrian “refugees”, after having done a pro forma background check.  This is insanity.  To believe that not one of these thousands will be a jihadist is absurd.

The American people know it, and will hold Obama and the Democrats accountable.  If a Syrian immigrant commits a serious crime against an American citizen, much less an act of terror, there will be hell to pay.  If we have a terror incident involving Syrians it could easily put a Republican in the White House.  If ISIS manages to pull off a  major attack in this country, the Democrats are toast.

ISIS holds the Democratic Party hostage.

Democrats are the party of compassion, and nurturing.  They care, and share, and avoid conflict.  They’re the Mommy party.  When there is danger, Americans look to the party of strength, resolve and muscle.  That’s the Daddy party, the Republicans.  Throughout the Cold War the Republicans had an advantage.  In times of peace that advantage disappears.  Paris demonstrates, even to the very lowest information voter, that there’s a war on.

I’d rather not be a Democrat right now.

At the parliamentary French President Hollande just addressed a joint session of the National Assembly and Senate in the parliamentary  chamber at the Palace of Versailles.  France is at war, and he wants it on a war footing.  Constitutional protections and civil liberties may be suspended.  This man means business.*

Obama, not so much.  Nothing much to see here, let’s move on.  And no Democrat will cross him.  The Socialist President of France, of all people, is a tower of strength.  In contrast, The United States is led by an insecure and listless man.

You can imagine the Republicans overreacting.  If there are no further attacks, a year from now perhaps the Democrats’ caution and passivity will be rewarded.  I sure wouldn’t count on it.

As the party in power, the Democrats are responsible for our security.  With 9-11, Bush 2 blew it, but because of his bellicose reaction didn’t pay a price.  With Obama it’s different.  Everyone can see his aversion to another Mideast adventure.  It’s understandable, and doesn’t hurt politically.  Yet.  But Hillary and the Democrats can do nothing but hope they can get by for eleven and a half months without an act of terror on  our soil.  That’s a long time to wait.  I’d be nervous.

I’d rather not be a Democrat right now.

 

*Hat tip to Tim Kelly