26 May 2007

The People are Alienated, not the illegals

My thanks to Powerline for pointing out this screed by Michael Gerson on "Letting Fear Rule".

The arguments that Michael Gerson puts up tries to tie legal immigration with illegal immigration and paint with a wide brush on that basis so as to demean and slander those who wish to see the Laws of the Land actually *enforced*. To this modern era the wrong-headed view that 'everything is political' is absolute garbage: the Nation puts government in place so as to secure the liberty and freedoms of the People so that we may have the widest possible view on all issues INCLUDING the non-political views. To assault the common ground of society and fence it off in totality TO politics is a repudiation of the foundations of representative democracy and the ability of the common man to lead a good life secure that the laws held in common are upheld for the safety of individuals and society.

That is NOT a racial nor cultural positing of the question of illegal immigration: it is upholding the powers granted to Congress by the People so as to secure this Nation State we call the United States of America.

It is a NATIONALIST argument in FAVOR of the Laws of the Land being upheld via the Constitutional mandates put upon said government by the People. It does not matter the color nor beliefs of the Nation that has this system as it is the system which allows the People to have representative government that reflects their wishes and to have knowledge that such powers are granted to uphold laws passed that reflect those wishes.

Perhaps Mr. Gerson has never heard of Nationalism?

How about the US Constitution?

The power directly granted TO Congress to cover this are straightforward and clear in Article I, Section 8, of which I shall highlight those things that Congress is currently ignoring much to the woe of the Nation:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Is Mr. Gerson familiar with this part of the US Constitution?

To reinforce that, the very first part of Section 9 then reinforces it:
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
Has he ever bothered to read the Constitution which makes the ever-so-precious political parties POSSIBLE? Do we see that Congress is given the power and responsibility to actually regulate immigration and to secure the Nation via its powers to the point of calling out the militia to protect it? Is this unfamiliar ground for a Republican? To not acknowledge the foundation of liberty and freedom in the United States that rests upon the Congress for domestic affairs points to something seriously lacking in the debate about what to do with illegal immigrants.

We the People handed awesome powers to Congress to defend the Nation, secure its borders, call out the militia and put us deeply into debt after collection of monies when We the People fell short on available funds. These are not puny powers.

These are powers now backed by the mightiest economy on the planet that makes the next few of them, together, seem small in comparison. When Congress says that something is *impossible* to do given those magnificent resources that We the People put at its disposal, all the way to long term debt above and beyond what can be put forward by the People, it is expected that the Nation is at an end. I wrote about that in humorous fashion previously, but the point is absolutely and deadly serious:
The exact same all-encompassing powers used by the Federal Government in World War II to devote 50% of the economy to war production and to collect War Bonds so as to build *more* and owe debt to the People, are the exact same powers Congress wields for each and every one of its responsibilities.
By trying to cast this into a racial, sociological, demographic or political arena, Mr. Gerson is saying that the Nation State of the United States has no legitimate means to back up its National Laws enacted by Congress and that We the People should just *take it*.

It is pure and outright slander upon the People to call the upholding of the Federal Laws, duly made and enacted via the Constitution, upheld by the Supreme Court and fully backed by the faith of the American People to properly do those things We deem necessary to do to be: racist, politically oriented, cultural or any other thing.

If you do not like the way We the People have spoken, and wish to destroy the Nation by undermining its Laws held in common and to hold NO accountability to them then you, Mr. Gerson, are making an argument *against* the Nation for those exact same reasons and NOT on behalf of upholding the Laws of the Land. To date Congress has not bothered to properly fund the Federal Forces to Protect the Nation and back them with the full faith and power of the American People, and you, Mr. Gerson, are saying that those proposing such are RACIST?

The Nation does not close its doors to those who apply for Legal Entry into the United States, although there are requirements placed upon those individuals so as to ensure that the Nation is not undermined by them. Even back in the heady days of the open-immigration era, before 1920, there was a mandatory QUARANTINE against infectious diseases. Perhaps Mr. Gerson is unfamiliar with a place called Ellis Island? And while not many were turned back, some few WERE as was dictated by the Laws established by Congress.

Does that ring a bell?

When I see Congress after Congress doing *nothing* about this situation and then, 21 years after swearing that Congress would, indeed, figure this out and Uphold the Laws of the Land we now hear that they can't DO SO?

When Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 26 talked of Congressional conspiracy to continue on armies in perpetuity, that basic outlook fits with ANYTHING multiple Congresses does to weaken or undermine the republic, and I will break out each sentence so as to spell it out for Mr. Gerson:
"Is it probable that it would be persevered in, and transmitted along through all the successive variations in a representative body, which biennial elections would naturally produce in both houses?"
It appears that the biennial system has produced a continuing laxity in Congress to actually perform their duties handed to them by the People to which each member swears an Oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. I do not have to imagine that - it is evident from the actual Congressional Record.
"Is it presumable that every man the instant he took his seat in the national Senate or House of Representatives would commence a traitor to his constituents and to his country?"
It seems that the moment an individual steps up to their elected office 'everything becomes political' although their seat is devoted to the United States first and above all. We have documented evidence by the FBI on one Congressman in 1980 stating that basic point of view and that is how he sees the normal course of business in Congress and he expects to benefit from it for at least 20 more years. I do not have to presume such corruption is rampant as Congress no longer funds that sort of investigation and the FBI has been 'brought to heel' by Congress on that issue. It is not seen as it is uninvestigated at the behest of Congress and by its power of the purse over that Agency.
"Can it be supposed that there would not be found one man discerning enough to detect so atrocious a conspiracy, or bold or honest enough to apprise his constituents of their danger?"
When such individuals who make a case for upholding the Constitution are immediately branded: racist, nativist, extremist, or just 'not acknowledging the imperative of demographics', then using mass media to impugn the character of those making purely National Security and National Law Enforcement arguments, then one does not have to wonder what happens to 'discerning individuals'. When the power of mass media is deployed by the political elites in Washington, DC to say that the voice of the People does not matter to them and that those putting forth for the upholding of the Laws of the Land should be derided and ridiculed, then even BOLDNESS and HONESTY OF APPRAISAL falters as it is delegitimized before the argument can even be MADE. And I can trot out hundreds of newspaper articles and the speeches of politicians and demagogues to demonstrate that if you wish, Mr. Gerson, although I would appreciate keeping some of my last few meals down because of the disgusting nature of those opinions. Although an organization like La Raza, which I will not link to, ought to make that clear - 'The Race'. They are on YOUR SIDE, Mr. Gerson.
"If such presumptions can fairly be made, there ought at once to be an end of all delegated authority."
Alexander Hamilton calls for this and I, at this point given the nature of the debate about warfare and immigration, do agree, wholeheartedly. The nature of democracy is being so distanced from the People of the United States and the power so collected to a few individuals in Washington that the entire concept of Federalism is being destroyed. To safeguard democracy and hold Federal Government accountable, withdrawing the State's Representatives and Senators is something I would encourage each State to do as NONE of them are being protected by this Government.
"The people should resolve to recall all the powers they have heretofore parted with out of their own hands, and to divide themselves into as many States as there are counties in order that they may be able to manage their own concerns in person."
The argument that Mr. Gerson is making along with all other grandstanding sycophants of Washington and the demagogues of race *against* the American People who are diverse in background and character, is one to remove the legitimacy of democratically elected representation to a republic and change the basis for the United States to one devoted to the separation of the races, separation of the peoples, separation of the laws between peoples and to unequally uphold the laws and instigate absolute favoritism AGAINST the very process outlined in the US Constitution. And I stand by another of the Founders who had this to say about human liberty and government:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."
Yes, Thomas Jefferson and some editing by Benjamin Franklin.

Apparently the Founders of the United States believed in democracy as the best way to ensure that happiness and safety for the People was secured. So did Alexander Hamilton and many another that went through the Revolution, designed and argued about the Constitution and then ensured that the basic freedoms were ensconced in the Bill of Rights for the Citizenry. The word for a Congress that will not uphold its powers, not reflect the Will of the People, not steadfastly stand by commitment to War when Congress so allows, will not back the fighting forces of the Nation, will not fund the enforcement of the Laws of the Land, will not protect the borders against invasion by ANYONE, and will then move to deride and denigrate the population of the United States is:

TYRANNY

Is that clear?

2 comments:

JD said...

Amen. Great post.

A Jacksonian said...

jd - My thanks!

I just take what the founding generation warns about, apply the standards and see what the result is. We must never forget that liberty is revolutionary... as much now as it was then. And safeguarding its fundamental basis in democracy is paramount.