Buckeye RINO

Editor’s note:  Ohio native (and current Nevada resident) James Williamson (one of my younger brothers) is back with another in his “Imminent Rebellion” series, which exams the power struggle between states and the U.S. federal government.  This blog article zeros in on the secession petitions forewarded from several states to the U.S. government, but James has been writing about the alienation between states and the federal government for quite some time.  The other guest blog articles in the “Imminent Rebellion” series, starting with the oldest one and progressing to the one just prior to this, can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.–DJW

Imminent Rebellion:  Rhetoric or Forewarning?

There has been a surge of news regarding the secession petitions filed on the White House’s We the People website.  Since I was talking about it over a year ago (you can see my previous blogs on the subject) I’m going to weigh in on the action now that it is coming much closer to front and center.

The latest information that I have is that someone has filed a petition for secession in all 50 states.  I will be the first to admit that many of these petitions have insignificant amounts of support and probably do not reflect popular opinion.  But is it all just talk?  So far.  Talk always precedes actions in the political world.  Is there enough talk that we should be worried?  Worried? Not yet. Concerned? Yes.

There are a few signs that this is no longer just chatter from the fringe elements of society.  One of the signs is the fact that the media is responding to it.  Another is that there are counter petitions being signed.  Another is the fact that several of the states have exceeded the 25,000 signers required to trigger a response from the White House.  As of this writing Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Louisiana all exceeded the 25,000 signature threshold.  Texas, of course, is leading the way with just over 105,000 signers and Louisiana a distant second with just under 35,000 petitioners.  What is also significant is that the Texas secession petition has more support than any other issue on the “We the People” site.  Perhaps the most significant signal that this idea is not as laughable as the pundits would have you believe is the fact that both the governor of Texas and the governor of Alabama have made statements about secession (not in favor of) already.

Support for secession will only grow with time, and it’s not really about Obama.  Obama (along with congress) is the symptom not the disease.  The cankerous disease that will rip this country in half is the lust for entitlements.  What do I mean by that? Everyone wants something without having to pay for it.  It can’t continue.  When a business gets bloated and can’t pay its bills what does it do?  It contracts, gets back to its core lines of business, and sheds unprofitable business activity.  When a government gets bloated and can’t pay its bills, what does it do?   It spends even more of course.  That’s because entitlements are more addicting than drugs.  If you don’t believe me look at the news coming out of Greece, Spain, and Italy.  Once you are hooked on them you can’t stop . . . mostly because you forget how to get things like food, clothing, and shelter on your own.  It spreads like the plague too because once your neighbor figures out you are getting stuff for free they want some too.  Eventually the consumers outnumber the producers and the producers get crushed.  It’s happened many times already, just not here in the United States.  Most people who argue against me on this point out that we haven’t gone bankrupt after nearly 100 years of ever increasing entitlement spending.  Study your history.  It took hundreds of years for Rome to collapse financially.  Rome had “progressed” nearly as far as we have.  They didn’t recognize gay marriage but homosexuality was commonplace and so were abortions.  Toward the end of the Roman period nearly 1/3 of the empire was on the government payroll and the regulations were so plentiful, they regulated how much weight you could pack on a horse.  I wish I could resurrect a few of the Romans from that time so they could warn us.  Would we listen?

I digress.  Secession:  Most of the pundits in the media point out that there is no legal mechanism for secession.  Some suggest and some directly say that secession is illegal.  That, in and of itself, is a pretty silly observation to make.  Of course it’s not legal!  Why would the government allow itself to be dissolved? That’s committing suicide.  Government will always protect itself. Challenging the authority of any government is the fastest way to get persecuted by it.  I would also point out that our declaring independence from Great Britain was not legal either. Secession and revolution are not a matter of law.  They are highly extra-legal activities by nature, so declaring them illegal and therefore insisting that such won’t happen is about as naive as it gets.

I don’t know what will happen.  I don’t know if Texas will secede.  What I do know is this:  We don’t live in 1860.  Just because it turned out one way the last time doesn’t mean it will end the same a second time.

To the mainstream media:  I have been very unhappy with how the MSM is always asking the wrong questions.  Of course, there is freedom of the press guaranteed by the Constitution, so you have carte blanche to keep asking the wrong questions.  I might note, though, that, for those of us who aren’t gullible enough to believe everything you try to spoonfeed us, such persistence has not only shred your credibility a long time ago, but it also prompts people like me to run to my blog to publicly call attention to your lapses in credibility.

The MSM has been making much ado about polls that ask questions like:

“Who is more in touch with the middle class?”

“Which candidate has more in common with you?”

“Which candidate is more like you?”

Etc.

The problem with these questions is that they are being posed in the context of the race for POTUS.  The more appropriate context for such polling would be in legislative races, such as Ohio’s U.S. Senate race between Josh Mandel and Sherrod Brown.  For the Presidential race between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, a more appropriate question would be something like, “Which candidate has the better track record and resume as a leader and administrator?”

The U.S. Constitution not only separated our federal government into three separate branches, (executive, legislative, and judicial), but it also inserted a system of checks and balances to make certain that one branch of government would not be able to overstep its bounds because the other two branches were designed to rein in such abuses of power.  The executive branch carries out and enforces the laws; the legislative branch writes the laws; and the judicial branch interprets the laws and ensures their fidelity to the Constitution.

In addition to the checks and balances exercised between branches, there are checks and balances between the people and government, between the amateur and the professional, between the lay person and the politician. 

In the judicial branch, when a defendant is on trial, a judge presides.  The judge is a professional.  A federal judge is appointed primarily on the basis of his/her resume.  Prosecutors and defenders, also professionals, play a large role in how a trial plays out.  The case, however, is not decided by any of the professionals.  Conviction or acquittal rests in the hands of the twelve amateurs that constitute the jury.

The executive branch should be led by a professional.  A track record or resume should clearly indicate an executive’s leadership and administrative acumen.  The professional exective carries out the laws.

How do the people make sure that the laws are fair to them?  People elect legislative representatives from amongst themselves to convene together for the making of laws.  Our nation’s founders envisioned these as amateurs.  They weren’t intended to stay in office for very long.  They weren’t intended to become life-long professional politicians, especially not in the U.S. House of Representatives, where terms only last two years.  It was thought that ordinary citizens would run for election to Congress, would spend a short season there, if elected, and would return to their place in the private sector after spending that short season in office representing the citizens of their districts.  In Ohio, there are only three basic criteria for eligibility to be elected to Congress: eligibility to vote (a citizen in good standing); residence (Ohio is the state of residence); and age (at least 25 for the U.S. House of Representatives and at least 30 for the U.S. Senate).  The MSM is often guilty of promoting additional criteria to be considered in selecting legislators (such as citing “experience,” or “familiarity with the law”) that are at cross-purposes with those of the framers of the Constitution.  Because the MSM puts too much premium on “experience,” we have too many career politicians who have become insiders more beholden to special interests than to constituents.  Regular legislative turnover would better ensure that lawmakers are in touch with the people, as they have not been too far removed in time and space from the mainstream population of their districts.  The longer a lawmaker serves, the more time lapses since he or she had circulated in the mainstream, and the more the Beltway insulates them and isolates them from the pressing everyday concerns of voters.  Because the MSM puts too much premium on “familiarity with the law,” we have too many lawyers in the legislative branch who have created too many perks and opportunities for their own professions at the expense of others.  Ideally, our legislature would look like a cross-section of our population. 

That’s why I think the pollsters asking questions about a candidate’s compatibility with the voters are among the best questions to ask in legislative races.

I endorse Josh Mandel for U.S. Senate.

In the race for President, though, the bar is set much higher.  I reject high unemployment as the new normal.  I reject a $16 trillion debt as the new normal.  I reject a nuclear Iran as the new normal.  I reject redistribution of wealth as the new normal.  I reject dead diplomats and embassies ablaze as the new normal.  I reject identity politics (us vs. them) as the new normal.  For these reasons, I must reject President Obama’s bid for a second term.

It does not matter to me that Mitt Romney is far higher up the income scale from me than Barack Obama is.  It does not matter to me that I don’t follow equestrian sporting events, like Romney does.  It does not matter to me that I do fill out March Madness brackets, like Barack Obama does.  I don’t need a POTUS who is just like me.  I want a professional, not an amateur.  I need a leader.  I want an American turnaround.  Show me the candidate that has the strongest resume as a turnaround artist.  Show me who has a track record of success as a leader.  At the RNC, Ann Romney, someone who should know, promised me, “This man [Mitt Romney] will not fail.”  Obama already has failed.  The choice could not be more clear.  Mitt Romney is the candidate I want to be POTUS next January.