America Gone Astray

by Mustang

All members assemble to give their solemn oath of office when Congress convenes.  The pledge reads as follows:

Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to enter: So help you, God?

And, as expected, all the congress persons, with their right hand still raised, repeat in unison, “I do.” The only thing solemn about this oath is the use of the word as it appears in the oath.  No one has ever been prosecuted for failing to follow this solemn oath, no one has ever been tossed out of office for breaking the oath.  So, the question is, how solemn is it, really?  The answer is not very.  It is a hollow formality.  It gets no more than a wink and a nod.  After affirming, “I do,” everyone inside the nation’s capital goes back to business as usual — and that usual business involves becoming an enemy of the U.S. Constitution and the people who, through their elected representatives, approved of this covenant.

The cycle is repeated every two years — and it’s been going on for a very long time.  Since 1789, the U.S. Constitution has been shamefully misinterpreted, abused, and intentionally subverted.  Sadly, The result is that America is no longer the land of the free and home of the brave.  And, if we are sincere, maybe it never was.

How do we know this is true?  I submit, in the same way, Patrick Henry knew it was true.  Before the events at Concord and Lexington, Henry pointed to the oppressive government and warned us against complacency.  He told us what would happen if we ever accepted the dictates of a central government whose members intentionally distance themselves from “we the people.”

“It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope.  We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts.  Is this the part of wise men engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?  Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?  For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst and provide for it.”

 —Patrick Henry

Mr. Henry, as one may recall, served as the first and sixth governor of Virginia in the post-Revolutionary War period.  Today, he is claimed as a partisan by both the political left and right.  When he spoke of temporal salvation, he meant preserving the freedom to work and provide as we see fit — that individuals have both the ability and responsibility to plan their own lives without unnecessary government meddling.  In Mr. Henry’s day, that freedom was already under attack, and conditions have not improved since then.

Enemies — foreign and domestic

The framers of the U.S. Constitution acknowledged that individuals have certain unalienable rights, among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  God gave us these rights; only God can take them away.  So, the purpose of government, as envisioned by the earliest constitutionalists, was to protect these fundamental God-given rights.  Has Congress or any administration since Washington’s presidency done this?  The answer must be no.

The framers of the Constitution understood how and why people behave as they do.  No matter what one might think of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, they understood human nature and realized that human beings are terribly flawed.  And because individuals are flawed, government was necessary on two crucial counts: First, to protect the American people from foreign enemies.  Second, to protect the American people from domestic lawbreakers — people who would use coercion, fraud, or force to deprive others of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Today, some of these “domestic” enemies wear the black robes of state and federal judges, the business suits of members of political parties in Congress and within the bureaucracy, in cabinet positions, inside the Oval Office, and men and women who wear the uniforms of our “protectors,” whether military or law enforcement.  There is no other way to explain corrupt FBI directors, attorney generals, speakers of the house, or presidential wannabes who dream of becoming president one day.

James Madison may not have been one of America’s greatest presidents, but he was no dummy.  He knew that as individuals require a firm hand to keep them on the straight and narrow path in their treatment of fellow citizens, so too did the government require oversight.

“It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.  But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?  If men were angels, no government would be necessary.  If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.  In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

• James Madison

Unfortunately for us, the government is not so obliged.  Nowhere is this more obvious than observing the current administration’s wide-scale abuses of “we the people” and that myth shaping we see taking place on the stage of partisan debate.

The political manipulation of the American people continues — and this, too, in its attempt, would be fine — if “we the people” had the sense that God gave goats, and we could see how others, seeking power over us, manipulate us to their purposes.  I have no faith in the future of America because I have no faith in my fellow citizens, even to recognize when they are being played as fools.

Bunk adds this video=

Anti-Federalist: Patrick Henry WARNS Big Government is NOT VIRTUOUS in 1788

Mustang also has blogs called  Fix Bayonets and Thoughts From Afar

Source: https://bunkerville.wordpress.com/2023/08/25/america-gone-astray/