The Death of a Constitutional Republic

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Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:18:33 -0700 (PDT)

Nimmo-The Death of a Constitutional Republic

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Death of a Constitutional Republic

 

 

 

September 28th, 2005

 

 

 

http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=41

 

 

 

¡°President Bush yesterday sought to federalize hurricane-relief

efforts, removing governors from the decision-making process,¡±

reports the Moonie Times, otherwise known as the Washington Times.

¡°It wouldn¡¯t be necessary to get a request from the governor or take

other action,¡± declared White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

¡°Mr. McClellan was referring to a new, direct line of authority that

would allow the president to place the Pentagon in charge of

responding to natural disasters, terrorist attacks and outbreaks of

disease.¡±

 

 

 

 

 

In other words, Bush wants to erase yet another constitutional

amendment¡ªthe Tenth, which states ¡°powers not delegated to the

United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,

are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people¡±¡ª

 

 

 

 

 

and he is using the misfortune of Katrina as an opportunistic wrecking

ball. ¡°Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and Mississippi Gov.

Haley Barbour declined the president¡¯s offer to federalize the

state¡¯s National Guard troops in the aftermath of Katrina. So Mr.

Bush wants Congress to consider empowering the Pentagon with automatic

control.¡± In other words, the misery and suffering of the people of

Louisiana¡ª

 

 

 

 

 

deliberately exacerbated by FEMA and the Ministry of Homeland

Security¡ªwill serve as a red carpet for Bush to systematically

dismantle the cornerstone of the United States, the Constitution and

the Bill of Rights. It is, at minimum and as a start, a death knell

for Posse Comitatus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, according to

the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland¡¯s delegates to the

Convention, a woman approached Benjamin Franklin and asked: ¡°Well,

Doctor, what have we got¡ªa Republic or a Monarchy? to which Franklin

famously replied, ¡°A Republic, if you can keep it.¡±

 

 

 

 

 

As members of the Constitutional Convention understood, the enemy of

liberty and the people is unrestrained and unchecked government. Our

Constitution limits the power of government. But as Franklin

suspected, the people would be unable to keep a Republic, and

eventually¡ªas is its rapacious nature¡ª

 

government would usurp all power and relegate the Constitution to the

dustbin of history.

 

 

 

 

 

Bush and his fascist cronies are determined to usher in an

authoritarian state, a nightmarish high-tech police state, Orwell¡¯s

hobnail boot smashing a face forever. And the word ¡°fascist¡± applies

because, as Mussolini declared, ¡°fascism is reaction¡± against the

social and political theories of the 1789 French Revolution (and

indeed the Magna Carta), whose early formulations had a major

influence on our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill

of Rights.

 

 

 

 

 

¡°Currently, the lead federal agency responsible for disaster relief

is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which has just

2,500 employees and is a division of the Homeland Security

Department,¡± the Moonie Times continues. ¡°Mr. Bush has suggested

that a more appropriate agency is the Department of Defense (DoD),

which has 1.4 million active-duty troops.¡± Bush spelled out, in his

inimitable way, his plan to attack the Tenth Amendment: ¡°I was

speculating about was a scenario which would require federal assets to

stabilize the situation¡ªprimarily DoD assets¡ªand then hand back over

to Department of Homeland Security.¡±

 

 

 

 

 

When Julius Caesar and the Roman army crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC,

this act of defiance¡ªfor standing armies were forbidden by law from

entering Rome¡ªushered in the brutal military rule of Rome and set the

once great empire on its path toward ultimate destruction, prompting

Suetonius to utter his famous phrase: ¡°the die is cast.¡±

 

 

 

 

 

Bush and his neocon cronies have marshaled in the beginning stages of

a neo-feudal future long planned for us by the global elite and the

corporatist plutocracy. In order to realize this tyranny, they must

first completely emasculate and finally destroy the Constitution and

convince the masses¡ª

 

 

 

 

 

most sufficiently dumbed-down through sub-standard education and

anesthetized by an amoral consumerist culture¡ªto accept military

occupation and slavery. In a nation no longer anchored to a bedrock of

set constitutional principles, it is a relatively small task to

convince millions of people the government will protect them from evil

terrorists and natural disasters (the former created in large part by

the government and the latter at least scientifically possible for the

government to unleash). As the horror show of military occupation in

the wake of Hurricane Katrina (and to a lesser extent, Hurricane Rita)

demonstrates, Bush and his global elite masters have decided now is

the time to pull out all the stops.

 

 

 

 

 

As John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon¡ªwho served as inspiration for the

founders¡ªwrote in their collaborative work (Cato¡¯s Letters,

1720-23), ¡°corrupt ministers¡± (such as Bush and the neocons) engage

in ¡°fantastical wars¡± in order ¡°to keep the minds of men in

continual hurry and agitation, and under constant fears and alarms,¡±

and thus frightened people ¡°will agree to every wild demand made by

those who are betraying them.¡±

 

 

 

 

 

As for standing armies, Trenchard and Gordon wrote:

 

 

 

It is certain, that all parts of Europe which are enslaved, have

been enslaved by armies; and it is absolutely impossible, that any

nation which keeps them amongst themselves can long preserve their

liberties; nor can any nation perfectly lose their liberties who are

without such guests: And yet, though all men see this, and at times

confess it, yet all have joined in their turns, to bring this heavy

evil upon themselves and their country¡­.

 

 

 

 

 

Great empires cannot subsist without great armies, and liberty

cannot subsist with them. As armies long kept up, and grown part of

the government, will soon engross the whole government, and can never

be disbanded; so liberty long lost, can never be recovered. Is not

this an awful lesson to free states, to be vigilant against a dreadful

condition, which has no remedy.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, as a nation and a people, we are no longer ¡°vigilant

against a dreadful condition.¡± Most of us know little if nothing

about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and we are all too

willing¡ªwhen confronted with terrorism so patently fabricated and

false¡ªto relinquish our liberty. Few of us recall the words of Thomas

Jefferson: ¡°A free republic will never keep a standing army to

execute its laws. It must depend upon the support of its citizens.¡±

 

 

 

 

 

Sadly, we are no longer a citizenry capable of understanding the

foundation and underlying principles of the Constitution¡ªgovernment

will, if not checked, always endeavor to steal our freedom and hold us

in slavery.

 

 

 

 

 

No doubt, if Franklin returned and witnessed our ignorance and

stupendous intellectual laziness, he might likely declare: since we

are no longer capable of upholding a Republic¡ªlet alone comprehend

what it is¡ªwe do not deserve one.