Do you feel violated?

In the Rules of the House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, there is a rule that is constantly being violated, but no one seems to care. Rule XIII, 3(d)(1) states, “Each report of a committee on a public bill or public joint resolution shall contain the following: A statement citing the specific powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the law proposed by the bill or joint resolution.”

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This is amazingly clear language for something written by a bunch of lawyers. But, given the tsunami of blatantly unconstitutional legislation that has come out of said One Hundred Eleventh Congress, it seems that the rule is being generally ignored. The citations appear to be perfunctory, hit-or-miss, or picked using the wild interpretations of liberal “judges” legislating from the bench. Unfortunately, none seem to have ever been challenged by a congressman on the floor of the House, with debate and a return to committee when the citation used proves wrong. This rule is a bit of a bellwether rule. We need to carefully watch, and be sure that the new One Hundred Twelfth Congress does not delete this crucial rule. But even more important, we need to watch and insist - repeat, insist – that the conservatives in Congress scrupulously enforce rigid compliance with this rule. If they do not, then we have been taken for a ride…again. Time and time again, we have thought we have elected people to public office who were committed to making things better. Unfortunately, their idea of better has usually meant we give up our freedom and our hard-earned money, and things get better for them and their partners in crime. Like Charlie Brown kicking the football, we never seem to learn. There is a difference between hopeful optimism and naïve gullibility, but the American electorate seems not to have wrapped its arms around this concept, yet. However, WE need some change WE can believe in. We need to change what we did in the past: We, the People, need to be all over the House and Senate like a cheap suit. We need to be looking over their shoulders and calling their offices so often that the staff recognizes our voices on the phone. We need to send ‘em so many letters, that the post office goes into the black. And we need to keep it up, for at least 90 days, and longer if it is getting positive results. In the event, though, that the new Congress reverts to the fascistic, Big Government ways of their predecessors, we need to consider some serious alternatives. If they don’t start enforcing obedience to the Constitution right from the git-go, and if they don’t start spending the majority of their time repealing the incredibly destructive unconstitutional laws passed, not just in the last two years, but going back to Johnson’s Great Society, and Roosevelt’s New Deal, we are screwed. Frankly, an excellent rule for both the House and the Senate would be a requirement that to introduce a new law, first one would have to get TWO old ones repealed. But I digress… The fact is, if the new Congress behaves even remotely like the old one did, it will be undeniable, even to the most willfully blind, that we no longer have control of our government, and in fact, the opposite is true. Then what? One hears “civil war” bandied about as an unavoidable certainty, somewhere down the road. Perhaps. I certainly would seriously consider secession by the “Red States” as a viable solution to what appear to be intractable differences in fundamental values between conservatives and the Soros-led fascist/progressive/communist/socialist left that passes for the Democrat party nowadays. Give ‘em New England and California, and the Rust belt. We’ll take what’s left. Let them show us how their economic brilliance feeds all those urban non-wealth producers. Without the money and resources they have bled from the Red States for the past 80 years, they would fall into bloody, anarchic chaos in a very short while. When all is said and done, though, We, the People, have the upper hand. The question is, do we have the will to wield it. I pray that we do.