An Important View Of The US Constitution

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post about Virginia Colonial Governor Berkeley, I have been reading a surprisingly wonderful book by Bob Deans called "The River Where America Began: A Journey Along The James".  While the book is about the history of the settlement of the James River Region in Coastal Virginia and the role it played in the early history of colonial America and the American Revolution, Deans also periodically provides his own insightful examinations of the history of democracy in America.  The short section of the book which I quote below is one of the most pertinent of those insightful examinations.  

The Constitution was never meant to settle for all time every imaginable dilemma the US government might confront.  Its genius was, and is, that it allows each generation of Americans to resolve its own issues.  It was designed to be a living document, showing the way for government to evolve with the times, while remaining true to those principles upon which the nation was founded and still holding inviolate the rights of the people as sovereign, goals the document set forth in its opening lines: "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."  (Deans, p. 219) 

 In both instances of the quotation in the indented paragraph above, truer words were never spoken, first by the Founding Fathers, and secondly by Deans.  Although there is now widespread disagreement about the interpretation of the words in the US Constitution, they are nearly always universally recognized as just that, some of the best words ever written in history especially the history of democracy in the world.  And Deans' own words in the first section of that paragraph are just as true as the original words in the US Constitution.  When Deans says that the US Constitution "was designed to be a living document, showing the way for government to evolve with the times, while remaining true to those principles upon which the nation was founded and still holding inviolate the rights of the people as sovereign", no one, in a discussion of the Constitution, could have hit the nail on the head more soundly.  Yes, the US Constitution is and should forever be a living document but it should also always still hold inviolate the rights of the people as sovereign.  There have been several instances when the living document were necessarily changed to further insure the rights of the people, beginning with the original ten amendments, The Bill of Rights, on December 15, 1791.  There have also been a few considerably more modern and necessary changes in the Constitution in order to insure the rights of the people.  The Thirteenth Amendment passed in January 1865 and was necesssary to abolish slavery which it is interesting to know was one of the most divisive issues in the formation of the new United States and, at least, a major partial cause of the US Civil War.  The Fifteenth Amendment, passed four years later in 1869, made a necessary and gallant attempt to guarantee the vote to all citizens of the country regardless of race, color, or prior history of slavery.  Yet, even today, there are widespread attempts in most Right Wing Radical Repugnican held states to infringe the right to vote for many million people because of a variety of factors which might make them more likely to vote in a rational manner against Repugnican candidates.  Those various factors include race, color, national origin, level of education, and profession and state legislatures in many of those aforementioned Right Wing Radical Repugnican states have instituted a variety of ID laws and other strictures on the right to vote in order to suppress the votes of such people.  The Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, finally guaranteed the right to vote regardless of sex which was necessarily intended to give all women the right to vote.  But more than one hundred years later, in 2022, those very same state legislatures include many women in the groups they attempt to make voting less likely or easy for.  The Twenty-Fourth Amendment, finally passed in 1962, outlawed poll taxes as a requirement for the right to vote.

Yet, after all these, and the remainder of the twenty-seven amendments to the Constitution were passed we still find ourselves in a situation in this country which makes it necessary that, sooner or later, more such amendments must be passed to ensure both that the rights of the people shall be held inviolate and that the US Constitution will continue to be a living instrument.  We are still fighting out way, as a country out of those four incredibly dark and dangerous years from January 20, 2017, to January 20, 2021, when the White House and the country were being held hostage by a TRAITOR who was living illegally in the White House based on his TREASON with Russia.  The Fourth Section of the Twenty-fifth Amendment needs to be rewritten in stronger, more crystal clear terms to make it a necessary act for members of the cabinet to take action to remove an unfit occupant of the White House.  Recently, despite the knowledge among several members of the cabinet at the time that the occupant of the White House was unfit, a majority of those cabinet members could not be induced to agree to take the necessary actions which would have removed TRAITOR Trump from the White House and removed the ever present danger he represented from the country.  The language in that amenment must be clarified or we will see another instance, at some time in the future of this country, when an unfit, illegal occupant of the White House may well destroy the country.  

Yet, despite the 200+ year history of the US Constitution as a sacred and living instrument, on December 4 ,2022, that very same TRAITOR, the former illegal occupant of the White House publicly called for the suspension of the Constitution as a means for him to regain his illicit and illegal residence in the White House.  With these words: "A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Not even Benedict Arnold or Aldrich Ames, previously the arguable two worst traitors in the history of the country never uttered such clear cut words endorsing TREASON as those used by TRAITOR Trump. Such blatant, public TREASON on the part of TRAITOR Trump was not even used when he incited the January 6th incident of TREASON, Sedition, Domestic Terrorism, and criminality.  For this statement alone, he deserves to be prosecuted even if he had never committed any of the hundreds of TREASONOUS, Seditious, and simply criminal acts he committed before December 4, 2022.  Such acts, such words, and such crimes have now lead to multiple attacks on the US power grid, the aborted attempt to kidnap and murder the governor Michigan, and hundreds of other Right Wing Radical crimes.  

The response to all these acts, all these crimes must be that we, as a people take the actions necessary to guarantee that the US Constitution will be forever a living instrument and subject to any necessary changes in order to control and curtail such sedition and treason from such criminals as TRAITOR Trump and those Right Wing Radicals who step forward to volunteer to be his co-conspirators. 

The Deepening American Constitutional Crisis

Recently, after the treasonous and felonious installation of Brett Kavanaugh on the US Supreme Court, I signed an online petition calling for his impeachment and also posted it to my Facebook timeline and sent the message on a large group e-mail to nearly every person on my e-mail list with whom I have a personal relationship.  I received back two responses from people who had also signed the petition and passed it on.  I also received two responses stating the senders' desire to be removed from any future political messages I might send out.  The first came from a distant cousin with whom I renewed a relationship a year or two ago after years without seeing each other.  That person had this to say about the petition and my choice to send it out.   

  

"Roger, please remove my name from political requests like this.  You’re not going to get anywhere except have your name identified as a radical. I would rather not be labeled in their perilous times. I am very much afraid. You are very brave."

Included below is my response to that person:

Hello,

I will not put your name on any more politically directed messages but having you say that you are fearful because I exercise my constitutional right to free speech tells me that I have always been correct in my assessment of the damage that is being done to America on a daily basis by the Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate which illegally occupies the White House after having committed TREASON with Putin.  As for being labeled as a radical, I sincerely hope that you understand that the true “radicals” in America today are the Right Wing Repugnican Radicals who support the TRAITOR, International Terrorist, Russian Agent, Unconvicted Sex Offender, Pathological Liar, and Quisling Trump and the Russian Plan to destroy America.  If you would like, I can give you a short list of the names and contact information of several retired US Intelligence Agents and Retired Military who will tell you the same things I am telling you.  This country is embroiled in the worst constitutional crisis since 1861 and it is far more dangerous than any of the previous crises.  Jefferson Davis, the Confederate Generals, and Richard Nixon all were less dangerous because none of them committed TREASON.  This gang of Russian Owned Criminals have committed TREASON and must be held responsible for their crimes.  Unless TRAITOR Trump dies in a federal prison cell, this will be the greatest miscarriage of justice in American History.  As for bravery, I have no idea if it is bravery or just my deep seated fear that America is in very grave danger of becoming a Third World Dictatorship.  What is happening in America today is exactly what happened in Germany from 1933 to 1945 and for the very same reasons.  A psychiatrically unstable megalomaniac by virtue of his TREASON has achieved every megalomaniac’s ultimate dream and gotten some ill gotten power.  But don’t worry about the idea of my being labeled.  I was proudly standing in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue on May Day in 1971 protesting against Nixon and I was proudly standing at the front of the protestors in Huntington, WV, giving a television interview in 2017 when TRAITOR Trump came to town.  Whatever labels might have been placed on me were earned over the last 50 plus years.  I will be in Owingsville on Friday with Amy McGrath and Joe Biden and, if not for the KCHS Reunion, I would be in Richmond on Saturday protesting when TRAITOR Trump comes to town. I was mentored by at least 4 people who were hauled in front of Senator Joseph McCarthy during the witch hunts, one of whom wrote the union song “Which Side Are You On”,  and another had three homes burned down and never ever stopped speaking out.  If you have enough courage to find out what is actually happening in America today here is a short list of books you can read.  Notice two things, please, about the list.  The authors include a former US Presidential nominee, a former US prosecutor & FBI Director, a former US Director of National Intelligence, 27 of the best psychiatrists in America, a former US Secretary of State, and the man who broke the Watergate story.  The second thing to notice is that two of the titles from two of the most experienced people on the list use the word “Fear”. 

The Restless Wave by John McCain

Facts And Fears by James Clapper

A Higher Loyalty by James Comey

Fire And Fury by Michael Wolf

Collusion Secret Meetings, Dirty Money And How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win by Luke Harding

The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump Edited by Bandy Lee, M. D.

Fascism by Madeleine Albright

Trump/Russia by Seth Hettena

The Plot To Destroy America by Malcolm Nance

Russian Roulette by Michael Issikoff & David Corn

Fear by Bob Woodward

The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy by Greg Miller

Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever by Rick Wilson

House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia by Craig Unger

I hope you read at least a few of these and choose to speak out afterward.

I have learned several things from this interchange.  Not everyone, not nearly enough intelligent, literate American citizens are sufficiently alarmed about the current constitutional crisis which is working on a daily basis to destroy our country.  Many of those who are, to any degree, aware of how serious this problem is are unwilling or afraid to speak out about it.  As I said in my response to the e-mail above, I know that I am correct in my assessment about the damage that is being done to America by the TRAITOR Trump.  I am also correct in saying that "what is happening in America today is exactly what happened in Germany from 1933 to 1945 and for the very same reasons.  A psychiatrically unstable megalomaniac, by virtue of his TREASON, has achieved every megalomaniac’s ultimate dream and gotten some ill gotten power."  I know that I am also correct in saying that the plan being carried out is rooted in the mind of Vladimir Putin and in Russian espionage which has worked since 1987 to bring TRAITOR Trump into their fold and under their control.  Numerous acts which he has perpetrated in support of Putin and Russia have made it absolutely clear that he is controlled by Russia and working daily to repay his debt to them.   

1. Almost immediately after being sworn in, TRAITOR Trump brought Russian Ambassador Kislyak to the Oval Office accompanied by a purely Russian "film crew" and bragged about firing FBI Director James Comey and putting an end to the Russia investigation.  This was an incredibly egregious failure of both security and diplomacy.  The fact that no American journalists were allowed in the meeting was a blatant insult to the American press.  It was also an incredible violation of security protocol to allow a so-called "film crew" from Russia inside the Oval Office.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt, every person in that entourage around Kisylak was either an FSB agent or under the influence and direction of the FSB.  God only knows what was learned by Russian intelligence by virtue of this act. 
2. Congress had allocated $120M dollars to fight Russian hacking and to prevent further security breeches of the US election system such as those which made it possible for Russia to steal the 2016 election.  To this day, not one dollar of that money has been spent by TRAITOR Trump.  That is not negligence.  It is TREASON and clearly intended to prevent the full truth of Russia's crimes in support of TRAITOR Trump from ever being found out and to prevent TRAITOR Trump, Russia and Putin from ever being held responsible for their crimes against the United States of America.
3. TRAITOR Trump has held two meetings, and only two so far as we know, face to face with Vladimir Putin and neither was attended by US security personnel or journalists.  One was attended by an American translator and TRAITOR Trump stopped all congressional attempts to have her testify to what was said in the meeting by claiming "executive privilege".  These meetings were both absolutely incredible and indefensible breeches of both diplomatic and security protocols.  I am certain that every trained, professional diplomatic and security expert in the world not in the employment of Russia shuddered in their boots at the thought of these meetings and what American secrets and TRAITOR Trump promises were given up.  They left absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind about which of the two men was in charge at these meetings.  
4. In January 2018, TRAITOR Trump proposed at the G7 meetings that Russia be allowed to rejoin the G7(8).  This was a direct insult to every other member of the G7 and the free world at large.  It was also an act that clearly showed his loyalty once again to Russia. 
   
   

 After this long and ever growing list of demonstrations of TRAITOR Trump's loyalty to Putin and Russia, no rational person of average intelligence should be conned into thinking that he is speaking for the United States or willing to defend her.  We can only hope that the Mueller Investigation reaches the point as soon as possible that TRAITOR Trump and his entire band of Russian agents can be indicted, convicted, impeached, and imprisoned.  We also must hope that no irreparable damage has been done to the security of the United States and our diplomatic partners.  We must shudder when we think of the secrets which have been passed directly to Putin by TRAITOR Trump.  We must work, as loyal citizens, to help educate the sheep who follow in his path and believe his lies and to try to bring about the day when the prison door finally closes behind this worst TRAITOR in world history.  

I choose to end this blog post with these quotations from loyal, patriotic Americans which are found on the bottom of nearly every e-mail I send and which were on the bottom of the one which prompted this post.  They are highly accurate and timely quotations. 

“I have lived my life and I have fought my battles, not against the weak and poor—but against power, injustice, and oppression.”  Clarence Darrow 

“Worse misfits have not been seen inside a White House since William Taft got stuck in his bathtub.” John McCain, “The Restless Wave, p. 327

“I am asking you to hold fast to that faith written into our founding documents; that idea whispered by slaves and abolitionists; that spirit sung by immigrants and homesteaders and those who marched for justice; that creed reaffirmed by those who planted flags from foreign battlefields to the surface of the moon; a creed at the core of every American whose story is not yet written: Yes We Can. Yes We Did.  Yes We Can.”  President Barack Obama

“These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” Thomas Paine

“All people should have free health care.  Every man, regardless of who he is, should be trained to do skilled labor.” Dr. Mark Dempsey