By Dwayne Nelson
Just recently, a 100 year old WWII Marine veteran, Spurlin Denkel, told Fox news: “the things we did and the things we fought for and the boys that died for it, it’s all gone down the drain. Our Country has gone down the drain”. His remarks are more than the grumblings of a distant generation. Recent polls indicate that most Americans under 35 believe our government is corrupt and run by cronyism. And recent polls indicate that most Americans believe that our elected representatives are controlled by special interests, albeit by money…big money. Our Constitution was debated, negotiated and approved by some brilliant men of their time. But what was “their time”? When the Constitution was ratified the population of America was about 3,000,000 white Christians dispersed over hundreds of thousands of square miles, politicians financed their campaigns with bake sales and passing the hat, the fastest form of transportation was that of a horse and “arms” was a musket that in the hands of an experienced person might get off two shots a minute and religious institutions were churches on the corner. Our Country today has around 350,000,000 million people consisting of many races and ethnicities, millions and millions of dollars are spent greasing the political wheels, the fastest normal transportation is about 600 mph (airlines), and the streets are full of “arms” that can cycle 600 rounds per minute and in the hands of an inexperienced nut case can get off close to 100 rounds per minute and religion is big, big political business. Our Founding Fathers understood they were not clairvoyant and provided for the modification of the Constitution in two different ways. One of which has never been used. At any rate, it is obvious there are some aspects of the Constitution are not serving our Country well in our current culture. A primary driving factor splitting our Country is who is going to be the ones to appoint the referee of the laws in the future, i.e., the federal judges including the Supreme Court. This issue generates heat because the Constitutional process puts these referees in place for their lifetime. Nothing could be more irrational than a president that may serve only four years and lost the popular vote by millions and yet having the power to greatly influence our judicial system for long after they are gone. Yes, the Presidential nominees require the “approval” of the senate to be seated but when the candidates lie to the senate, they just become another bought off arm of the administration and not one of the three equal branches of our Government. There are 50 state supreme courts, and none have this crazy process. If we really call ourselves a democracy the national electorate by vote should determine who constitutes the third equal branch of our Federal government including the Supreme Court. Maybe 12 year rolling terms? We need to take a serious look at a couple of other aspects of the Constitution including term limits for congress, and the overturning of the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case which has added to the cronyism big time. There is nothing in the Constitution nor are there any statutes that prohibit making the abortion issue, gun control issue, etc., to be decided by the majority of the national electorate, instead of the bought off politicians or a rigged Supreme Court.
Like Reagan said: “LETS MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” Yes, Reagan said that first!
Just for the record, I am a conservative in the tradition of Eisenhower, Reagan and Bush senior. But after that, and especially more recently, in the last 6 or 7 years, if one has a conscience at all, it has been hard to be a practicing Republican.