Winning Elections Requires Throwing the Constitution
Under the Bus
By
LAWRENCE SELLIN, PHD
FamilySecurityMatters.org
In a
video
recently posted on the internet, Congressman Paul
Gosar (R-AZ) states that fifty percent of the
American people do not believe in the Constitution
and individual rights and if you principally fight
to defend the Constitution, you will lose.
Rep. Gosar has seemingly forgotten that he takes an
oath to "support and defend" the Constitution.
Apparently he thinks that adhering to the
Constitution is an impediment to winning elections.
He seems to be promoting the proposition that
obtaining power is more important than upholding the
rule of law.
The opinions expressed by Rep. Gosar are not unique,
but represent the prevailing attitude in Congress.
The Constitution limits the powers of the federal
government and federal office-holders who want
unlimited power.
The
Code of Ethics for U.S. Government Service,
adopted by the House of Representatives July 11,
1958 with the Senate concurring, resolved that it is
the sense of the Congress that the following Code of
Ethics should be adhered to by all Government
employees, including officeholders.
The first two requirements state that any person in
Government service should:
1. Put loyalty to the highest moral principles and
to country above loyalty to Government persons,
party, or department.
2. Uphold the Constitution, laws, and legal
regulations of the United States and of all
governments therein and never be a party to their
evasion.
Does any American believe that Rep. Gosar or anyone
of his colleagues in Congress adheres to either of
those requirements?
The instances of federal office-holders ignoring the
Constitution or politicians choosing party over
country are far too numerous to list in anything
less than a multi-volume publication.
Here are two relevant examples.
Article I of the U.S. Constitution
requires
Congress to pass a federal budget. Despite the
imminent threat to the financial stability of the
United States and the clear priority the
Constitution gives to maintaining discipline in
federal spending, the last time Congress enacted a
budget was April 29, 2009.
Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the U.S.
Constitution requires that all candidates for the
Presidency be "natural
born citizens."
As defined in the binding Supreme Court precedent of
Minor v. Happersett (1875) and previous and
subsequent rulings, all candidates for the offices
of President and Vice President must be second
generation Americans, that is, US citizens of
citizen parents at the time of birth.
It was the intent of the American Founding Fathers
that the chief executive and the commander-in-chief
of the armed forces would not have dual allegiance
or loyalty to a foreign power.
There is no ambiguity, although the Democrat and
Republican parties and the media are and have been
deliberately trying to confuse the American public
as to the true meaning of natural born citizenship.
They do so for two reasons.
First, members of Congress continue to be derelict
in their duty and violate their oaths of office to
support and defend the Constitution by not properly
vetting Barack Obama, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal,
all of whom may not meet the Constitutional
requirement for the office of President or Vice
President.
Second, since 1975, there have been numerous
attempts
by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to
amend the Article II "natural born citizen" clause,
all of which have failed.
Politicians have now seized the opportunity to amend
the Constitution illegally by a political
fait accompli, intentionally ignoring
the potential ineligibility of Presidential and Vice
Presidential candidates.
Make no mistake. This is just the beginning. Their
actions are deliberate and unethical, if not
criminal, and driven solely by political expediency.
Their aims are to expand the personal and collective
power of politicians by eroding the Constitutional
restraints on their power at the expense of
individual liberty.
Founding Father John Adams warned us about people
whose espouse opinions like Rep. Gosar; those who
prefer a government of men, not a government of
laws.