What a week: we had a chance to see our elected officials performing their assigned tasks. More broadly, we had a chance to see not only how certain Senators performed – whether or not they asked meaningful questions and sought to establish some measure of merit as to Judge Kavanaugh’s potential as a member of the Supreme Court – but we also had the chance to see the broader picture, how each of the major parties view the role of government.
The Republicans came away looking as if they simply want to preserve the current system. Perhaps that seems trite, simply holding onto what we have. Of course, that’s what the oath of office demands: “support and defend the Constitution,” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” It is, if you will, what they’re elected to do.
But by literally all appearances the Democratic Party, and virtually all of its more vocal members, espoused not the rule of law, but the rule of arbitrary power. The specifics are of note: a man stands accused without any evidence to support the accusations; further, virtually all testimony undermines the accusations in every detail. Yet certain senior elected officials insisted the accusations be allowed to stand.
We saw an across-the-board attack on Kavanaugh by leadership of the progressive democrats not in pursuit of justice, but in pursuit of power. These elected officials attacking Judge Kavanaugh demonstrated virtually no regard for the law or due process or the Constitution, as if they have the power to determine justice without the benefit of evidence or law or due process. But, in doing so they reveal themselves; these politicians seek power, individually and collectively. And for them, there is no price to great to pay for power.
We are a nation founded to – it’s in the preamble to the Constitution – “establish justice.” Further, right over the door to the Supreme Court is the reminder: “Equal Justice Under Law.” To claim to seek justice but to eschew the law is to set yourself up as superior to everyone around you, to set yourself up as some sort of demi-god. Senators and Congressmen who cry for justice then call for actions that would deny fundamental rights to the accused, that would deny due process, that would ignore existing laws, that would ignore the Constitution they’ve sworn to uphold, aren’t calling for justice, they’re grabbing at power – and the cost they’re willing to pay is the very system they’ve sworn to defend.
And because of that, they are, in the strictest sense, unfit to hold office, high or low.
A lot of good things have happened in the nearly two years since the last election: GDP growth at 4%, real wages going up for the first time in years, unemployment falling steadily – it now sits at a hair under 4% (There are more empty jobs in the US right now then there are unemployed people). And unemployment for both black and Hispanics is at record lows, and for women nearly so. All this after having been told by the previous administration that 2% growth and 46 million people on food stamps was the new normal, that 4% growth was impossible, that unemployment couldn’t really drop below 5% and probably would go back to 6%.
But we also have a band of people who believe that they are completely justified in calling for people to break the law, to resist due process, to deny fundamental rights – all because they don’t like the outcome of the last election. They are, in the strictest sense of the word, opposed to democracy.
The essayist G.K. Chesterton summed it up: “Liberalism has been degraded into liberality…the new rebel [the Progressives] is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty [to any thought]… The modern revolutionist [Progressive] doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it.”
In short, they seek power alone; that has their only loyalty.
Perhaps it’s fortuitous this took place when it did, just a month before an election. The progressives call for the citizenry to vote them in, but this past week gave us a glimpse of what they really seek: power. We should use this opportunity to cleanse Washington of those who would deny us of our rights and our Constitution.
Copyright 2018 Arrias
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