Absolute power rears its ugly head
DAN COOPER/Guest Opinion | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 10 years, 2 months AGO
Please, letter writers to the editor, you can speak to the facts without joining the circus! Case in point: Laura Boro, in the Oct. 17 edition, blaming the governor and his "fire and brimstone" buddy Vieselmeyer for their stance against gay marriage.
Although I'm sure those two men would be flattered to know someone actually thought they could single-handedly put the gay marriage ban in place, the fact is - the voters did that via a referendum in 2006 with a 63 percent majority. This is called the democratic process. Consequently, when Mr. Otter was sworn into office he took an oath to uphold the laws of Idaho's Constitution, including the amended version, which officially defines marriage between one man and one woman.
And Dan Gressler thinks Idahoans should leave the gays alone, and address Idaho's "real problems," of which he elaborates on in the Oct. 19 edition. It's not so much a "gay" problem, Mr. Gressler, as it is a problem of judicial tyranny. In the giving away of rights to the few through unlawful usurpation, the rights of the many were lost. To forfeit democratic processes in lieu of emotionally charged cultural issues is to embrace anarchy, e.g. think Middle East!
The fact is the Feds have assumed too much power! Wasn't it British historian Lord Acton who stated, "Absolute power corrupts, absolutely?" According to the intent of the Founders, the Constitution, and the Amendments, the States were to remain sovereign.
This is why James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton specifically addressed those and other fears in 85 lengthy essays called the Federalist Papers in three New York newspapers under the pseudonym Publius, so the original states would finally agree to a central government, circa 1787-1788.
Read what Madison had to say particularly about States' rights in essays 45 and 46. He was no stranger to critical thinking and proficient wordsmithing; thus, he wrote the document that formed the model for our very Constitution.
Remember, the United States' break from the oppression of Great Britain's King George III was still very fresh on the Founders' minds, and the States wanted checks and balances to insure limited Federal power: quite a contrast to contemporary and routine abuses by the IRS, the NSA, the EPA, the Veterans Administration, and now, plenipotentiary judges.
In over 30 states, the people, through the democratic process, decided marriage was to be between one man and one woman. How does any judge, or even a whole courtroom of judges, look those millions of voters in the eye with a straight democratic face and say, "Your vote doesn't count, and neither does your state constitution?" And yet Article IV, section 4 of the United States Constitution specifically says "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them..."
Add to that, the fifth and final promise of the First Amendment, which is "to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Some states can't even get the High Court to hear their appeals.
Sacrificing livelihood and limb, July 4, 1776, 56 authors spelled out 27 injustices to the King in the Declaration of Independence. Is the local police department answering the citizens' grievances over the death of Arfee? Why not? Don't the people through taxation pay the department's salaries?
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent," so said Irish statesman Edmund Burke. Thomas Jefferson brazenly stated, "Two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
Lincoln added, "The people of these United States are the rightful masters of both congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." Pins and Needles indeed Mr. Gressler! Do we really want three justices from San Francisco dictating Idaho's community standards?
Similarly, do we really want a few council members doing the same in Coeur d'Alene with a poorly thought out reverse discrimination ordinance? If we don't challenge special interest, autocratic decisions, the majority of common people are made to become servile to them. Find your voice voters for, "...this is a government of the people, by the people, for the people..."
Dan Cooper is a Post Falls resident.
ARTICLES BY DAN COOPER/GUEST OPINION
America needs to go back to its roots
Women’s rights. Gay rights. Black lives matter. Right to grow, smoke, and sell our own pot. Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. As Americans we love our rights, now our taskmasters. Dependence on government handouts, Internet porn, no-fault divorce, endless litigation, and police-the-world politicians with pat answers yet few solutions are just more rain-less clouds in a prolonged drought.
Let's do it the way our Founders did
Many kudos for 'guest opinion' contributor Courtney Theander and her astute observation that the fundamental building block to a healthy society is a strong family unit, including her correct assertion that parents, much more often than not, are more intimately equipped at deciding the fate of their own children than the Federal Government. Rebuttal-ist Jeff Bourget (Jan. 29 Press) would have us believe, as did the federalists of the late 18th century that the Constitution was (is) an end in itself. It is not! It was by law to be balanced with the Bill of Rights and the other 17 amendments added since our founding. This is why lawyer and anti-federalist Thomas Jefferson, (writer of the Declaration of Independence) said he would not endorse the Constitution if there was no "Bill of Rights" attached to it. Further quipping, "A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference." Why were Jefferson and others so adamant about this? Simple: to safeguard individual liberty by limiting specific prohibitions on government power. The debate became so heated between the Federalists and Anti-federalists, it contributed (at least in part), with the dueling death of Alexander Hamilton by politician Aaron Burr. Consequently, it is a self-evident truth that "rights" must be tempered with responsibility, and anyone who owns a driver's license knows this. Another self-evident truth is this: children belong to their parents. They are not owned by the Federal Government, nor are they wards of the state. Children can become wards of the state if parents don't act responsibly. But in order to keep "programs" funded, federal and state agencies have become hyper-intrusive into the affairs of the American family. Due to the disintegration of the American family, intervention is becoming more the rule than the exception, as multi-faceted government solutions have money to burn (our money), and a perpetual fixation to turn the exceptions into more rules!
We must adhere to our religious convictions
As a youngster in the early 1960s, I noticed an ideology in the aspirations of Americans, including the story of a brave uncle who was gunned down near Roanne as the U.S. Army pushed the Germans north through France in World War II.