The American Way

John Sununu recently apologized for charging that the President 'needs to learn to be an American'. I don't think Sununu should have apologized, nor that he had done anything for which to apologize. The fact is that it is now becoming clear even to the most obtuse that the President holds to Marxism, an ugly, dictatorial, foreign philosophy that simply doesn't have any place in our system of government.

In the event you have not gotten the message yet, Bruce Walker over at the American Thinker has an article today entitled The Marxist Heart of Darkness that tells the real motives of those trying to transform the American political system. Please, go read it all. Read the records of people who lived under such a system, as they recount the horrors they endured. Please understand that these Leftists (and I count the leadership of the Democratic Party in Congress as Leftist) are not simply misguided folk trying to achieve the best for everyone. What they want is power, for power's sake, over you and your neighbors. To achieve and maintain that power, they will terrorize you and anyone who gets in their way, using prison, torture, and death to further their goals. I want to quote just one paragraph of this article, you can read the rest:

Along with deliberate and almost indiscriminant infliction of pain on mankind, Marxists think almost exclusively in terms of lies. Orwell's "doublethink" and "Newspeak" well illustrate this delusion and self-delusion. Marxists boasted of their mendacity. Lenin wrote: "The scientific concept, dictatorship, means nothing more nor less than power which directly rests on violence, which is not limited by any laws or restricted by any absolute rules." Angela Balabanoff, general secretary of the Third Socialist International, confirmed the dishonesty of Bolsheviks: "The Bolshevik leaders were capable of anything to achieve their political and factional ends" (emphasis in the original) (My Life as a Rebel, Balabannoff).

Think of all the lies Obama has told in the three and a half years since he was sworn in. The lies told about his signature legislation, ObamaCare, were so egregious, that a Congressman yelled "You Lie!" during his State of the Union speech. This man would deserve a Hero of the Republic medal, if one existed. But in truth, his lies have become so ubiquitous, I no longer listen to his speeches.

Think also about the way this Regime has wasted the wealth of Americans by giving it to cronies and bundlers (I don't think he has actual friends) and run up debt so large and so fast, it is doubtful we can ever pay it back. I could go on, but you, gentle reader, are as familiar with the epic failure that has been this Regime as I am.

Think to of the many ways this Regime has promoted government handouts, from preventing jobs to attempting to take away the last vestiges of stigma attached to the taking of food stamps and welfare. Daren Jonescu has a piece today at the American Thinker entitled Infantilizing Leftist Morality that explains how the Left benefits from this sort of behavior. It also points out the essential cowardice of people today, who can see what is coming, know what needs to be done, but make no move to do it.

So, what is the American way? If it isn't this, what is it, and how will we know it when we see it?  Judge Andrew Napolitano has a great article up at Townhall.com entitled The Rule of Law. He points out:

The greatest distinguishing factor between countries in which there is some freedom and those where authoritarian governments manage personal behavior is the Rule of Law. The idea that the very laws that the government is charged with enforcing could restrain the government itself is uniquely Western and was accepted with near unanimity at the time of the creation of the American Republic. Without that concept underlying the exercise of governmental power, there is little hope for freedom.

and:

The second leg is that no one is above the law and no one is beneath it. Thus, the law's restraints on force and fraud need to restrain everyone equally, and the law's protections against force and fraud must protect everyone equally. This leg removes from the discretion of those who enforce the law the ability to enforce it or to afford its protections selectively. This principle also requires that the law enforcers enforce the law against themselves. Of course, this was not always the case. In 1628, the British Parliament spent days debating the question "Is the king above the Rule of Law, or is the Rule of Law above the king?" Thankfully, the king lost -- but only by 10 votes out of several hundred cast.

Imagine that. The rule of law, properly understood, would apply to those that make the laws, to those that enforce them, and to those who must obey them alike. A Fast and Furious operation would be seen as breaking the law, and punished. After all, the ATF had the straw buyers in their sites, and had to choose not to enforce the law, when it was within their power to do so. Similarly, the President, taking up arms against a foreign power without a declaration of War would be impeached. An EPA seeking to regulated a harmless naturally occurring gas without the approval of Congress would be punished. But no one does. Napolitano again:

In our era, the violations of the Rule of Law have become most troublesome when the government breaks its own laws. Prosecute Roger Clemens for lying to Congress? What about all the lies Congress tells? Prosecute John Edwards for cheating? What about all the cheating in Congress when it enacts laws it hasn't read? Bring the troops home from the Middle East? What about all the innocents killed secretly by the president using CIA drones? Can't find a way to justify Obamacare under the Constitution? Why not call it what its proponents insisted it isn't -- a tax?

The Judges asks, what are we going to do about it? I am curious to know the answer to that question myself.