Throughout history, mankind has confronted many major crises and turning-points, both positive and negative, manmade and naturally-occurring. For purposes of this essay I prefer to divide those crises into just two major categories: 1) man-made and natural disasters, from which it has always been possible to either fully or partially recover, and 2) \u201cflashpoints,\u201d those major crises and world events from which a satisfactory recovery has never been possible.<\/p>\n
Crises of the first category\u2026. such as World War I and World War II, where combatants in those bloody conflicts eventually became allies\u2026 are far too numerous to mention. However, crises of the \u201cflashpoint\u201d variety are rare.\u00a0 And while it can be argued that the greatest \u201cflashpoint\u201d of all time has been the birth of Mohammed, the American people now confront no less than three such crises:<\/p>\n
In recent days, the American people have been witness to one of the greatest failures of representative government in U.S. history. In a nation in which advances in medicine and medical technology have lead the world for more than a century, the difference between healthcare costs and what people can afford to pay has grown wider and wider.\u00a0 In fact, while politicians continue to promote the fiction that it is possible to make the world\u2019s best healthcare available to all, at affordable prices, it is fair to say that the United States now has a Rolls-Royce healthcare system, serving a population that can afford little more than used pickup trucks.<\/p>\n
And although Republicans have been calling for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare for the past seven years\u2026 promising that they would fix our broken healthcare system if only we would elect a courageous Republican president and give them majorities in both houses of Congress\u2026 we find that they are unable to agree on even the first step toward healthcare reform.<\/p>\n
While the Congress is made up of 435 members from all fifty states, the members have found it necessary to create no fewer than 222 special interest caucuses. No better example can be found than the Congressional Black Caucus, an organization of African-American members founded in March 1971, whose motto is, \u201cBlack people have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests.\u201d Oh, yeah?\u00a0 Try telling that to black Republicans such as J.C. Watts (R-OK), Tim Scott (R-SC), Will Hurd (R-TX), or Allen West (R-FL), none of whom were considered \u201cblack enough\u201d to be welcomed into the Black Caucus.<\/p>\n
Only Congresswoman Mia Love (R-UT) has had the courage and the patience to waste her valuable time trying to carry the conservative message to the 46 single-minded black Democrats of the caucus.\u00a0 No \u201cpermanent friends?\u201d\u00a0 Democrats would be shocked and surprised to hear that.\u00a0 No \u201cpermanent enemies?\u201d\u00a0 The caucus sees everyone who is not a Democrat as an enemy of black people.<\/p>\n
On the Republican side thirty conservative Republicans, comprising the Freedom Caucus, have banded together to defeat the Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act. Insisting on a \u201cperfect\u201d bill that met all of their requirements, and unwilling to see Senate amendments to the bill or the product of a House-Senate conference, the members of the Freedom Caucus stood united against the bill.\u00a0 Were the caucus members representing the interests of their constituents?\u00a0 Or were they merely bowing to the peer pressure exerted by their fellow caucus members?<\/p>\n
In our republican form of government, we are all entitled to have representatives in Washington and in the state capitals who will exercise their best judgment on behalf of their constituents. By yielding to the wishes of special interest caucuses, regardless of the likes or dislikes of their constituents, they are, in many cases, turning their backs on those who elected them.<\/p>\n
In the U.S. Senate, once referred to as the world\u2019s \u201cgreatest deliberative body,\u201d liberals and Democrats have played such vicious political games with Senate rules that we now find it all but impossible to confirm a ninth justice to the U.S. Supreme Court\u2026 unless that individual is one who is \u201cmainstream\u201d in his\/her judicial philosophy.\u00a0 By that, Democrats mean a nominee who sees the U.S. Constitution, not as the Founders intended, but as a \u201cliving\u201d document that can be twisted to meet what they see as the political, social, or economic needs at any given moment.<\/p>\n
That body of law gives every U.S. president the absolute authority to bar any foreign person or group of persons from receiving entry visas if he deems it necessary, for any period of time that he chooses, in order to protect the lives and property of the American people. Yet, three federal judges attempt to endow foreign immigrants and refugees with U.S constitutional rights.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has vowed to appeal those decisions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. But what if Senate Democrats are able to prevent a cloture vote on the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch?\u00a0 In that event, a Trump Administration appeal would go before an eight-member Supreme Court.\u00a0 And if that court produced a 4-4 decision, that ruling would then revert to the lower court and their decision would be upheld.\u00a0 What then?<\/p>\n
In such an event, and since Trump\u2019s understanding of the law is irrefutable, he may wish to emulate President Andrew Jackson who, in 1832, refused to follow the dictates of the Supreme Court\u2019s Worcester v. Georgia<\/em> ruling, affirming the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation\u2026 a decision that lead to the forcible relocation of some 15,000 Cherokees from Georgia to what is now Oklahoma.\u00a0 In that instance, Jackson is reported to have said, \u201c(Chief Justice) John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.\u201d<\/p>\n As Daniel Greenfield writes in his March 27 column for FRONTPAGEmag<\/em>, \u201cPolitical conflicts become civil wars when one side refuses to accept the existing authority.\u00a0 The left has rejected all forms of authority that it doesn\u2019t control.\u00a0 The left has rejected the outcome of the last two presidential elections won by Republicans. \u00a0It has rejected the judicial authority of the Supreme Court when it (sic) decisions don\u2019t accord with its agenda. \u00a0It rejects the legislative authority of Congress when it is not dominated by the left. It rejected the Constitution so long ago that it hardly bears mentioning.\u201d<\/p>\n Those of us who are seventy years old, or older, will remember the days when, as children, we were subjected to periodic nuclear attack drills.\u00a0 It was a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were the only two nations on Earth armed with enough nuclear warheads to literally destroy all signs of life on planet Earth.\u00a0 And while we could never be totally certain that the Soviets would never launch a preemptive nuclear strike against us, we were reasonably certain that the Soviet leadership was just as averse to a devastating nuclear exchange as we were.\u00a0 As a result, there was little chance that either side would ever launch such a first strike against the other.\u00a0 It was a standoff that was referred to throughout the Cold War as \u201cmutually assured destruction,\u201d or MAD.<\/p>\n However, the same is not true of today\u2019s enemies.\u00a0 The bloodthirsty Islamist dictators in the Middle East and the brutal communist madmen in North Korea are all just insane enough to welcome a nuclear war with the West.\u00a0 And while the North Korean leader, Kim Jung Un, has never shown the slightest regard for the well-being of his starving people, the leaders of al Qaeda and ISIS are just crazy enough to think that death is their greatest earthly reward\u2026 not to mention the seventy-two virgins that await each of them in Paradise.<\/p>\n These are the \u201cflashpoints\u201d that we now face.\u00a0 And unless we take immediate steps to restore representative government and respect for the rule of law in America, and unless we take all the matches away from the maniac in North Korea before he burns our house down, then the crises we now face are truly flashpoints from which we will never recover.\u00a0 To parody a verse from Tennessee Ernie Ford\u2019s hit song, Sixteen Tons<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u00a0What happens in Washington is a cryin\u2019 shame,<\/p>\n The people hold elections, but it\u2019s all just a game.<\/p>\n The Democrats betray us, at home and on The Hill,<\/p>\n If the Commies don\u2019t get us, then the Muslims surely will.<\/p>\n If Daniel Greenfield is correct in his assessment, then civil war is truly upon us. Let the games begin.<\/p>\n Paul R. Hollrah is a retired government relations executive and a two-time member of the U.S. Electoral College. He currently lives and writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma\u2019s Green Country.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Throughout history, mankind has confronted many major crises and turning-points, both positive and negative, manmade and naturally-occurring. For purposes of this essay I prefer to divide those crises into just two major categories: 1) man-made and natural disasters, from which … Continue reading