Dissolving the Political Bands

This past week was a historic time. The impeachment trial ended with a vote that there was no need for calling defense witnesses, or any prosecution witnesses in addition to the 18 testimonies given in the House. The official acquittal should happen Wednesday. It would be a good thing if some brave Democrat broke away from the pack, to at least make the acquittal bipartisan.

While that has been going on, the President signed the new USMCA treaty. He attended and spoke at the March for Life. He proposed a possibly workable peace solution in the Middle East. More Constitution-following judges have been appointed. Trade disputes with China seem to be working toward a better conclusion than expected. Economic news is good. There’s probably more good news—which we're sure to hear about in Tuesday night's State of the Union address. Imagine the good we might get done without the distraction of Democrats claiming he should be stopped.

But beyond our shores, the big news is the final deadline of Brexit. Friday was the last day that the UK was part of the European Union. It was a long time coming. The British people voted in favor of leaving the EU in 2016—almost four years ago. That’s a long time to get things lined up for what should be a fairly simple process.

Nigel Firage, final address to EU Parliament
screenshot from here

But the good thing is that it was accomplished—without bloodshed.

As we know from the Declaration of Independence,

When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

Declaring the causes is what the rest of the Declaration of Independence does.

Here in Texas, we’re a month away from celebrating our declaration of independence from Mexico, which accomplished a similar purpose.

In these cases, as with Brexit, there was a necessity to separate, to dissolve the political bands. It’s a rare thing indeed to have this happen without bloodshed. Congratulations to the Brits.

Nigel Farage has been their minister to the EU parliament for some twenty years—all of that time attempting to work himself out of a job by exiting. As he said in his brief farewell address to that Parliament, a couple of days ahead of the deadline,

My mother and father signed up to a common market, not to a political union. Not to flags, anthems, presidents—and now you even want your own army.

The European Union was not sold as a “United States of Europe”; it was sold as a joint economic alliance. What it became was usurpation of power worthy of admiration from many a dictator. And the voice of the people has been squelched. As Farage pointed out,

In 2005 I saw the Constitution that had been drafted by Giscard and others. I saw it rejected by the French in a referendum. I saw it rejected by the Dutch in a referendum. And I saw you in these institutions ignore them, bring it back as a Lisbon Treaty and boast you could ram it through without there being referendums. Well, the Irish did have a vote, and did say no, and were forced to vote again. You’re very good at making people vote again.

But what we’ve proved is, the British are too big to bully—thank goodness!

If the EU had been what it claimed originally to be, only an economic alliance, there would not be a Brexit. But the UK was fed up with their sovereignty being ignored. They were fed up with decisions important to them being overridden by some bureaucrats in a foreign city. They wanted to retake their sovereignty, to be their own country again. It was as simple as that.

Brexit supporters celebrate in London as the
clock reaches 11 PM on January 31, 2020
image found here

There are some complicated details, to reset trade negotiations that must change under the new circumstances, happening over the next 11 months. But as Farage summed it up:

Once we’ve left, we are never coming back, and the rest, frankly, is detail.

Congratulations to our friends! Like them, “We love Europe; we just hate the European Union.” We don’t hate a people, or a nation. We’re in opposition to a statist tyranny wherever we find it.

It occurs to me to ask the theoretical question of what it would take for such an exit in our indivisible United States. We are not the same type of project as the EU; we are not a simple economic agreement that morphed into a centralized total government. But it’s helpful to remember what we are and what we did not agree to.

Our government was created to join multiple sovereign states (which means actual self-governing nations, not provinces) under an umbrella central government with limited purposes. That government, according to the preamble to the Constitution, is to

establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

There are enumerated powers granted to this federal government. Nothing else. And there’s a pretty solid list of what the federal government cannot do, just for clarity. (I listed the powers and restrictions here and here.)  We have this all written out in our Constitution. We are a people with the rule of law, rather than ruler’s law.

So, theoretically, as long as we have our Constitution protecting us, we are indivisible. But what happens if powers are usurped, and some ruler steps in dictatorially ignoring our Constitution?

We’ve had small-to-medium usurpations going on since the beginning. Andrew Jackson did some. Teddy Roosevelt did some. Woodrow Wilson did a lot, and he set things in motion for more and more usurpations. Franklin Roosevelt pushed the envelope further.

We had more than we could stomach under Obama. The Supreme Court struck down his attempts at rule-by-dictate 96 times. There were other times he got away with things—like Obamacare, which was the first time the government was allowed to force people to purchase a good or service against their will. But Obama was frequently checked by the courts, at a much higher rate than his predecessors. He lost 44 cases unanimously, which of course included his own appointees. 

But, now, we have an entire slate of Democrat presidential candidates who openly propose socialism as a replacement to our constitutional government and free market system.

Socialism is dictatorship. It is ruler’s law. Adding the word “democratic” before the term is akin to “democratic slavery,” which is what slavery was before we eliminated it in a bloody war. A majority voting to take liberty, life, or property from some minority may make it democratic, but it’s still slavery.

What if one of these openly socialist candidates were to win? Would this break the contract that unites our states? Not immediately—and the checks and balances in the Constitution are key. It would definitely be a problem if such a president were to be aligned with a socialist majority in both the House and the Senate. But for at least a time the judicial branch can rule against such a president’s edicts. We appreciate the success President Trump has had in appointing two read-the-law judges to the Supreme Court, and—well, here’s the count as of today according to Wikipedia:

As of February 3, 2020, the United States Senate has confirmed 187 Article III judges nominated by President Trump, including 2 Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, 50 judges for the United States Courts of Appeals, 133 judges for the United States District Courts, and 2 judges for the United States Court of International Trade. There are currently 18 nominations to Article III courts awaiting Senate action, including 1 for the Courts of Appeals, 16 for the District Courts and 1 for the Court of International Trade. There is currently 1 vacancy on the U.S. Courts of Appeals, 72 vacancies on the U.S. District Courts, 2 vacancies on the U.S. Court of International Trade, and 7 announced federal judicial vacancies that will occur before the end of Trump's first term (1 for the Courts of Appeals and 6 for District Courts). Trump has not made any recess appointments to the federal courts.

President Trump appoints Justice Neil Gorsuch
image from Wikipedia

That is significant for years to come. Whatever else he may have as a legacy, he will have this improvement in the judiciary for which we can be grateful.

There may someday come a time when an administration is supported by Congress, and not checked by a judiciary, in ruling by dictate and ignoring the Constitution. In such a circumstance, individual states could feel fully justified to “dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another.” But if that ever comes, let it be without bloodshed, as Brexit has been.

While it’s a scary thing to have an entire political party threatening us with a socialist takeover, we’re still, so far, guaranteed our freedoms by the rule of law—the Constitution. If, as Benjamin Franklin said, we can keep it.