While America Bleats

As Obama travels the country framing the current recession as the worst economic crisis since the depression – even though to date it is not – so that he can politically position himself as the economic savior of the free world, most Americans are standing by like sheep while his foot soldiers deftly position themselves to attack the country’s “right flank.” Two measures are moving along in congress, with little or no attention. The first would grant through legislation the District of Columbia the status of statehood so that it could seat one representative (The D.C. House Voting Rights Act, HR 238). The second is to move the responsibility for the 2010 census from the Department of Commerce and place the responsibility for it under the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. These moves will allow the socialist Democrats to consolidate political power and over time shift the balance of power more to the left.

George Will points out in his excellent article “With Utah’s help, pretender is closer to statehood,” the problem with D.C. statehood is that Article I, Section 8 identifies D.C. as the “seat of the government of the United States” and is not a state. Article I Section 2 states “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.” That is why, in 1978, the District’s advocates sent to the states a constitutional amendment requiring that “for the purposes of representation” the district would be “treated a though it were a state.” Only 16 states ratified it, 22 short of the required number. As Will points out “So the District’s advocates decided that an amendment is unnecessary – a statute will suffice because the Constitution empowers congress “to exercise exclusive legislation” over the District. They argue that this power can be used to, in effect, amend the Constitution by nullifying Article I, Section 2’s requirement.” As Will concludes, “This argument, that Congress’ legislative power trumps the Constitution, means that congress could establish religion, abridge freedom of speech and of the press and abolish the right of peaceful assembly in the District.” As we have seen in the recent past, if this occurs, it is a short step to extending this thinking to granting the District the right to two senators and creating all sorts of rights for other special interests. In the last twelve elections, D.C. has voted 74.8% democratic. This will strengthen the socialist democratic stranglehold on the congress, extending its absolute control over socially progressive legislation and spending.

A second wave of attack on the “right flank” is Obama’s decision to place the 2010 census under Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff. The argument for making this move is that Obama has nominated Senator Judd Gregg, a republican, to lead the Commerce Department, which has been historically responsible for the census and that he cannot be fair. Democrats rightly understand that a fair census is important and a lot is at stake: the census is the basis for re-districting, apportionment of federal funds to the state, and allocation of electoral votes in presidential elections. So they want to protect the census process and outcome to their advantage. How does moving the census to the White House do this? Because the White House is not bound by the same regulations as the Commerce Department, Emanuel need not be as transparent as the Commerce Department in publishing its rules for comment, explaining its process, or defending the results. In fact, conservatives are concerned that even though Article 1, Section 2 and Amendment 14 of the Constitution require that apportionment of representation be based on an actual count of population, a census directed by a democratically controlled White House, which may not be subject to open and full review provided by regulation, will opt to use statistical extrapolation to determine population in areas where it is difficult to “count,” such as traditionally democratic voting areas like the inner cities of America. Republicans should be reasonably concerned, given that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, recently demonstrated her inability to count when she commented that the economy is so dire that we should expect to lose 500 million jobs unless we pass the $1 trillion bailout bill. I guess she did not look at recent census data: America as of this writing consists of only of 305,788,014 persons.

At some point Americans need to realize that democracy is about equality of opportunity not equality of outcome. Democracy does not guarantee us happiness; it guarantees individuals – not collective groups – the right to pursue happiness. These rights are inalienable, endowed by our Creator, and expressed in the form of laws, to which we collectively agree to abide. When these laws are directly circumvented by those whom we have elected to represent us, then we no longer have an obligation to follow them.