Another Constitutional Question

November 6, 2008 | Constitution, Founders, Founding Documents, History

Few of us are willing to admit to our ignorance in a matter of import, and that in part has led us to the current financial crisis.

Fewer still are willing to admit to being wrong on any topic. Therefore the combination of ignorance and being pig-headed can result in a catastrophic outcome when played out on a field as large as that of the United States.

In Federalist 68, Alexander Hamilton wrote, “THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded. I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.”

“It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided… Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.”

He then makes the point that, “They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment.”

The method for electing the president is clearly defined under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. And then in order that the process is clear and concise, the Union ratified the Twelfth Amendment, but the method of electing the president remains fundamentally the same.

I will freely admit that I am ignorant on many subjects, one of which is the tolerance we have for the legal community, and their utter disrespect for our Fundamental Law. Views change, which will alter the execution of law, and thereby place us into uncharted territory. The more interpretation allowed the more the people would be set off balance.

It seems clear to me that the present mode of electing the president is far removed from that of our Founders original intent. These things may change through the arduous process of amending the Constitution. In so amending an existing aspect of the Constitution a repeal of the former article is necessary to validate that it is no longer a relevant part of our law, or so you would think.

To validate my thought process I perused the Constitution and its amendments, again. I compared the wording of the various articles, which of course should not match except for the precepts and the execution of the amendment.

Article XXI states, in Section 1, “The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.” Then Section 3 states that, “This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.” Other articles of amendment make the same charge, but not all.

At this point the water appears to be very muddy to me. Could it be that these amendments were not properly ratified at the time of the Secretary of States declaration? Certainly there are questions about whether the Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Amendments were properly ratified, and probably adequate proof to know that something is very wrong.

So I believe, that if not intentionally, there are at least questions about what our government, through our representatives, was attempting to accomplish by being so circumvent in amending the Constitution.

Phil J. Berg, former assistant attorney general of Pennsylvania, filed a suit in Philadelphia Federal Court, demanding that Barak Obama produce a valid birth certificate to show that he is indeed qualified to run for the office of the president.

In answer to the challenge, the Obama camp, and that included the Democratic National Committee, fired back that Mr. Berg cannot state a claim upon which a relief can be based. The court has now agreed that we the people do not have any standing in questioning behavior that is in conflict with the Constitution.

For an answer as to how this decision was made it is simple enough to look back at the courts previous rulings, or should I say how they have interpreted our right to redress out the window. In the mind of the court, and apparently many Americans, there is no direct injury at this time. I suppose we will have to wait until he is sworn in and the ceiling starts to fall down.

I went a little deeper in this and referenced the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution to understand where this might be leading us. Section 3 reads, “If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.”

If you wanted to write a high-tension thriller with the plot being that the country is thrown into complete turmoil this is where you go. This might seem obscure to the reader, but with the current state of affairs, and our past history, nothing should seem that strange.

Writers of fiction often take their plots from real live events. They simply twist here, and move right instead of left when it creates the turn of events the writer seeks.

On October 19^th, in his Meet The Press interview with Tom Brokaw, former Secretary of State Colin Powell states clearly that “there is going to be a crisis come along on the 21^st, or 22^nd of January that we don’t even know about right now.”

In order that Powell’s comments seemed prophetic rather than cautionary, the usual talking points started to appear. The newly elected president is always tested, so said former Secretary of State Madeline Albright. Obama’s running mate Joe Biden chimed in, and I’m sure that the DNC made a point of contacting their cronies in the media to spin it around.

But it’s time for the novelist to take over, don the tin foil hat, and breakout all the conspiracy theories, which are not going to be hard to come by.

Phil Berg stated that he went forward with his suit because the birth certificate that the Obama campaign posted was verified as a fraud. He also claims that Obama’s grandmother said that she was there when he was born in Kenya. Obama could have easily brought the birth certificate to court, and have done with it. The court could have easily prevented a looming crisis by ordering Obama to produce the certificate, but it did not.

This is plenty of intrigue, and legal wrangling for something as simple as proving that you are indeed an American citizen born in Hawaii. To put this into some perspective, government documents were released a few years ago showing that the Gulf of Tonkin incident didn’t take place. E. Howard Hunt, on his deathbed, made tapes for his son stating that he, the father, was indeed on the Grassy Knoll, and that the assassination of Kennedy went all the way up to LBJ.

The election is done, the votes are counted and the new president, Barak Obama is in the wings waiting to take the oath of office. Chief Justice Roberts administers the oath, and the country has a new leader.

Prior to this, the Treasury has been completely sacked through the manipulations of the supposed bailout. Things are turning worse in the Middle East, tension with Russia is reaching a fever pitch, and the reality is starting to hit us that food shortages don’t just occur in third world nations.

Riots begin in the inner cities where job opportunities have been depleted for a number of reasons. The people are hungry, they are angry, and they are disgusted with elected representatives whose only purpose appears to be to line their own pockets with taxpayer dollars.

The Pentagon has been gearing up for a number of years now to quell riots in America by slowly indoctrinating people to seeing military personnel on the streets, and conducting operations in small towns supposedly overrun with terrorists. The mindless only perceive some sort of illusion that they are being made safe, while others grow very suspicious.

The grocery shelves look somewhat bare, and when they are not the prices are unaffordable to many of the unemployed, or working poor. Confusion, and stress mount while the government proposes inane solutions while tightening the noose on the people.

Up pops a dark figure, no one actually knows whom these folks are that show up out of nowhere, but investigation usually concludes that they have ties to one political party or the other. In his dirty hands is proof positive that the newly elected president is not qualified to hold the office of the presidency.

The country is now in deeper turmoil. Unrest turns to conflict fostered by what some might see as racism, others may see as total deceit by the ruling party, and some, maybe just a few, will realize that it is a plot to completely destroy the Constitution, and bring about martial law.

Have I hit the nail on the head, or simply produced the makings of a great political thriller? If you haven’t been paying attention there is much more going on in the world than the major media is showing us.

There have been food riots in other parts of the world, and there have been snippets in our own news about food lines right here in America. There are tent cities popping up, and states such as Michigan, which has for so long been depended on the auto industry, face major employment issues.

I can imagine, I can speculate, and I can certainly contrive a plot that places the United States in its grave. It is simple enough to write down theories, and it was certainly simple enough for Obama to produce a valid birth certificate, and for the DNC, in good faith, to tell its nominee to produce whatever was required.

In all of this maneuvering, there should be one name that lives in infamy if a constitutional question arises that may just place the last nail in the coffin. It is that of United States District Judge R. Barclay Surrick, who deemed that the people of this great country could not claim any real injury if they have been fraudulently presented with a constitutionally unqualified candidate for the presidency.

‘Nick’