From the
Houston Chronicle Friday, June 15, 2007: “Senate leaders, under
intense pressure from immigrant-rights groups, the business sector
and the White House, agreed Thursday on a plan to revive an
immigration bill sidetracked last week by partisan clashes and
conservative opposition.” Notice there’s no mention of “pressure” or
the opinions of the majority of American citizens whom these
senators are supposed to represent.
Although 76%
of American voters vehemently oppose any form of amnesty for the 12
to 20 million illegal immigrants currently in the U.S., the Senate
still trotted out their immigration “reform” bill for a vote last
week, and tried patching it up with numerous amendments designed to
garner the acceptance of recalcitrant senators. Thankfully, it was
to no avail...that time.
Clearly,
however, our esteemed representatives in the upper house clearly do
not get the message. Neither does our “Conservative” president. The
bill will be brought up again, after ten days of arm-twisting,
pot-sweetening and “compromises” amongst the politicos. Why, the
President even made a rare visit to Capitol Hill earlier this week
to prod Republicans to support the legislation. In their latest
ploy, two Republicans offered an amendment that gives over $4
billion up front for “tightened border security and enforcement,” a
move hailed by the White House. On Thursday President Bush promised
tougher border security, saying that this measure will “...show the
American people that we're going to do our jobs of securing this
border once and for all.”
The president
and the Congress haven’t done anything towards “securing this
border” to date, but if we’ll just trust them, they’ll actually “do
our jobs” this time?
In the
American Revolution one of the rallying cries for the colonists was,
“No taxation without representation!” Yet today your
“representatives” in the Senate simply thumb their nose at the
clearly expressed will of the people, and continue to ram through
this legislation that most Americans don’t want. They know that most
Americans aren’t paying attention, plus they simply don’t care what
you and I want anyway. You want proof?
Over 85% of
Americans still claim to be Christian, yet our Congressional
representatives have for five decades allowed patently
unconstitutional court rulings to undermine the moral foundation of
this society, the Judeo-Christian Bible. No, not of some nebulous
“faith,” nor some generic “religious belief”...this nation was
founded upon the moral principles of the Bible and the Christian
faith. Muslims, atheists, Jains, Buddhists, et al, are free to
practice their faith as they will, but it is Christianity and the
Bible that is one of the three primary foundations of this nation.
To claim otherwise is to identify one as either ignorant or
dishonest.
Over 75% of
the American electorate consistently opposed abortion-on-demand
prior to and for years following the Roe vs Wade Supreme Court
decision, yet Congress has for forty years ignored the very first
principle of the Declaration of Independence – our inalienable right
to life, not to mention the will of the people, and their
Constitutional responsibility to faithfully represent that will –
and has refused to even try to over-ride a groundless decision that
tears at the moral fabric of this nation.
Now they’re
again showing their contempt for the American public. By simply
dismissing the rank disregard for laws exhibited by those who
entered this nation illegally, senators who swore an oath to
“support and defend” the Constitution of the United States are
helping to destroy another of this society’s foundations, the rule
of law. Instead of “bearing true faith and allegiance” to that
Constitution, they want to provide amnesty to those who broke the
law, and want us to believe that the trillions it will cost
taxpayers to pick up the tab for the social services and Social
Security payments (to those who have paid little or nothing into
Social Security) is for our own good?
Reason, the
third foundation of this nation, demands that they not be allowed to
continue in their flagrant disregard for the nation and the will of
the people, and of the foundations that led to our great freedoms
and prosperity. We didn’t hold our Congress accountable for the
courts’ ejection of God from schools and the public arena, even
though the Constitution clearly provides...nay, requires their
action against any ruling that is in violation of the Constitution.
So they got bolder in their self-serving behavior and contempt for
us and that Constitution.
Nor did we
hold our representatives accountable for allowing the courts to
sanction the wholesale murder of innocents for the convenience of
irresponsible women. So they got bolder still. Now they’re not just
“doing nothing” in the face of unconstitutional judicial
rulings...they’re actively violating that Constitution themselves,
and daring to tell us we’re either racist, anti-immigration
“nativists” if we oppose their political agenda, or else too stupid
to see the benefits of amnesty.
Will we
continue to allow them to act as if they’re kings who must answer to
no one and nothing but their own self-serving political interests?
Will we still do nothing, even as our society continues to unravel,
while they concentrate on feathering their own political nests and
expanding their power (i.e., the scope and power of the federal
government)? Are we so apathetic, or so stupid, that we think our
freedoms and prosperity will continue once our country’s foundations
are destroyed?
The Bible, our
crucial and necessary moral foundation, the rule of law that
protects every American, and now plain common sense (i.e.,
reason)...these are all to be sacrificed at the altar of political
expedience. Not for us, despite the bald-faced lies of senators and
the president, but for their political careers, their continuation
in power, their legacy. But the principle foundations of our nation
cannot be destroyed without also destroying every single social,
political and material benefit that you and I, and our ancestors,
have enjoyed since 1776. Jefferson said it best, “If a nation wants
to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it wants what
has never been and never will be.” Your “representatives” are
betraying you; your hired guns have turned on you and are destroying
the Golden Goose...yet in your willful ignorance and apathy you
continue to do nothing, enabling them to represent “immigrant rights
groups, business interests and the White House,” instead of our
interests. You blindly accept whatever spews forth from the maw of
“government,” as if you were some helpless victim of Lenin, Stalin
or Mao.
If they will
so boldly attack and destroy our very moral, political and economic
foundations, then which of our freedoms are safe from their deceit
and betrayal? Write, email or call your “representatives” in both
houses of Congress; enough angry contacts from constituents still
gets their attention, because they crave their positions and power
too much to risk voting against an awakened public. They’ve gotten
away with their betrayals for forty years precisely because you and
I haven’t made our will known, and now they’ve become so bold that
they flagrantly ignore that will. Let them know, today and this
weekend, that they do so at peril of their precious positions of
power and privilege.
Formerly a liberal and an atheist, Paul E. Scates served as a Marine
in Vietnam and is a lifelong student of American history, politics and
culture. A former contributor to national website TooGoodReports.com, he
writes his staunchly independent Conservative and informed Christian
commentary for his fellow ordinary, working Americans, the “we, the
people” who are ultimately responsible for preserving our Constitutional
liberties. He welcomes your
, pro or con.
