"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"? - Forgetabout It!

  

“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”? - Forgetabout It!

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” 

Declaration of Independence, principally drafted by Thomas Jefferson.

“It has been remarked upon another occasion, and the remark is unquestionably just, that an hereditary monarch, though often the oppressor of his people, has personally too much at stake in the government to be in any material danger of being corrupted by foreign powers. But a man raised from the station of a private citizen to the rank of chief magistrate, possessed of but a moderate or slender fortune, and looking forward to a period not very remote, when he may probably be obliged to return to the station from which he was taken, might sometimes be under temptations to sacrifice his duty to his interest, which it would require superlative virtue to withstand. An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the state to the acquisition of wealth. An ambitious man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the price of his treachery to his constituents. The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world to the sole disposal of a magistrate, created and circumstanced, as would be a president of the United States.” 

 Alexander Hamilton, Essay 75, Federalist Papers, 1788

Our Founding Fathers were flawed men, untrusting, mostly divided… yet united in building nation where those governed selected their leaders. Slave owners, mostly landowners. Yet it took them “Four Score and Seven years” (87 years) to abolish slavery, and more than a half a century later to give women the vote. These successful revolutionaries were relying on each other, the wisdom of several philosophers (particularly the “Father of Liberalism,” 17th century thinker, John Locke), but most of all they a shared a common revulsion of the British monarchy. Oddly, the British subjects of George III may well have had more freedoms than average Americans “enjoy” today.

Just reading Alexander Hamilton’s words above tells you how those designing a government this land’s expected future, feared the concentration of individual power. As evidenced by which article of the Constitution is stated first, it was always their intention to place government primarily in the hands of the legislature – the body that could create laws (Article I) – with the President, never expected to be a perpetual monarch, charged with implementing those legislative creations with limited rights to veto those decisions (Article II). The judicial branch, presented last among the three principal governmental bodies, was designed to keep both the Congress and the President true to their constitutional limits and responsibilities (Article III).

George Washington could have been king, and if he so desired, and he would have been reelected for a third and even a fourth term had he wanted. He declared that two terms were more than enough for any man. After FDR has served four terms, dying in office, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution (which was fully ratified in 1951) limited the president to two terms… no matter what some Trump worshippers may believe. As you can read above, the drafters of our founding documents were particularly worried about what would happen if “an avaricious man” lacking a moral compass, assumed the presidency… and recognized that he only had a limited time to use his office to make money and increase his (no “her” then) personal power. They knew how much our nation relied on governance by men of character. They really did not think of Americans as only winners and losers (mostly rich and other).

Had they viewed the recent military occupation of Washington, DC, they might have assumed that this was another British invasion as they faced in 1812. Had they read the 2024 Trump vs United States Supreme Court decision, where the President was granted absolute immunity for his direct official actions and limited immunity for his actions that showed some colorable version of official actions, they would have assumed that their worst fears had become a reality. I can only believe that they would have been totally appalled at a president who unilaterally usurped the power to levy taxes (tariffs) and attack foreign citizens and nations, including killing the survivors of his attacks, without congressional or even judicial approval.

What would they have thought of Trump’s selling pardons or granting pardons to violent attackers of the Capitol, while Congress was in session, in a failed coup attempt to install him by force? Selling presidential memorabilia or investment opportunities under color of his presidency? Or of easily obtained semiautomatic weapons smuggled across our southern border to reinforce narco-cartels… with those same gunmakers granted immunity for the harm they enabled. If they were shown that picture of Trump in royal majesty above, would they have guessed it was a king contemplating his next wasteful castle?

Men like Jefferson and Franklin were deists, not Christians (at least privately); what would they think of a president embracing white Christian nationalism as our national religion. Would they have wondered if they had not been clear enough with the First Amendment? What would these great political believers in a government of the people, by the people and for the people of a president who routinely called journalists “the enemy of the people,” “evil,” “piggie” or “stupid”? A president staying up late on Thanksgiving to excoriate journalists and anyone opposing any of his policies or appointees in social media postings. Or who considers the entire Department of Justice as his personal cadre of “lawyers” who are his instruments of retribution against elected government officials who merely opposed his policies and actions.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am so disappointed that the only matters that strand between illiberal autocracy and democracy are Trump’s involvement in protecting a pedophile and the unaffordability for most of the basics that his policies created… clearly Congress has failed its duty to legislate independently for the people and the Supreme Court to protect the Constitution.