Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit writes:
JESSE JACKSON, JR.: Obama should ‘declare a national emergency,’ add jobs with ‘extra-constitutional’ action. And treat opponents of his jobs act like Confederate Rebels. Two thoughts; (1) He should resign for this statement, which constitutes an abnegation of his oath of office; and (2) Just a reminder — those Confederate Rebels were Democrats, mostly. Trouble with item (1) is that if contempt for the Constitution were grounds for leaving Congress, we’d hardly have a Congress. But still . . . A pathetic example of today’s pathetic political class.
Alas, the chances of Congressman Jackson resigning over his own statement are zero. The remedy, as James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 44, is with us.
In The Law That Governs Government: Reclaiming The Constitution From Usurpers And Society’s Biggest Lawbreaker, which may be downloaded for free at ReclaimtheConstitution.com, Richard Viguerie and I have a chapter titled, “Contempt for the Constitution as law is endemic in the political class.”
It’s not merely that the Constitution was written to govern government, thereby limiting it; the Constitution was written to enforce on government a set of ideals, and protect and guarantee them for our posterity. Our exceptionalism has been no coincidence.
The progressive agenda is antithetical to the ideals enforced by the Constitution. Undermining the Constitution is therefore the key to progressives’ achieving their agenda. This is why progressives, including former constitutional law instructor Obama, feel threatened by the constitutional conservative movement.
The constitutional conservative movement, however, is not solely a response to Obama progressives. Many constitutional conservatives have no great or sacrificial love for the Republican Party, and out of exasperation some have discussed forming a third party.
Too many Republicans over the past decades have been useful idiots or knowing collaborators in allowing the slow but sure progressive transformation of America toward statism and away from a government ruled by the Constitution. The reasons may vary, such as an under-developed understanding or vision of American ideals, a level of progressivism in their own views, or, as members of the ruling class, they see statism as protecting their standing and the establishment institutions created to profit from the growth of government.
Perhaps the number one reason why, however, is that we tolerated it. Republicans have been in bed with Democrats’ using billions in taxpayer money to yearly finance ACORN, Planned Parenthood and thousands of leftwing causes in exchange for Republicans doling out big-farm and big-business subsidies.
Time after time, conservatives supported, contributed to, and voted for incumbent Republicans, returning them to office even after they had participated in violations of the Constitution and tit-for-tat corruption. We failed to enforce the paramount law on them through the legal penalty and enforcement mechanism our Constitution created, the ballot box.
The final chapter of The Law That Governs Government is titled, “A remedy obtained from the people,” which is Madison’s phrase.