A Call to Action
by Steve Farrell (Nevada)
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” said Thomas Paine
two hundred and twenty years ago. The trial at that time, severing the
ties, by force of arms, with an unjust King and his swarm of officers.
Paine hoped, through his essay, “The American
Crisis,” to stir within the hearts of the best of his countrymen, a
sense of righteous indignation, and to invoke true manifestations of
manliness, not just of “faith but of works.” Would they be man
enough to stand forth and fight for the future felicity and safety of
their children against the crimes of a “sottish, stupid, stubborn,
worthless, brutish man, ” who in the present threatened the future. Or
would they be so unfeeling, so cowardly, to shrink back at a time when
“a little might have saved the whole.” True men would rather
“smile in trouble...gather strength from distress, and grow brave by
reflection, “ he said; It “was the business of little minds to
shrink;” true men to act with firm hearts, consistency of conscience
and action, “even unto death.” .
The war we fight today, against an unjust and immoral President is
not identical to the one we fought two hundred years ago against a
British monarch. For unlike the colonists, we elected our
sovereign, and as a republican society we have avenues of retreat from
our mistakes and misfortunes which our founders failed to possess. We
are blessed with constitutional checks designed specifically to hinder
the calamitous mixture of lustful men and power.
• First and foremost is Congress. As the sole possessor of the
power of the purse, the power to legislate, and the power of
advice and consent; being accountable both to the people and
the states (originally), they stand as a most formidable check.
• Second, a written Constitution with a clearly defined list of
powers and limitations of powers.
• Third, our traditional belief in the rule of law, which applies a
ll laws, including the Supreme Law, equally to either pauper or
president.
• Fourth, the Supreme Court with its tradition (debatable as intent)
of ruling on the constitutionality of questionable laws, treaties,
or executive acts.
• Fifth, the collective force of the American people, through
frequent national elections. All of these, were wise and
inspired checks against the tendency of power to accumulate in one.
But the founders understood that those 5 checks would not be equal to
every exigency. History had plainly taught them that power tends to
corrupt, and what remedy would there be when one, already corrupt from
the start, yet incredibly popular, comes to power - the Prototype of
Plato’s democratic king?
When a dynamic but dastardly leader, a clever but cunning lawyer,
skillfully and effortlessly, slips and slides, dodges and dances, out of
every legal force employed to chain him down to the Constitution? For
this sort, whose skill and usurpation places him above the law, there
needed to be one more check, one more remedy....impeachment.
And let there be no doubt , this “above the law” President deserves
to be impeached.
This is our legal remedy, and a good one which the founders could not
exercise against King George III. For they had no Congress, no written
constitution, no right to appeal to the rule of law, no Supreme Court,
no power to unelect the King, and no power to impeach.
Disenfranchised as they were without direct representation, and with a
train of abuses heaped upon, their escape clause was war. We, then, are
so much more fortunate; republican principles avert revolution by
permitting numerous channels of redress.
Having said that, impeachment of this President will be no simple
affair. I said, this battle is not indistinguishable from the one the
colonists fought, but the risks involved are grave, nonetheless. There
are, for instance, twenty lawsuits, all unaffiliated with the Lewinski
affair, yet still officially attached to Kenneth Star’s report
(thanks to the efforts of Judicial Watch), which reveal a dangerous side
of going to battle with this President.
They, among other things, accuse the President, of utilizing the IRS
to target political “enemies” in the press, of illegally purging 900
private FBI files to dig up dirt or hints of dirt on selected opponents,
and of intimidating witnesses, as was and is the case in Chinagate, in
Whitewater, and in the suspicious death of Ron Brown.
Meanwhile, the President and his staff, armed with those 900 files, have
put every Republican opponent on notice - no tid-bit of their past
history will be held sacred! Just ask House Judiciary Chairmen
Henry Hyde (R,IL), and Congresswoman Helen Chenowith (R,ID), if the
President’s threats are idol?
Indeed, this President, who feigned repentance, rarely knows
retreat, but only how to gather his forces to storm brazenly back with
vicious and calculated offensives. Mr. Clinton,
presents a model of intimidation that, in many ways, far exceeds the
power of King George III. And yet, the Republican Party, Democrats
with a conscience, and every patriotic American everywhere, must take a
stand against this would be king.
We can no longer allow him to curry the favor of the crowds, to
baffle, bully, and bury, each and every opponent. We must put
aside our differences and unite behind the US Constitution and the rule
of law. No common citizen could ever hope to get away with the
sort of crimes this President commits every day from the highest post in
the land. Let us dethrone this monarch, haul him into court,
and there try him for the crimes he has committed against our country
and its Constitution. This is the solemn duty of any who dare to
call themselves citizens of the United States of America.
Let us all rise up and be men and women of integrity and courage and
demand the Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton!
