Optimists think that if we manage to turn a few things around, their kids may have it . . . almost as good. The country they inherit may be . . . almost as good. And it’s kind of a shock to think like this; pessimism isn’t in our DNA. But it isn’t pessimism, really, it’s a kind of tough knowingness, combined, in most cases, with a daily, personal commitment to keep plugging.
But do our political leaders have any sense of what people are feeling deep down? They don’t act as if they do. I think their detachment from how normal people think is more dangerous and disturbing than it has been in the past. I started noticing in the 1980s the growing gulf between the country’s thought leaders, as they’re called—the political and media class, the universities—and those living what for lack of a better word we’ll call normal lives on the ground in America. The two groups were agitated by different things, concerned about different things, had different focuses, different world views.
But I’ve never seen the gap wider than it is now. I think it is a chasm. In Washington they don’t seem to be looking around and thinking, Hmmm, this nation is in trouble, it needs help. They’re thinking something else. I’m not sure they understand the American Dream itself needs a boost, needs encouragement and protection. They don’t seem to know or have a sense of the mood of the country.
And so they make their moves, manipulate this issue and that, and keep things at a high boil. And this at a time when people are already in about as much hot water as they can take.
To take just one example from the past 10 days, the federal government continues its standoff with the state of Arizona over how to handle illegal immigration. The point of view of our thought leaders is, in general, that borders that are essentially open are good, or not so bad. The point of view of those on the ground who are anxious about our nation’s future, however, is different, more like: “We live in a welfare state and we’ve just expanded health care. Unemployment’s up. Could we sort of calm down, stop illegal immigration, and absorb what we’ve got?” No is, in essence, the answer.
An irony here is that if we stopped the illegal flow and removed the sense of emergency it generates, comprehensive reform would, in time, follow. Because we’re not going to send the estimated 10 million to 15 million illegals already here back. We’re not going to put sobbing children on a million buses. That would not be in our nature. (Do our leaders even know what’s in our nature?) As years passed, those here would be absorbed, and everyone in the country would come to see the benefit of integrating them fully into the tax system. So it’s ironic that our leaders don’t do what in the end would get them what they say they want, which is comprehensive reform.
When the adults of a great nation feel long-term pessimism, it only makes matters worse when those in authority take actions that reveal their detachment from the concerns—even from the essential nature—of their fellow citizens. And it makes those citizens feel powerless.
Inner pessimism and powerlessness: That is a dangerous combination. (Peggy Noonan)
And as one who was not abundant, and still isn’t, when I see what I see and the complete disconnect from reality that is the Twilight Zone at the Beltway around D.C. I do wonder about this.
I have no kids, I probably never will.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t look at the kids I see on the street and wonder what life is going to be like for them when they are my age.
And I don’t think it will be that good, certainly not like their childhood.
And that is a sad legacy.
But to pick up on Mrs. Noonan’s point about Arizona. (as an aside, where is the lawsuit against Missouri for slapping the government in the face? Are there not enough Latinos in the state to warrant it?).
IBD: In federal lawsuits, defendants may answer litigation filed against them with a counterclaim against the plaintiff for damages or other relief.
The Constitution of the United States mandates at Article 4: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government … that the United States shall protect each of them (the states) against invasion and … against domestic violence.”
“Republican form of government” is defined as a republic that is a system of government in which the people hold sovereign power and elect representatives to exercise that power.
To “guarantee” means to warrant or undertake that something has happened or will happen. The term “invasion” is (regarding a country or territory ) a hostile incursion.
The term “shall” used in the third person singular denotes an imperative, without discretion or choice. Thus, the phrase “shall guarantee” leaves no wiggle room.
Remedies for breach of guarantee are damages (expenses incurred in repairing guaranteed product) or rescission (return of product for refund of purchase price — i.e., “money back” guarantee).
Recently, the federal government — the present regime in particular — has not only violated the guarantee of republican form of government and the pledge to protect Arizona from invasion and domestic violence, but has actively worked to achieve the exact opposite result.
By the federal government’s determined resistance to enforcing existing federal law against illegal immigration and attempting to penalize Arizona for attempting to cope with illegal immigration on its own, the federal government has crassly flouted its obligation to guarantee a republican form of government for the state of Arizona.
One of the most effective means for destroying a republic is to bankrupt it and beggar its people.
It’s the only thing Obama & Co ARE good at.
This is what befell Rome, which went from a republic to what would now be called a dictatorship as a result of the financial drain on the country resulting from the empire.
In the case of Arizona, recent figures disclose that illegal immigration costs the state $2.5 billion annually. This amounts to approximately $400 for every man, woman and child in the state, which has a population of less than 7 million.
The federal government has not only filed litigation against Arizona, but informed an association of Arizona sheriffs that it intends to prosecute as an example at least one deputy for enforcing Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration legislation (SB 1070).
There are reports the administration is seeking ways to cease doing business with Arizona and is encouraging other states to do the same, to exercise economic coercion on the state.
The administration has praised the efforts of states such as California for economically boycotting Arizona. The sanctions the administration has imposed on Arizona are hardly less draconian than those that the same administration has imposed on Iran to prevent Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. All this for Arizona’s daring to exercise its republican form of government and passing widely popular legislation in a manner completely consistent with Arizona’s Constitution.
The Obama administration has thus tried to take control of Arizona and abridge/suppress its republican government in substance and in process.
Also violated by the federal government is the pledge to protect Arizona from invasion. The enormous influx of illegal immigrants into Arizona—uninvited, demanding and belligerent—clearly constitutes a hostile incursion.
The surge in illegal immigration has brought with it crime and violence. Phoenix is now the kidnap capital of America as a result of the Mexican gangs that have invaded Arizona using kidnapping as a form of turf acquisition and protection.
Notably, on the Independence Day weekend this year a Mexican drug gang announced that the border with Mexico and Arizona was “moved” several miles into Arizona whereby Interstate Highway 8 would now be the border. There was no response to this by the Obama administration.
I feel I should point out that Insterstate 8 is not “several miles from the border. It is a LOT of miles from the border!!
Interstate 8 starts/ends at Interstate 10 just south of Casa Grande, AZ. THAT IS 40 Miles from My house in South Phoenix!!!!
That is 134 miles from the Nogales, AZ on the border!!!
What we do have at the border are signs warning Americans to stay away from the gangs and cartels!!
It is undeniable that the federal government has shamelessly and willfully violated its guarantee and pledges under Article 4, constituting suitable grounds for counterclaims by Arizona against the federal government.
The question is whether the remedy for such violation should be rescission or damages. If the latter, a figure of $2.5 billion annually could be employed per the latest studies projected backward as well as forward. As to the rescission alternative (the “money back” guarantee, whereby the contract is undone or rescinded), this would constitute rescission of the breached agreement whereby Arizona entered the union in 1912.
Gaspers in disbelief regarding rescission/secession should know that there is nothing sacrosanct about the federal government; only the Constitution is inviolable. When the federal government willfully refuses to comply with a constitutional mandate, the Constitution can be upheld only by implementing its provisions, in this case the “money back” guarantee.
An independent Arizona can contract with the federal government for defense, as do small cities with the counties in which they are located, for police/fire protection. The outsourcing of defense by an independent Arizona might be expensive, but with the money saved from illegal immigration, Arizona could afford it.
The federal government might even make money on the deal and, for the first time, turn a profit on something.
To those who would label this “draconian,” the answer is this is a race to a precipice with a sheer drop greater than that of Arizona’s crown jewel, the Grand Canyon.
Personally, we’d go for damages. What’s 10 or 20 billion nowadays anyway? If the verdict came down in the early-ish morning, the Obama administration could have the money printed up by lunchtime.
After all, after the $4 Trillion Dollars in 19 Months with nothing to so for it,so what if they’d spend what another few billion…
It’s not like it’s real money to them anyhow…
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. –Martin Luther King, Jr.
The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery. —Pope John Paul II
Indyfromaz's Blog: The Thoughts of An Independent Arizonan 