Alan Keyes
Obama's Marxist coup: ending the nightmare
Impeachment/removal possible if voters exercise their power
By Alan Keyes
Leavened with malice and deceit, they rise to power, these hardcore socialists like Obama. Once positioned to do so, they move to consolidate unbridled tyranny. Their infamous goal: to impose the "dictatorship of the proletariat."
That supposedly populist Marxist catchphrase slyly distracts from the fact that everywhere they achieve political success, socialist ideologues practice gangster government – of, by, and for a self-serving elitist clique. As gangsters typically do, they encourage whatever vices they can manipulate. They also liberally apply the salt of fear, to make their banal rule more palatable. And when they have attained sufficient power, they do not shrink from doing so with brutally forceful measures.
The U.S. Constitution derives from an understanding that stresses the need for effective limits and constraints on governmental power. This need arises from the same inherent evils that make government necessary in the first place. It is obviously inimical to the goal of dictatorship. Therefore, since even before his occupation of the White House, Obama and his collaborators have worked to disparage, undermine, and discard the U.S. Constitution.
But many Americans are still adamantly unwilling to choke down the prospect of life under a vicious, dictatorial regime. Their eyes see past the populist disguise of socialist gangsterism. Some have (I think prematurely) concluded that America's liberty is irretrievable defunct. But even they have by no means surrendered their allegiance to it.
Others, particularly those who believe in Jesus Christ's permanent resurrection of hope, look unflinchingly into the abyss, sure that if they remember and trust in God's law of love and mercy, He has the power to restore their nation to the better path of human destiny. It is especially (though not exclusively) among such people that the movement to impeach and remove Obama and his cronies from office arises.
I have elsewhere rehearsed the facts that, along with moral and constitutional reasoning, provide just grounds for their activity. But many are daunted by the often repeated observation that, as things stand, the U.S. House of Representatives is unlikely to impeach Obama, and the U.S. Senate even more unlikely to remove him.
This self-defeating view of things has a specious ring of truth that allows the GOP's elitist faction quislings to belittle and ridicule the very idea of impeachment/removal. This discourages many of the conservatives who long for an end to the Obama nightmare, while slyly belittling their intelligence and common sense.
To parry this discouraging word, we need to focus on the little phrase that gives the quislings' arrogant dismissal of impeachment the disguise of truth: "as things stand." I actually wish more people would focus on that phrase as they read and listen to appeals from anyone who encourages them to petition the present Congress, asking that they IMPEACH OBAMA NOW!
The Constitution quite explicitly recognizes the "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." However, when people petition the government, they do so as subjects, humbly praying or pleading for relief and help. But when the Congress moves to impeach and remove the occupant of the Oval Office, or any other civil officer of the U.S. government, they represent the people in their capacity as the sovereign body charged with overseeing the government, not as subjects under its power.
Properly understood, the "high crimes and misdemeanors" which are subject to the impeachment/removal power involve abuses of government power made possible by the fact that, particularly at the highest executive levels, the civil officers violating the law are precisely the ones charged with enforcing it. In this extraordinary circumstance, the long arm of the law is unlikely to be outstretched. So it inevitably falls short of its intended purpose.
In order to deal with such extraordinary abuses, the civil officers involved must be called to account by the political will of the people as a whole, acting with a unified strength sufficient to make good on the promise of defeating any official who opposes it, even at the highest level. Ultimately, therefore, the impeachment/removal process is not a legal contest, but a test of the political will of the people – i.e., their will as citizens who comprise the body of the people when it acts to exercise its sovereign power.
As subjects, people living in the United States of America may gather peacefully to petition the government, without regard to their citizenship. But under the U.S. Constitution, any issue that really tests the political will of the people, in their sovereign capacity, must ultimately be decided in the venue where the American people gather as citizens, in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, in order to determine and proclaim their sovereign will: the electoral process.
With all this in mind, it makes no sense to pretend that the impeachment/removal issue must depend on a vote taken by the U.S. Congress "as things stand." Lately, no matter how much their constituents plead with them, the elitist faction leaders in Congress have made it clear that they aren't listening, on just about every vital issue.
But if people use the power the Constitution places in their hands, the power of their votes, impeachment/removal may be made to depend on where voters decide to stand in the congressional elections next November.
Can America afford to wait three more years for the chance to end Obama's destructive socialist coup d'état? American citizens who answer with a resounding "no" need consider what they can do about it. They need to decide what, as individuals, they are personally willing to do to restore and preserve their government of, by, and for the people, the republican form of government guaranteed by the Constitution (Article IV.4).
In dealing with the threat Obama represents, Americans have come to the point Abraham Lincoln recognized as critical in the affairs of a free people. It is the point where we must say, "Passion has helped us" but no longer helps enough. Demonstrations and rallies and fervent pleas petitioning those in government may vent our feelings, but they cannot, by themselves, secure our goal. As people loyal to the republican form of government the Constitution aims to perpetuate, we must – here, now, and urgently – act on the logic of self-disciplined liberty from which it derives.
With "reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason," we must look to the impeachment/removal process, laid out in the U.S. Constitution, to "furnish...the materials for our...support and defence" of liberty. The first, most critical insight such reasoning provides is that the 2014 election may be our last opportunity to thwart and repel the elitist faction's push to overthrow our republic. If we do nothing to reclaim the political initiative, another sham presidential election will seal America's fate. With that in mind, in Part II of this article (available on my blog), I summarize what can be done if Americans still loyal to liberty have the personal courage and will to act on a slogan I learned from a speech by Frederick Douglass: "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."
January 13, 2014
Leavened with malice and deceit, they rise to power, these hardcore socialists like Obama. Once positioned to do so, they move to consolidate unbridled tyranny. Their infamous goal: to impose the "dictatorship of the proletariat."
That supposedly populist Marxist catchphrase slyly distracts from the fact that everywhere they achieve political success, socialist ideologues practice gangster government – of, by, and for a self-serving elitist clique. As gangsters typically do, they encourage whatever vices they can manipulate. They also liberally apply the salt of fear, to make their banal rule more palatable. And when they have attained sufficient power, they do not shrink from doing so with brutally forceful measures.
The U.S. Constitution derives from an understanding that stresses the need for effective limits and constraints on governmental power. This need arises from the same inherent evils that make government necessary in the first place. It is obviously inimical to the goal of dictatorship. Therefore, since even before his occupation of the White House, Obama and his collaborators have worked to disparage, undermine, and discard the U.S. Constitution.
But many Americans are still adamantly unwilling to choke down the prospect of life under a vicious, dictatorial regime. Their eyes see past the populist disguise of socialist gangsterism. Some have (I think prematurely) concluded that America's liberty is irretrievable defunct. But even they have by no means surrendered their allegiance to it.
Others, particularly those who believe in Jesus Christ's permanent resurrection of hope, look unflinchingly into the abyss, sure that if they remember and trust in God's law of love and mercy, He has the power to restore their nation to the better path of human destiny. It is especially (though not exclusively) among such people that the movement to impeach and remove Obama and his cronies from office arises.
I have elsewhere rehearsed the facts that, along with moral and constitutional reasoning, provide just grounds for their activity. But many are daunted by the often repeated observation that, as things stand, the U.S. House of Representatives is unlikely to impeach Obama, and the U.S. Senate even more unlikely to remove him.
This self-defeating view of things has a specious ring of truth that allows the GOP's elitist faction quislings to belittle and ridicule the very idea of impeachment/removal. This discourages many of the conservatives who long for an end to the Obama nightmare, while slyly belittling their intelligence and common sense.
To parry this discouraging word, we need to focus on the little phrase that gives the quislings' arrogant dismissal of impeachment the disguise of truth: "as things stand." I actually wish more people would focus on that phrase as they read and listen to appeals from anyone who encourages them to petition the present Congress, asking that they IMPEACH OBAMA NOW!
The Constitution quite explicitly recognizes the "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." However, when people petition the government, they do so as subjects, humbly praying or pleading for relief and help. But when the Congress moves to impeach and remove the occupant of the Oval Office, or any other civil officer of the U.S. government, they represent the people in their capacity as the sovereign body charged with overseeing the government, not as subjects under its power.
Properly understood, the "high crimes and misdemeanors" which are subject to the impeachment/removal power involve abuses of government power made possible by the fact that, particularly at the highest executive levels, the civil officers violating the law are precisely the ones charged with enforcing it. In this extraordinary circumstance, the long arm of the law is unlikely to be outstretched. So it inevitably falls short of its intended purpose.
In order to deal with such extraordinary abuses, the civil officers involved must be called to account by the political will of the people as a whole, acting with a unified strength sufficient to make good on the promise of defeating any official who opposes it, even at the highest level. Ultimately, therefore, the impeachment/removal process is not a legal contest, but a test of the political will of the people – i.e., their will as citizens who comprise the body of the people when it acts to exercise its sovereign power.
As subjects, people living in the United States of America may gather peacefully to petition the government, without regard to their citizenship. But under the U.S. Constitution, any issue that really tests the political will of the people, in their sovereign capacity, must ultimately be decided in the venue where the American people gather as citizens, in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, in order to determine and proclaim their sovereign will: the electoral process.
With all this in mind, it makes no sense to pretend that the impeachment/removal issue must depend on a vote taken by the U.S. Congress "as things stand." Lately, no matter how much their constituents plead with them, the elitist faction leaders in Congress have made it clear that they aren't listening, on just about every vital issue.
But if people use the power the Constitution places in their hands, the power of their votes, impeachment/removal may be made to depend on where voters decide to stand in the congressional elections next November.
Can America afford to wait three more years for the chance to end Obama's destructive socialist coup d'état? American citizens who answer with a resounding "no" need consider what they can do about it. They need to decide what, as individuals, they are personally willing to do to restore and preserve their government of, by, and for the people, the republican form of government guaranteed by the Constitution (Article IV.4).
In dealing with the threat Obama represents, Americans have come to the point Abraham Lincoln recognized as critical in the affairs of a free people. It is the point where we must say, "Passion has helped us" but no longer helps enough. Demonstrations and rallies and fervent pleas petitioning those in government may vent our feelings, but they cannot, by themselves, secure our goal. As people loyal to the republican form of government the Constitution aims to perpetuate, we must – here, now, and urgently – act on the logic of self-disciplined liberty from which it derives.
With "reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason," we must look to the impeachment/removal process, laid out in the U.S. Constitution, to "furnish...the materials for our...support and defence" of liberty. The first, most critical insight such reasoning provides is that the 2014 election may be our last opportunity to thwart and repel the elitist faction's push to overthrow our republic. If we do nothing to reclaim the political initiative, another sham presidential election will seal America's fate. With that in mind, in Part II of this article (available on my blog), I summarize what can be done if Americans still loyal to liberty have the personal courage and will to act on a slogan I learned from a speech by Frederick Douglass: "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."
To see more articles by Dr. Keyes, visit his blog at LoyalToLiberty.com and his commentary at WND.com and BarbWire.com.
© Alan KeyesThe views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
