More than twenty centuries ago Athenian philosophers set out in the theories of their imaginations to establish what Americans undertook to do in reality on an immensely grander geographic scale when the American Revolution cast off all of the historic baggage of the monarchical England of King George III.
The great experiment in self-government has been no easy task without bumps and obstacles in the path of our own history. Still, for the most part we have fared better than the Europeans we left behind. And, we have had many admirable successes. And, even if we have continued to make mistakes for which the whole world has had to pay, these mistakes have surely been less than if ruled by a King.
Almost immediately our ancestors allowed seep into place much of the legacy of our European aristocratic political heritage. It was necessary at the time to square up against the aristocracies of Europe. Some of these American families of our aristocracy still control great wealth in our country. And for those who have performed their societal task well, we all owe them a great debt of gratitude.
Newer families of aristocrats have arisen, and they too, many of them, have served our country and the world well. These families are not the bland admixture of societal evil many portray them to be. Neither economics nor the subtle balance between leadership and culture are that simple.
But we have had our share of rotten apples in the barrel of our American political aristocracy. There are those who deserve our closer scrutiny, and our ever constant vigilance to ensure they do not hold themselves above the laws of our land.
Many of these laws are unwritten, but surely they have been trespassed upon of late. Some of these American families of aristocracy old and new have betrayed what we are as Americans. As such we've no need of them any longer, and, they can be cast aside like Mad King George III, Charles I, and Louis the XXVI of France.
Privilege too has its responsibilities, and in many respects all our American aristocrats must be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. This is the just burden of wealth and power we alone afford them.
Still, we Americans have done well. America is not a nation of any particular religion and we have escaped much of that historic pitfall that continues to plague much of the world. Nor have we had to deal with hereditary monarchy as feeble-minded as they always eventually tend to be.
We have however had a succession of political leaders who like the elected Polish Kings of the Eighteenth Century have been subject to massive political intrigue from both internal and external forces that cared not for our own land or for any future other than their own.
Not foreseeing the propensity of this peril clearly, the Framers of the Constitution left us the historically proven pointless exercise of impeachment because they feared it might be abused by a majority in Congress. This buffer has been found insurmountable.
Nixon and Clinton both should have been impeached, but they could not be by their anxious peers who feared the consequence.
Even now years later I remember so clearly when I was watching the State of the Union Address amidst Bill Clinton's impeachment proceedings. I remember Olympia Snowe a Republican Senator from Maine almost leaping over chairs in order to place her soft hands into the hands of William Jefferson Clinton to fill her face with grace and vile flattery.
It was a hideous display of why impeachment is a ridiculous process.
Senator Olympia Snowe is no where to be found when men are let out of Maine prisons after having served long, difficult prison terms for a wrongful conviction. No. Her pants were hot for with a passion for the power President Clinton. That Senator from Maine shamed us, and I have not voted for her since. She has the ignoble purpose to example why impeachment has turned into a fraudulent course.
Few would today doubt, President Bush should be arrested along with many in his Cabinet for their many high crimes.
They all should be thrown into jail while they await trial without bail due to their danger to our society and the world. Impeachment should only be considered a potential political sideshow, and then, only if it is necessary because the President refuses to resign from his jail cell.
Every one of this President's appointments to the courts and offices of our country should be revoked by an act of Congress. For those who resist, there should be a similar order to seize and attach their estates, and, all their financial and personal records to see what it is this criminal President has put them up to.
For the last six years there has been an extensive criminal crime syndicate operating in Washington D.C. They should be dealt with as such. All of these criminals have been duly sworn to uphold the Constitution and all that it implies. They have utterly violated their oaths.
And, if we are to listen to Attorney General Gonzalez, his oath has apparently implied nothing to him.
One responsibility of the Attorney General is to lay charges when such a massive conspiracy of crime occurs as we have witnessed. Instead, Gonzalez comes into court as the servant of a criminal whom he must know as a criminal.
The Attorney General of the United States does not work for the President.
The Attorney General of the United States is the servant of the courts of the United States, and in turn he is our servant.
This one acts like the criminal President's lackey when we see him publicly conducting himself wholly inappropriately in hearings before Congress. He has been an obvious liar by omission in every appearance I have seen him perform before Committee Hearings of the Congress of the United States.
The Attorney General of the United States is not the Chief Legal Counsel of the President. But that is what attorney Gonzalez pretends to be.
The President is not a King! There is no palace guard protecting a President from service of the due process of law. The hubris of interpretations of the Constitution that would make of him a king must be removed from our political history at once.
It is clear. All that is required now, is for criminal charges to be drawn up, and a signed warrant issued for his arrest and that of his Cabinet for these crimes. This is the only possible proper course left to address this President who has so flagrantly committed criminal acts from his high office.
When Federal Marshals show up at the White House with warrants for the arrest of the President and his Cabinet, are we to believe the Framers anticipated an armed standoff between competing federal forces? This is absurd. There is no palace guard. There is no King!
We, the American people, we cannot be asked to believe that were the President to pull out a gun and shoot a half dozen people in the Capitol Rotunda, that he could not be arrested until the Congress convened, and, impeachment proceedings traversed that rocky course!
We cannot be expected to think this is what the Framers meant.
This President and his Cabinet have done far worse than that.
The reason for this faint-hearted belief in Presidential immunity from prosecution is because those in government know just how corrupt the criminal justice system is.
They have assumed the President needs protection from the corruption intrinsic to the criminal justice system. But, I repeat, no where in the Constitution does it say; the President is above the law; that he is a King; that he cannot be charged and arrested for his crimes; or that he shall have a palace guard sworn to fend off the service of the due processes of the laws of our country when they call!
If then, this President in his jail cell refuses to resign, as we may assume might be his obstinate choice, then the Congress may impeach him as he sits in jail. If they fail to impeach due to their own intrigue, this is no exoneration of the separate criminal process under which this President can be and shall be held accountable.
If the Congress fails to impeach a President who sits in jail, they then have put the country at risk of operating without a President, because even a President must be held accountable before the law. He shall not be let out of prison because Congress failed in their sworn duty to impeach.
Few realize what it takes to lead.
This is partly because academics are not leaders, being instead rather disposed to inaction for want of being able to make up their minds. Lincoln Steffens saw this first hand in Woodrow Wilson and declared it utter truth then. Intellectuals cannot act. In the meanest sense of the word, we are all taught by intellectuals.
To lead, one must first be an optimist. And I am just such an optimist.
I am optimistic that at least one person among our leaders in Washington D.C., several perhaps, or many will go to the Federal Courts and file criminal complaints against these office holders.
I am optimistic that each will do their duty, and that the federal courts will do theirs.
I am optimistic that all these criminals will quickly be arrested, charged and locked away in federal prison while they await trial.
I am optimistic the President will then resign.
I am optimistic, should he fail to resign, the Congress will then be able to do their duty and impeach the President in their own due time.
I am optimistic this country and especially its politicians can be put back on a course of the more common decency and the normal restraint of fear of the law, and, respect for their appointed tasks.
Even as much as I dislike the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, she is constitutionally next is line. And I am optimistic, she will for two years make a competent President.
The country and the world depend now upon all our American optimism to bring us through this peril.
Don Robertson, The American Philosopher
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