Selective Disservice
Let us begin with the concept of law. We have oft heard it said that we are a “Nation of Laws” and not a “Nation of Men”. According to our Constitution, the legislative branch enacts our laws, through a designedly complicated process, the executive branch upholds and enforces our laws, and the judiciary interprets our laws- the perfect balance in an imperfect process- that is what America is supposed to be about- not only in design and theory, but also in practice, as well. It has stood the test of time, albeit with bumps in the road, for two hundred twenty-five years. Whenever one branch of government has fallen short of its duties, there have always been two other branches to counter the shortfall, and so we have thus survived, both as a nation and as a form of representative government. To ensure this continuity, there has also been the “fourth estate”- essentially, a free press to keep the people informed of what is taking place with regards to our government- the operative word being “our”.
Then, again…
Today, we have arrived upon a circumstance where this delicate balance is breaking down with such a velocity, either by incompetence or nefarious intent, which truly boggles the mind. Stymied by partisanship and what I will refer to as “all-too-precious incumbency”, Congress is at a standoff between a Republican-led House of Representatives who propose laws and a Democrat-led Senate who refuses to take under consideration. Then, we have an administration which has shown a propensity to re-write laws (i.e. Affordable Care Act- a.k.a. ObamaCare) , ignore laws (i.e. Defense of Marriage Act) with which it disagrees, and misappropriate laws (i.e. William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act – intended to deal with human trafficking and contains a section that deals with children arriving in the U.S. illegally, unaccompanied by an adult, from Central America) in order to pressure Congress into enacting dubious legislation that will do nothing to ameliorate the border crisis so well underway. We have an attorney general who selectively enforces the laws, and then selectively ignores those same laws, based solely on his own political and racial prejudices which apply to the situation. For instance, Attorney General Holder launched a thorough investigation into the Trevon Martin case, and has summarily refused to investigate what has become an epidemic “knockout game” in cities across America, which is primarily a black-on-white crime spree. Recently, he has also launched an investigation into an outhouse float in a Nebraska parade which mocked a would-be future Obama presidential library, but refuses to seriously pursue IRS targeting of conservative political groups, and the resulting felonious destruction of evidence by those subject to investigation. He has shown a propensity to investigate voting district realignments all over the country, duly enacted through state legislatures, but ignored voter fraud which took place in both the 2008 and 2012 elections, as well as videotaped voter intimidation in Philadelphia by the new Black Panther organization.
On sixteen (as of the last count) occasions thus far, the United States Supreme Court has ruled on several different attempts by the Obama Administration to either re-write or summarily create laws, and improperly appoint officials without Senate confirmation. Our foreign policy is at best, a mish-mash of incongruous and feeble attempts to address increasingly volatile and incendiary situations all over the world. The economy is in a shambles, subject to repeated ex post facto revisions of rosy quarterly reports that suggest the opposite, despite the fact that fifty million are on EBT assistance, and the unemployed and under-employed rate is approaching 25%- when those who have dropped off the statistical counting rosters are included. And that’s just the beginning….
Where is the press? Aside from Fox News and only a handful of newspapers around the country, we remain virtually uninformed of what is taking place in the halls of Washington, in cities and towns across America, at our borders, and beyond. What used to be a free press has largely become a propaganda machine for the Obama administration- most notably evidenced when one weighs the amount of coverage of “Bridge-gate” as it compares to the amount of coverage given to the IRS scandal, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, COMBINED….
In short, there is plenty of blame to go around, no doubt, but we recall what Shakespeare once wrote in Act I, Scene 2 of “Julius Caesar” when Cassius says to Brutus:
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings..”
Unless and until we ourselves hold our elected officials accountable, for both their actions and inactions, nothing, nothing will change and it is to our own peril that we stay silent, uninformed, and disinterested, thus rendering a disservice to ourselves and our posterity.
-Drew Nickell, 17 July 2014
©2014 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved