If you’re dismayed by the execrable crop of Democratic presidential wannabees, and the faux conservative, pandering, neo-socialist incumbent, you are by no means alone. Furthermore, although only 51.3% of the national voting-age population voted in the 2000 election, low turnout in presidential elections is hardly a new phenomenon. In 1924, for example, in a contest that featured three major candidates, the turnout was a very low 48.9%. And, in 1996, in the Republican death wish election that featured the personality-challenged Bob Dole versus Bill Clinton, the number was scarcely better at 49.0%.
In the interests of historical accuracy, and to bash the Dems, you should note that 1924’s edition put popular Republican incumbent Calvin Coolidge against West Virginian John Davis, a mega-compromise candidate (chosen after more than 100 ballots at the Democratic convention in New York), who couldn’t even carry his home state. The third man was the legendary Robert La Follette, who did get nearly 17% of the popular vote, but only carried his home state of Wisconsin. The Dems won solely in the South (what a surprise).
But if uninspiring candidates have been with us for generations, somehow the country got through it, and persevered under many rotten presidents. I fear though, that with the recently (mid-1960’s) added burden of out-of-control activist judges, the survival of America as we know it is far from assured. Deny it if you must, but the atheist change agents of the despicable Left have devised the perfect strategy to foil the will of the majority in a manner that Antonio Gramsci could only dream of: Challenge pillars of conventional objective morality—such as marriage being between one man and one woman—that would be laughed off any legislative agenda, in the courts.
Knowing, moreover, that the lion’s share of law schools hold a Leftist bias, and that in general those who choose the bench are true believers, and that “constitutional law” is a patently absurd construct of precepts that are ever-changing with the political tide, they are confident that this strategy is nearly unassailable. Long gone are the days when Founding Father Benjamin Rush’s opposition to the Bill of Rights, on the basis that all rights of man are derived from God and need no government intermediary, could be appreciated by most Americans. Gone too is the notion that natural virtue, even absent a religious context, is absolutely necessary for American independence and freedom.
Madison himself was originally opposed to the Bill of Rights, fearing that the enumeration of these specific rights might be construed as the only rights citizens possessed. As it is, he was not far from wrong in that the very words detailing freedom of religion are now used to proscribe any public display of religion, and the ninth and tenth amendments might as well not exist at all.
So, with culture rot accelerating by the day, what do we do? Should the keepers of the moral flame now press for 500 constitutional amendments, memorializing all the foundations of civilization that previous cohorts of “reasonable men” took for granted? Isn’t such brutal Pharisaic action un-American, at least the way we now understand the term? Yet, don’t these trying times call for drastic action?
Or, is it better to try to impeach a few dozen judges to send a message, even though without changing the law schools there will be a constant supply of equally awful replacements? Do we instead need a viable third party, to break through the inertia, insularity, and indifference of the current miserable alternatives? How about another constitutional convention?
One thing is certain. Merely taking back some of the media outlets, as has happened with talk radio, the Internet, and a few TV shows is a start, but only a start. We have to do a whole lot more, and soon, or the legacy you leave for your children and grandchildren will have them blaming you forever.