The Downfall of the Republic?
Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D.,
Friday, Nov. 10, 2000
As dramatic events unfold in Florida (i.e., tainted by mismarked ballots in Palm Beach County, miscounted votes, bureaucratic snafus, etc.) the Democrats are exploiting these "irregularities" to the core. Never mind that voter fraud by the Democrats has been widespread in South Florida for years, and Janet Reno has known about it.
Vice President Al Gore and the Democrats are threatening to use the litigation process of their benefactors, the trial lawyers, to destroy what remains of our Constitutional Republic, unless Al Gore is elected president. Yesterday, NewsMax.com reported that Democrats want Florida officials to declare the election there invalid and are threatening to sue.
Better presidents than Al Gore would ever make were elected proudly by the Electoral College. Thomas Jefferson, who tied with Aaron Burr, was subsequently elected by one vote as the Constitution demanded, by the House of Representatives in 1800. John Quincy Adams was likewise elected president over Andrew Jackson (who received the majority of the popular vote) by the Electoral College. Andrew Jackson became president in 1828 when he beat Adams by the same constitutional procedure.
Our Founding Fathers created for us a Constitutional Republic during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and rejected mass democracy as a government subject to mass demagoguery, government not by the judicious rule of law, but by the capricious rule of man.
James Madison, the Master Builder of the Constitution, wrote, "A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party.
Hence it is, that democracies have even been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." Most critical was Fisher Ames, a Massachusetts representative in the First U.S. Congress; he passionately argued that "Democracy is a volcano, which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction."
So when the Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution they incorporated the thoughts of Scottish professor Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1714-1778) of the University of Edinburgh: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship." Let us hope that doesn't happen to these United States.
And so, in addition to establishing an Electoral College, rather than the popular vote of president, vice president, and U.S. senators (the election of the latter unwisely changed with the 17th Amendment), the Founding Fathers placed a series of checks and balances in our Constitution to prevent tyranny – from any one branch of government over the other and a tyranny of the majority (mob rule).
They established, for example, in Article V two processes for amending the Constitution, including two-thirds majority and three-fourths processes of state ratification, rather than simple majorities; treaties approved by two-thirds of the Senate; impeachment by majority vote in the House of Representatives but conviction by two-thirds super majority of the Senate; the power of the veto in the hands of the president that can only be overwritten by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, etc.
Despite the uneasiness and turmoil, the fact is that if the presidential candidates abide by the Constitution and accept the vote of the Electoral College, there is no constitutional crisis. There will only be a dangerous crisis if one of the candidates uses litigation, violence, or any other uncalled, unconstitutional method to sabotage the constitutional process. Any such underhanded method may lead to the downfall of our great Republic and the rule of law.
In 1787 when the Framers finally completed the Constitution, it was – and remains – the greatest document ever drafted for self-governance, written by the heart and minds of men but inspired by the wisdom of the ages, if not the hand of God. When a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, what kind of government have you given us? He replied judiciously, "A Republic Ma'am, if you can keep it."
Let's hope we can!
Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D., is editor-in-chief, Medical Sentinel of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), author of "Vandals at the Gates of Medicine" (1995) and "Medical Warrior: Fighting Corporate Socialized Medicine" (1997), and a frequent contributor to NewsMax.com. Web sites: www.haciendapub.com and www.aapsonline.org.
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Don't Go Wobbly, George, in a House Divided
Diane Alden
Nov. 10, 2000
The Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, gave that advice to George Bush Sr. during the Gulf War.
Now it is time to give George W. Bush the same advice. This is no time to go wobbly, George. This is a fight to the finish, or it better be. What appears to be a Democratic challenge to the election results in Florida may result in a court battle. The Democrats will fight, but will Bush?
Conservative pundits such as Peggy Noonan are decrying the strategy of George Bush and Rick Lazio in New York. She intimates that it was Bush's fault that Gore took New York by 25 points and Hillary beat Lazio. She maintains that Hillary and Gore conducted a better campaign in New York. Balderdash!
No, Peggy, Bill Buckley, George Will and Rush, you got it wrong. While conservative media slept, the country was dividing along ideological lines. The only thing Bush did wrong was to waste his time on the minorities, women and the left-wing coasts. From here on in it will be a waste of time. The conservatives will never veer hard enough left to satisfy these groups, and they should stop trying and become what they are, the last hope for America. Now they are saying Gore will have to go left to satisfy the Nader crowd. What that means for the heartland will be devastating.
The heartland, except for the old radical leftist upper Midwest, went for Bush in a landslide. The left coast and the Northeast corridor, also now a stronghold of collectivists and statists, went for Gore. I have said in countless columns that the coasts, throw in the radical old unionists and leftist old Democratic, Farmer, Labor and ethnics in the upper Midwest, and it boils down to a nation that hasn't been this divided since Vietnam or the Civil War.
Look at the map, guys. But then part of the problem is that even most conservative pundits and journalists are oriented to the coasts – that is where they live and that is where the coverage of issues and events takes place. The race between Hillary and Lazio got disproportionate coverage to the importance of the race. The only factor that made it more important than any race anywhere is that Hillary was the candidate. That is not a good reason to do wall-to-wall coverage of an East Coast election.
Flyover country has become a colony of the coasts. Its land mass is being federalized as the barons in D.C. take taxes, confiscate land and demand compliance with unconstitutional laws and regulations.
We are divided along geographic and ideological lines, and it angers me that conservative pundits have not been awake enough, or they have been so enamored of what happens on the coasts, that they have slept through the split in our civil, spiritual and political culture. As far as I am concerned, conservative pundits can take a well-deserved hike. Peggy and the crew from the Northeast deserve a share in the blame game for being so stupidly asleep by blowing off Buchanan, the Libertarians and conservative third parties and being blind to the strength of the far-left Naderites. The numbers in this election tell the story.
Having said that and realizing it will be ignored, I will say to GWB once again, you should have listened to me. We needed General Patton or Frank Savage from "Twelve O'clock High" and we got a "unifier" – which is a euphemism for loser.
But Bush better get it right this time. I will paraphrase Margaret Thatcher and say, "Don't go wobbly, George." You owe it to flyover country to stay the course. If you don't, the hinterlands are doomed to continued control by the coastal elite.
The Democrats will try and tell Bush that he should give up for the good of the country. If he listens, the Republicans can kiss any future credibility goodbye. That includes the Northeast conservative and liberal pundits, journalists, movers and shakers, because no one out here will give a damn about what you think.
If it this were any other time in history, all this wouldn't matter. But this country is not the country of Harry Truman or even LBJ or Sam Nunn or Scoop Jackson. That Democratic Party is dead and the old-time hangers-on have not got the message yet.
This is a country where the left controls the institutions and the media and basically has more influence on government policy than the right. How did we get that way?
It wasn't just Al Gore or Bill Clinton or the Democratic Party who brought us to this point. It is the entire leftist agenda of the last 65 years, including the Cultural Revolution of the '60s.
Now, lots of those folks think that 'revolution' brought Civil Rights for blacks, gays and women and gave us the utopian philosophy of environmentalism, diversity and multiculturalism. They see a continuation of the identity politics as a way to achieve more power to accomplish these culturally Marxist and utopian goals. They offer security and equality, but they give us tyranny and division. As an added bonus, the left will do what it must to get rid of those nasty conservatives and Christians and evil people who listen to Rush Limbaugh.
Unfortunately, the various gripe groups co-opted the Civil Rights movement for their own self-centered and Marxist purposes. Add PC and we have a society turned on its head.
We have politically correct hell. Unfortunately, for us and for them, the Democratic Party is the party of PC and it continues to fuel divisions along racial, cultural and class lines.
The party of Truman and Kennedy, along with the incompetent and clueless Republicans, has given us a kind of collectivist Nanny State with police state overtones. Through its efforts, the United States will continue to become a Big Brother utopia that no real or free American could live with or live in.
The map of this recent election and the results show a country divided along ideological and PC lines. In the Northeast, the land of Hillary and Barney Frank and Alec Baldwin, the predominant political culture is now nearly totally culturally Marxist. Socialism is not a debating point any more; it is life in coastal states America.
We don't have time to redraw those lines; it is too late for that. The Northeast corridor and the West Coast have held the rest of the country hostage for years as they arrogantly dictated to us.
All of us know that as long as the East and West coasts have a majority of the population and have bought the votes of new immigrants and minorities, they will continue to inflict their values, views and unconstitutional politics on the rest of us. They will continue to shove their values down our throats. The Founders never intended this for any of us, including the left.
The Democrats and Al Gore, who are considering a challenge regarding the Electoral College and the Florida vote, indicate how little they think of the Constitution.
It is questionable whether national elections make much difference any more anyway, as leftist policies are inflicted on us no matter who is elected. We are now suffering the tyranny of the majority, and the courts and the system do nothing to stop it because they are part of that tyranny.
The reason we have the Electoral College is to avoid the tyranny of the majority. We have that as a protection so the large landmass of the heartland, which can't overcome the population centers of power on the coasts, has some influence on government and the direction of the country.
The heartland trusted GWB to lead, and he'd better want that job bad enough to fight for it. To submit to the machinations of the left "for the good of the country" will do the worst possible damage to this country.
GWB, it is time to be Winston Churchill and George Patton and Frank Savage and FIGHT. The time for being a good sport is over, and giving in to Democrats and the left will do no good for any of us, including Democrats.
Just remember that Bill Clinton didn't consider the good of the country during the impeachment nightmare. Bush is under no similar obligation to spare this constitutional fight. In fact, it must be enjoined.
We need this fight for our national soul. It will tell all of us whether or not the Republicans are fit to lead. It will tell us whether or not we are a republic or a tyranny of the majority, a rabble with a vote.
If GWB does not fight to the bitter end, then there is nothing on God's Earth that is going to save this Republic. Elections, obviously, don't do much good any more. Because of Republican spinelessness during the impeachment crisis, we are stuck with an administration and a system that has lost its legitimacy.
I am waiting for George W. Bush to prove me wrong. If he thinks caving is going to save the country, he'd better think again. His giving in will truly tear us apart.
If George Bush doesn't fight this time, he will have pushed the country, the heartland anyway, into despair and confusion. Eventually the rule of law, which is on life support, will succumb to total leftist control. Most Republican representatives, with a few exceptions, will compromise on principles while the Democrats won't. As Rush Limbaugh said on his daily show, "They use our virtue against us."
We will not change the coasts, and the path they have chosen to take should not be forced on the rest of us.
If the rest of the country wants to remain at liberty, it is time to start putting pressure on the states to do what is best for the citizens of those states. If George Bush cares about this country, he will fight and not cave – for the good of the country he will take it to the limit. Otherwise the heartland will remain a colony of the coasts. We will send our sons and daughters to fight Northeast elite wars while we send tax money to promote and pay for a bureaucracy even the Roman Empire wouldn't have dared create.
The barons in D.C. will continue to confiscate lands and create fiefdoms subject to the whims of the coastal elite, while giving international bodies like the U.N. a playground in America as they hand over entire sections to the control of the U.N. in pretentious "bioreserves" and "wilderness" and "heritage" projects.
I feel sorry for conservatives living on the coasts. However, my concern is maintaining liberty SOMEWHERE in the former United States. We need to return to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution as written, which won't happen if Al Gore becomes president.
If George W. Bush doesn't fight for the heartland, then the heartland needs to find new leadership and tell the Republicans, "No guts, no glory, and no thanks."
As Benjamin Franklin said, "Where liberty is – there is my country."
(Please check out my Web site at www.aldenchronicles.com for more info and enlightenment. Read Chuck Muth's "New Gettysburg Address" under News and Views – it is a keeper.)
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Diane Alden is a research analyst with a background in political science and economics. Her work has appeared in the Washington Times as well as NewsMax.com, Etherzone, Enterstageright, American Partisan and many other online publications. She also does occasional radio commentaries for Georgia Radio Inc. Her e-mail address is wulfric8@yahoo.com.
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Palm Beach County: Past Ballot Problems Galore
Saturday, November 11, 2000
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — It's not the first time election irregularities have plagued Palm Beach County. Nearly 15,000 ballots were disqualified from the presidential election four years ago.
What is it about this heavily Democratic county that causes a disproportionate number of problem ballots?
"If there's any county in the world that would have a population that would struggle with any ballot, it would be that one," said Lance deHaven-Smith, a political science professor at Florida State University and former Palm Beach County resident.
Demographics are key, he suggested.
One in four county residents are age 65 or over, and many of the elderly are immigrants whose first language is not English. Despite its image to outsiders as a playground for the likes of Donald Trump, many residents are poor. The population turns over rapidly, and about 60 people on average move into the county every day.
They may not be accustomed to the kind of ballot — the "butterfly" that has been flashed on TV screens around the globe in recent days as the balloting crisis has unfolded — used in Palm Beach County, deHaven-Smith said.
The county is heavily Democratic, which was reflected in the presidential balloting. Gore received 269,696 votes, compared to 152,954 for Bush. The recount found an additional 751 votes for Gore, compared to an additional 108 for Bush.
The embattled Palm Beach canvassing board in charge of the ballot recounts in the county is one of 67 elected county boards in Florida, each with the power to design its own ballots.
The local officials elected to the boards may have limited experience with vote-supervision matters and may have difficulty getting money from county commissioners for running their operations, deHaven-Smith suggested.
"The bureaucracies in small-town Florida are horribly inept," said Kenneth Rijock, a consultant to law enforcement agencies and a longtime Miami resident.
The large number of older people in Palm Beach County also likely played a role, he added, with many elderly voters perhaps "not as sharp as they used to be."
Four years ago, 14,872 Palm Beach County ballots were thrown out either because they lacked a vote for a presidential candidate or because they had two such votes.
On Tuesday, about 30,000 faulty ballots halted the selection of the nation's 43rd president and brought heavily Democratic Palm Beach County to the world's attention.
"There are always these under- and over- votes. It just happens," said Bruce Rogow, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale. Rogow is representing Theresa LePore, the Palm Beach County election supervisor, a Democrat, who designed the ballot that some voters say was so confusing it may have cost Vice President Al Gore the election.
"Maybe some people just pass on it; maybe they don't like any of the candidates," Rogow suggested.
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Al Gore’s Choice: Statesman or Sore Loser?
David Limbaugh
Nov. 11, 2000
The burden is now on Al Gore and the Democratic Party to prove that they are still capable of putting the nation’s interests above their own.
During the impeachment saga, Republicans insisted that Democrats were sticking by Clinton — despite his manifold abuses of power and felonies — because he was their only remaining avenue to power. Democrats denied it, saying they were defending him because he was guilty only of private misconduct involving sex.
The Gore team is continuing the Clinton-Gore tradition of subordinating all things sacred to its power-lust. When it appeared that it would take a minor miracle for Gore to win Florida on the recount, Gore’s aides called a press conference and promised to contest the election. They are following the Clinton/Gore precedent of using litigation as a tool to thwart the people’s will.
It is unconscionable for them to continue to put the American people through this turmoil. The impeachment analogies are striking. Just as Bill Clinton claimed to be defending the Constitution when he fought impeachment, Gore asserts that he will be vindicating democracy by challenging the election. Just as Bill Clinton deliberately leaked secret grand jury information and fraudulently accused Ken Starr of doing it, Gore is accusing George Bush of being the one who is unwilling to abide by the will of the people. Just as Clinton used the full power of his office to marshal public opinion against his enemies, Gore has launched a nasty, post-election air war that is exacerbating the existing animosity among the already divided electorate.
Gore says that if Bush fails to win the popular vote he will have no mandate and cannot fairly pursue his agenda. He is wrong. If Bush wins the electoral vote he will become the president, and will have every right to try to promote his agenda without adulteration or compromise. It is outrageous and irresponsible for anyone to suggest that Bush must win the popular vote to be entitled to the full constitutional authority of his office.
It’s not just Gore and his team that are arguing that we ignore the election results or the Constitution. Editorial writers and Democratic politicians are following suit.
Columnist E.J. Dionne asks how any self-respecting Democratic partisan can just sit by and let Bush take the White House and assume leadership of an all-Republican government in Washington? Republican control of both branches, he writes, "cannot possibly be seen as reflecting the will of an electorate that spoke in moderate tones on issues." His solution? Scrap the Electoral College — and, in the meantime, Bush and Gore should get together and work this thing out.
Can you believe this? There’s nothing to work out. The Constitution provides that the winner of the electoral vote wins, period.
Senate Democrats are also flexing their muscles. The day after the election they demanded a system of "power sharing" with the Republicans. They threatened to disrupt Senate business if Republicans do not accede to their demands.
Now that Gore is trying to de-legitimize the Florida election, the people of this country are getting a taste of the way he operates. The real Al Gore has finally stood up. He’s the Al Gore of the first debate: Slash and burn, and win at all costs.
When Republicans proudly cite the Constitution and the rule of law they are not just trying to sound patriotic. The integrity and stability of our entire political system demands that we adhere to the precepts and laws laid out in our Constitution. We cannot afford to make up the rules as we go.
Gore’s objections to the Florida election are patently specious. He should follow the class example of Senator John Ashcroft, who, for the sake of the state of Missouri, the United States and the healing of the American people, conceded an election that, by contrast, he had every moral right to challenge.
Gore has every right to wait until the recount, including all overseas ballots, is complete before he makes any announcements. But if he is still behind after all the votes have been re-tabulated, he should do the honorable thing, call down his forces, and concede the election to George Bush. By dragging out this bitter drama he will be tearing this nation apart and further dividing its people. Throughout this campaign Gore has been trying to prove he’s not Bill Clinton. Now’s his chance.
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Friday November 10, 2000; 11:23 PM ET
Democrat Mind-Readers Set to 'Reconstruct' Votes for Gore
Republicans have good reason to be concerned about the presidential election hand recount set to begin Saturday in four heavily Democratic Florida counties.
In Gadsden County, where even Wednesday's initial post-election recount was done by hand, nearly 200 votes suddenly materialized for Vice President Al Gore - while only a handful turned up for George W. Bush.
Why the lopsided result?
Because Gadsden County Democratic officials decided to use their own psychic powers to determine voter preferences while examining more than 2,000 unclear ballots that had been previously rejected by city voting machines.
"Some voters colored in the circle for one candidate, crossed it out and then filled in a circle for another," reported the Palm Beach Post Friday. "Others filled in the circle for a candidate, then wrote the name of the same candidate in the write-in space, as if for emphasis."
But the four Democratic officials that make up Gadsden County's election canvassing board decided they could "reconstruct" the ballots by trying to read the minds of the voters who filled them out.
"The only ones we reconstructed were the ones we could tell the intent of the voter," Sterling Watson, a member of the canvassing board, told the Post.
By the time the Democrat mind-readers were through with their vote recount, they'd conjured up 170 new votes for Gore, a mere 17 for Bush.
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Networks Stole Bush's Popular Vote
Barry Farber
Friday, Nov. 10, 2000
The American people remind me of the husband who came home from a trip a day early and was met by his 5-year-old son sitting on the stairs crying and screaming.
"What's wrong?" he asked. Between sobs the little boy managed to tell his father there was a naked man in the master bedroom closet.
"That's ridiculous," said the father.
"No, really," insisted the boy. "There's a naked man in there."
The conversation went back and forth with no change until the father grabbed the boy by the hand and said, "Look. Come on upstairs with Daddy. I'll SHOW you there's no naked man in the closet."
Up the stairs they went and into the bedroom where his wife was sleeping soundly. The father marched over to the closet door, threw it open, and there – to his amazement – was, indeed, his best friend completely naked.
"For crying out loud, Harry," said the father. "Haven't you got anything better to do than go around scaring little kids?"
So what resemblance does the American people have with that man? There's a word for both of them in most languages: "sap," "jerk," in Spanish "tonto," Norwegian "tullekop," Yiddish "schlemiel (shle-MEEL)." It's somebody who can be slammed frontally with the most grievous assault and stupidly dismisses it as little more than a prank.
On election night at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time the TV networks drummed and trumpeted the state of Florida right off the map, poured cognac upon it, ignited it into a blue, flaming feast, and presented it on a silver platter to Al Gore. And it was only 7:30 p.m. And now the network chiefs are deep into prayer, fasting and meditation trying to pin-point where they "made a mistake." They're joking about, "Not eggs, but OMELETTES on our face!" and "Oh, waiter. One order of crow, please."
Those networks no more made a mistake than friend Harry was merely trying to scare little kids. This was a venal, vicious attempt to cut the heart out of the Bush campaign – and it was bitterly successful. For weeks the networks had been setting the public up by hammering home the message that "Florida is crucial to Bush's hopes." "Without Florida it would be almost impossible for Bush to win." Over and over and over.
So now, while the American people breathlessly watch recount tallies in Florida, study confusing "butterfly" ballots, watch the first-ever street demonstrations of senior citizens, and await the absentee ballots from overseas, the networks get off merely by saying, "Whoops!"
Collect all the Democrats' complaints about Florida. Take their word for everything. Add up the harm they claim was done to Gore. Then multiply by the number of states in the union and you STILL won't come near the damage done by the network's sneak attack on Bush.
On election night itself Dick Cheney complained that the minute TV announced that Gore had won Florida, the entire volunteer corps at one of the Republican phone banks got up and went home. The announcement of a defeat like Florida cuts the heart out of campaign workers, voters in Western states where the polls are still open, and everybody associated with the final scramble to maximize the Bush turnout. Bush supporters in three time zones plus many even in the Eastern time zone where polls stay open later than 7:30 were demoralized. Talk radio bristles with first-hand reports of people in the West who were listening to the car radio en route to the polls, heard that Gore won Florida, and turned right around and went home.
It is irrelevant to the Florida outcome that Gore was ahead in the popular vote nationally. Irrelevancy, however, doesn't keep Bill Daley and other Gore spokesmen from trying to tincture the American air with the notion that all resistance to Gore's annexing Florida should obligingly cave in on grounds that it's "the will of the American people."
There can be doubt about how many Palm Beach County voters really thought they were voting for Gore when they actually voted for Buchanan. There can be doubt over how many of whose votes got somehow thrown out. There can be doubt over whether or not the ballots were legally designed and there MAY actually be doubt (though I doubt it) over whether the questionable ballots were deliberately intended to bewilder those particular Haitians and elderly Jews in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Of one thing there can be no doubt. If the networks had not handed Florida to Gore so early in the evening, Bush's popular vote would right now be larger than Gore's.
Obviously the Florida announcement was a psychological blow to all who favored Bush. Likewise, the announcement that Bush had carried Gore's home state of Tennessee and Clinton's home state of Arkansas would have been a psychological blow to all who favored Gore.
I would love to be in the congressional hearing room when the TV execs are asked, "Why was the blow to Gore concealed until much later in the evening while the blow to Bush was paraded promiscuously prematurely?"
What do best friend Harry and the "mistaken" networks have in common?
Well, both knew very well what they were doing.
Both were presumed by their innocent victims to be doing something else. And both were completely naked.
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