It’s that time of year again when we as a nation take some time to stop and consider all of the things that we have to be thankful for.  And in light of the recent elections, one item that is often overlooked is this: our government is slow.

For all of our justifiable complaints about our elected officials, and even our system of government, the fact that it is slow is a gift from our country’s founding fathers for which we can all be truly thankful.

To say that the founders were suspicious of power, government and human nature would be an understatement.  And considering that self-government has to be administered by flawed individuals, they purposed to spread power as far, wide and thin as possible, reducing the potential for mischief that couldn’t be quickly checked by either competing interests or the voters themselves.

Not only did they provide us with the world’s first written constitution, a separation of executive, legislative and judicial power, and a division of legislative power, but they also had the presence of mind to stagger elections for representatives, president and senators every two, four and six years respectively. 

It was a conscious choice to design a system that would make rapid and radical change extremely difficult.  The end result being that Americans have to feel really, really strongly about something for an extended period of time in order to impact the election of enough officials to make substantial changes.  read more »

Caution! Impasse ahead! Constitutional Showdown on the horizon!  (A Texan’s commentary on a national solution)

That’s right! We Americans are heading, at an exponential rate of speed, toward a point when we have to decide whether or not we will continue on the path our founding fathers charted. So far, we have an obstinate Congress, a supreme court that won’t demand an original birth certificate from our current President, and a President that authorizes monies to give to foreign countries for the purpose of drilling offshore when he will not endorse our own domestic drilling, and a federal government that refuses to take action and enforce the laws dealing with immigration and illegal aliens.

Over and over again, we see our elected leaders making decisions that help grow the federal government and its intrusive power into our lives and attempt to regulate affairs that lie outside of their enumerated powers.  Many can choose to ignore the warning signs, but those of us who value freedom and liberty sense a crucial moment in American history for correcting an unconstitutional course.

We need to restore The Constitution! But how do we do this? Some suggest a national referendum. Others suggest a citizen’s Federal Grand Jury. What means are available to “we the people” for holding our elected officials accountable? These are the leaders who swore by an oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the United States Constitution.  read more »