There’s been a very interesting discussion going-on over the past couple of days over at the Belmont Club in the Comments section of a post by Richard Fernandez.
At one point Subotai Bahadur [who I have quoted from approvingly a number of times before in these Dispatches] remarked:
Civility is a virtue up to a point. That point in politics is the point where it is forgotten what the purpose of politics is. Politics is how a society has agreed to allocate power and resources and and legitimize the process short of the violence that has been how our species has done it for as long as it has existed. Once the agreement on how politics are to be conducted is broken, the automatic default is bloodshed until a new equilibrium is achieved.
It seems that civility holds only in those who are in theory the opposition to Obama. That civility is now out of place for the times, and does nothing but guarantee losing.
…
The legitimacy of the law, and the government as a whole is based on consent of the governed under the rules set out under the Constitution. When Emperor Buraq chose to rule by decree totally outside the Constitution [take a look at Article I, Section 8 which gives Congress
exclusive authority over immigration law. Further, in over half a
century of reading the Constitution I have yet to encounter the “sick
and tired of waiting so the President rules by decree” clause] he violated the contract between the American people and the government. If he is not reined in, and right smartly, the contract will be void. And the power of the Federal government will only extend as far as the reach of the guns of those of its employees who violate their oaths.And the new American sport will be hunting Leftists in the streets with dogs.
…
We ended the rule of Kings in this country over two centuries ago. We will not have an Emperor. Consent Rescinded.
And if necessary the sanguinary process involved will be most uncivil. Here there be dragons, and it is best to be either one of them or on good terms with them, when they decide that a certain Oath never expires.
Commentator ExSSNcrew responded:
From the Declaration of Independence:
“… Governments long established should not be changed for light or transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.”The long train of abuses and usurpations is not yet long enough or abusive enough to be insufferable.
And when will they be long enough and abusive enough?
I say we have been disposed to suffer long enough.
The Founders rose up over less than we are experiencing now.
The Constitution has been overturned in a Stealth Coup that took slightly over a century to achieve. The current Leftists in Power And Control are merely firing the final shots into it’s critically wounded corpse.
How long is long? You say a century is not long enough a train. Many of us say it is too long, that it is so long we stand a very good chance of not being able to derail it.
I say the situation is insufferable, intolerable, that it is time to act.
There is a chance that the Article V Effort might work, but, considering how fair down The Road To Serfdom we have gone, it will be a very close-run thing. And what good will it do to achieve such a victory, what will ensure it’s continuing success if it is not complemented by a recapturing of Virtue in our Souls, by a flushing out of the Leftist Way Of Thinking that has invaded all of our hearts and minds?
Sadly – and it breaks my heart to say this – we will soon have to decide whether we will allow the chains to be locked on our wrists and ankles or take up arms.
I know not what course others may take, but as for me:
I will not be a slave; I will either Live Free Or Die.
OUTLAW.
