This morning our media is filled to overflowing with commentary about a leaked draft of a Supreme Court Opinion dealing with the future of Roe v. Wade. Never mind that this was largely expected given the partisan makeup of the Court.
The real story here is not what the Court may be getting ready to do, but what has gone wrong with the process. We have witnessed political dysfunction for several years in the workings of our Legislative and Executive branches of government. We talk about it and talk about it and yet we do nothing to stop the dysfunction. We wring our hands in worry that we don’t know what we can do about it, yet we do nothing. These behaviors demonstrate the loss of our democracy. “We the people” are the democracy part of our republican democracy and “we the people” have let down our guard against the potential tyranny that has always threatened us.
Our failure to “keep a sharp eye” has also allowed our representatives to stray from their oaths of office. With each “easy way out” they committed us to a path that was not in the governmental designs of our Forefathers and with each such choice we strayed further and further into the troubled waters of autocracy.
Our governmental representatives all entered their elective office with this oath, or something close to it:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
Once they lowered their right hand and lifted their left hand off the bible, they started taking the “easy way out.” The result is our current dysfunction and while our republican democracy is, in my opinion, still recoverable, it will take a lot of work and we do not have the luxury of time.
As for our Supreme Court and their apparent willingness to overturn their earlier Roe v. Wade decision of fifty years ago, we must admit that some of them have failed to live up to the responsibility that comes with a lifetime term of office. That lifetime term of office was supposed to allow them to be impartial in their work. Apparently, impartiality is a greater burden than some of them could bear.
The Sausage Grinder is Broken, will you help to fix it? If you haven’t read A Broken Sausage Grinder; Is Our Government Fundamentally Flawed?, you’re not prepared for the job.
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