Winning Elections Requires Throwing the Constitution Under the Bus

by LAWRENCE SELLIN, PHD July 17, 2012

In a video recently posted on the internet, Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) states that fifty percent of the American people do not believe in the Constitution and individual rights and if you principally fight to defend the Constitution, you will lose.

Rep. Gosar has seemingly forgotten that he takes an oath to "support and defend" the Constitution. Apparently he thinks that adhering to the Constitution is an impediment to winning elections. He seems to be promoting the proposition that obtaining power is more important than upholding the rule of law.

The opinions expressed by Rep. Gosar are not unique, but represent the prevailing attitude in Congress. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government and federal office-holders who want unlimited power.

The Code of Ethics for U.S. Government Service, adopted by the House of Representatives July 11, 1958 with the Senate concurring, resolved that it is the sense of the Congress that the following Code of Ethics should be adhered to by all Government employees, including officeholders.

The first two requirements state that any person in Government service should:

1. Put loyalty to the highest moral principles and to country above loyalty to Government persons, party, or department.

2. Uphold the Constitution, laws, and legal regulations of the United States and of all governments therein and never be a party to their evasion.

Does any American believe that Rep. Gosar or anyone of his colleagues in Congress adheres to either of those requirements?

The instances of federal office-holders ignoring the Constitution or politicians choosing party over country are far too numerous to list in anything less than a multi-volume publication.

Here are two relevant examples.

Article I of the U.S. Constitution requires Congress to pass a federal budget. Despite the imminent threat to the financial stability of the United States and the clear priority the Constitution gives to maintaining discipline in federal spending, the last time Congress enacted a budget was April 29, 2009.

Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires that all candidates for the Presidency be "natural born citizens." As defined in the binding Supreme Court precedent of Minor v. Happersett (1875) and previous and subsequent rulings, all candidates for the offices of President and Vice President must be second generation Americans, that is, US citizens of citizen parents at the time of birth.

It was the intent of the American Founding Fathers that the chief executive and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces would not have dual allegiance or loyalty to a foreign power.

There is no ambiguity, although the Democrat and Republican parties and the media are and have been deliberately trying to confuse the American public as to the true meaning of natural born citizenship.

They do so for two reasons.

First, members of Congress continue to be derelict in their duty and violate their oaths of office to support and defend the Constitution by not properly vetting Barack Obama, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal, all of whom may not meet the Constitutional requirement for the office of President or Vice President.

Second, since 1975, there have been numerous attempts by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to amend the Article II "natural born citizen" clause, all of which have failed.

Politicians have now seized the opportunity to amend the Constitution illegally by a political fait accompli, intentionally ignoring the potential ineligibility of Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates.

Make no mistake. This is just the beginning. Their actions are deliberate and unethical, if not criminal, and driven solely by political expediency. Their aims are to expand the personal and collective power of politicians by eroding the Constitutional restraints on their power at the expense of individual liberty.

Founding Father John Adams warned us about people whose espouse opinions like Rep. Gosar; those who prefer a government of men, not a government of laws.