Our nation and our world are swirling in the chaos of seemingly innumerable scandals and emergencies. From the bombing of Iran, last year and next week?, to the gargantuan fraud scandals that are just emerging, to ICE round ups, to the deportation of criminals and terrorists, to the deportation of upstanding family man workers, to whatever the US is doing in Greenland, to Gaza, to Ukraine, to Iran's revolution, to what we just did in Venezuela, to American citizens being shot for demonstrating/ obstructing law enforcement, and a lot more issues limited space doesn't allow to be mentioned here.
In all of these we find ourselves involved in passionate controversy. The worst part is that even though we have all this information technology at our fingertips, the truth, or at least the truth we can agree on, is almost impossible to find. Because of that we are in a time of deep and worsening division.
Here in America, the division is so stark that many are calling for a national divorce, or some kind of chaotic change in government. It is all so unnecessary because if we take the time to look at the situation with an honest eye, we can see a way to unity and national revival. However, if we do look at it with an honest eye, we will see that those on both the left and the right, Democrat and Republican, have been bamboozled. We have bought into some massive lies, lies which are going to destroy our nation if we don't reject them.
The attack on Venezuela of January 2, 2026 has raised questions about those lies; about our government, and how our Constitution is to be used. The response has been, besides the global celebration of Venezuelans, to object that President Trump should have gained congressional authorization prior to launching an attack. The first counter response is to warn that many in congress can't be trusted to keep such an operation secret, and so the President was justified in going it alone. Both sides of this argument, and the deeper arguments which follow, have some merit. We will focus on them now, because they reveal how all the whole raft of divisive issues are connected..
The legal issues come down to two clauses in Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution, wherein Congress is given specific powers. In clause 11, Congress is given the power to declare war. Those on the left say that Trump should have been bound by this clause, and that Congress should have declared war before he launched the operation to arrest Maduro. Those on the right say President Trump, as commander in chief, has the power to conduct legal and small scale operations on his own say so. What's more, they have a lot of legal precedents to back them on this, among which are American “gun boat” diplomacy of the late 1800's, Clinton's bombing of Bosnia, Obama's droning of multiple human targets, and the overthrow of Qaddafi in Libya.
With all those undeclared precedents in mind, take another look at that congressional power to declare war. That power was last exercised properly at the beginning of World War II. Since then it has been violated on a regular basis by both Republican and Democrat administrations. Korea and Vietnam are glaring examples, but even the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with their Authorizations of the use of Military Force, fell far short of proper declarations of war, even though war was definitely conducted in those nations. So squawking loudly about how Trump's actions are an unprecedented violation of the Constitution misses the real point.
All of those unauthorized actions should be challenged for another reason, The more pertinent clause of section 8 that should guide us is clause 10, just prior to clause 11, which says, “The Congress shall have power: To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and offenses against the law of nations.” That clause obviously covers piracy, trafficking in both narcotics and humans, and international terrorism. It does not, however, give the President Cart Blanche, but rather gives to Congress the all important power of definition. So when the subject comes up that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, it is the Congress, not the President, who is to make that call.
The way it could, and should, work is that Congress should debate the issues of foreign governments and organizations that threaten our national security. If the threat is dire enough, war should be declared. If the threat is low level, but still a threat, Congress should define who is really the bad guy, and how they should be punished. The President should then be authorized to carry out any punishment the Congress decrees. While the debate would be in public, any operational details, such as specific targets, timing and etc could be kept secret. That way, the enemy would not know when or how we are coming.
If such debates were held in public, transparent for the most part to the world, our adversaries would know that we are coming. Just having the debate might work to change their behavior and prevent war. What's more, once Congress did define some bad actor as a terrorist, or some foreign government as a violator of the laws of nations, the world would know that we, as a nation were united in our resolve, and that we mean business.
The big obstacle to our operating in that constitutional mode is those same unfaithful legislators mentioned earlier. Not trusting some legislators to keep national secrets is a real concern, but the situation is worse than that. Some congresspeople can't be trusted to seek the national good while debating in congress. Some of them seem to be pursuing the interests of other nations, or the dominance of some alien ideology.
Faithless legislators greatly hobble our nation. Take, for an example, how we should have dealt with Iran's growing nuclear capabilities. Even though that nation was clearly in violation, for more than twenty years, of the international treaty on nuclear non proliferation, we couldn't, due to the unfaithful legislators, do any constitutional thing about it. We should have used Art 1, sec 8, clause 10, and given standing authorization for the president to act, forcefully if necessary, to prevent the terrorist regime in Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, some faithless left wing congress people would have vehemently opposed that, and due to the current hyper partisan spirit in congress, the Democrats, in lock step fashion, would have prevented that kind of constructive use of our Constitution. With that authority in hand, Trump might not have ever needed to bomb them.
Faithless legislators like that should have to worry about losing their seats in the next election, but too often these unfaithful congress people are representing the wishes of their constituents back home. That then is the real crux of our problem, and one it is high time we addressed. There are a lot of people, in a lot of different groups, that don't really care for America to survive as a free and self governing nation.
All of those groups, left and right, singly and collectively, poison our national debate about the Constitution; what it means, and how it should be used. For the most part, these groups use the Constitution as a cynical tool to wreak national destruction. When it suits their purpose, they embrace the most minuscule points, applying wrong headed readings of it to current issues. When it doesn't suit their purpose, they are happily capable of ignoring wholesale constitutional violations. They thus render our foundational national document into a kind of suicide pact, useful only when it degrades the national well being.
This latest incident in Venezuela shows that in action. Those on the left, which now includes both Marxists and radical Moslems, are deeply and touchingly concerned that every jot and tittle of their Constitutional misreading be adhered to at this time. On the other hand, when Clinton was bombing Bosnia, or Obama was droning wedding parties in Afghanistan, not a peep was heard from them.
This constitutional malfeasance is practiced by both left and right, Democrats and Republicans. What's more, the worst examples of this malfeasance are not minuscule, but extend to huge issues which touch every aspect of national life.
On the left, the biggest issue is how they ignore the fact that President Franklin Roosevelt, FDR, effectively repealed the Tenth Amendment in the 1930's. They will respond that the Supreme Court approved it (even though the Court was politically coerced due to FDR's court packing scheme), so in this case, the Court's word is final. This is unlike the way they receive court rulings that favor Donald Trump, such as SCOTUS approving his War Powers stance, or supporting his programs to deport illegal aliens, or the overthrowing of Roe v Wade. In those cases the court ruling is definitely up for debate, and not final.
Things aren't much different on the right. They might celebrate Trump's court victories, but their own fealty to the Constitution is suspect, especially when such doctrines as corporate personhood are scrutinized. Yes, they can point to favorable court rulings which support that odious doctrine, just like when the left ignores the neutering of the Tenth Amendment. What they can't point to, however, is where the doctrine of corporate personhood exists in the Constitution, or how it conforms to the vision of government the founders handed us.
Leaving the endless legalistic wranglings around all these issues for another time, the point remains that many in our nation use our Constitution as a kind of suicide pact. Then the real problem, once again, comes down to these faithless legislators, and the millions of our fellow citizens who vote for them. Simply put, there are too many folks who are not sure that the United States of America is a good idea anymore, or that it ever really was.
When we see that as the real problem, the awkward misuse of the Constitution comes into a new light. Far too many folks in this country have another agenda other than truly working toward a more perfect union. Some are out and out Marxists (Progressives and Secular fundamentalists). Some are religious zealots, ranging from fundamentalist Moslems to Christian nationalists, and some are racists, of various stripes, that believe in their own racial group's supremacy. All of them are deluded with the notion that America was always and still is a flawed nation, not really worthy of continued existence. They foolishly think that we should just let the republic go; that anything would be better.
It is easy enough to see why some, if not most, modern Americans have come to doubt that this country should continue. From day one, we have not lived up to our lofty ideals. It isn't that our system failed, but rather that we failed our system. We claimed all men are created equal, but we didn't extend equal rights to all men. At first we kept those just for wealthy White men; and then, after some reforms, to just White men; and then, after a brutal, probably inevitable war to end slavery, nominally extended rights to all men, even Black men, that were citizens. Then we eventually included Asians, Hispanics and Native Americans, along with every ethnicity of women. So over time, we have at least been trying to perfect the union, to mend its' flaws.
Along the way, however, while we were distracted and not being informed about it, we lost the essence of our original system. First, some powerful interests got effective control of the free press, what is today known as the media. Then, while we weren't looking or being warned about it due to that corrupted media, those same elitist interests (who never did want a nation dedicated to liberty and justice for all) got the Supreme Court to declare that corporations are persons. That really changed the basic structure of our government, because the founders, with the intention of preventing corporate monopolies, had set it up to where the states could regulate corporations. After the court made that ruling in 1886, states could no longer keep the corporations on the short leash of community control. Interstate monopolies and trusts soon thereafter (in the 1890's) came to dominate our national economy, to the detriment of us all.
After that there were a couple of other massive changes to our system, which even though they were done by constitutional amendments in the 19teens, worked to scuttle the original political dynamic initiated by the founders. Those were the 16th and 17th Amendments, which established a federal tax directly on individuals, and set up direct election of senators. The first erected a horrifyingly unbalanced tax structure, making individuals answer, as individuals, to a distant, all powerful, and unaccountable government. The second muffled most of the voices of the states in the halls of the national legislature. Those combined moves actually reduced the influence that individuals could have on the federal government just as they gave that same federal government the power to insert itself into the most intimate details of our personal lives. The founders would have rolled over in their graves.
A later unconstitutional usurpation of powers by the feds from the states occurred under Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930's. During that decade, and in response to what he termed a national crisis, FDR moved many of the functions of government from the states and localities to the federal government. He effectively, as stated earlier, repealed the Tenth Amendment. Not only was that agenda initiated in that decade, but since then, with LBJ's Great Society and such, we have continued down that path, amalgamating almost all powers of government at that same, federal, national level.
These days almost all the functions of government, from education to healthcare to welfare to infrastructure to jobs, business, and environmental controls, functions which used to be under the responsibility and power of local communities, have been taken over by the federal government. It is then no wonder folks have come to doubt the goodness of America. We haven't lived in America for a long time, a much longer time than the lifespans of any still breathing.. We have been in a different country, a false America, for so long that the blessings, and the very feel, of liberty have been lost to our hearts and minds.
Think about how these changes (and there are others) explain so much of what has gone wrong in our nation, and how the truth of this cuts in all directions. A government which enables corporate excess and monopolies has resulted in many of us hating and fearing capitalism. That is a tragedy because the type of small scale, petite capitalism the founders embraced, and empowered the states to regulate, would not have led to these excesses.
Likewise, big, over-centralized government has both taken from us control of corporations, and created huge unaccountable bureaucracies which rule over the minutia of our lives, while purporting to protect us from corporate abuse. This over-centralized government has created a real dread of tyranny in the hearts of many. Ultimately, those who dread corporate excess have been divided from and set in battle against those who dread the ravages of big government. Thus our great national division is driven by various elite rulers.
Further, and most importantly, taking the powers of self government from us in our local communities has removed from us the greatest blessing of liberty, a blessing which the American system previously provided. That great blessing is the kind of vibrant, involved citizenry that our system, with powers and responsibilities held in local communities, was intended to generate, and which it did generate until real liberty was lost to us.
The long term solution, not to get bogged down in specifics, is for us to think small, in terms of both government and business. We must stop thinking that big, central systems are the best, or only, way to go.
That is the gist of the problem. We know, and don't much trust, those around us. But then we turn around and place great trust in strangers, people we don't know at all, who live at a great distance and over whom we have no control. Why do we think such elites are better people? It is a kind of blind idolatry which we exercise toward both government and business elites, and it serves us very poorly.
We must regain the wisdom, the determination, that all government is dangerous. With that determination, we must come to see that the smaller and closer to the people a government is, the more likely we are to be able to keep it under control. The same principle holds true for business, smaller and decentralized is safer, more accountable and generally better for us than bigger and more centralized.
By de-centralizing government, empowering local and state governments, we will be able to de-centralize corporations. This would empower us to put the corporate (and technological) beasts back on a healthy short leash of community control, while retaining a system of free enterprise. That would give us the ability to deal with a host of other problems, from environmental concerns to run away militarism (which has always been the illegitimate child of over-centralized capitalism).
On the other hand, giving in to the temptation to throw it all up as a bad effort, to abandon the American experiment, would just land us deeper into the clutches of the elitists bent on our enslavement. Any moves to break up, destroy, or divorce ourselves as a nation will almost undoubtedly make it easier for those same forces of bigness, that nebulous elitism, to gain even more power over us.
There is an old saying, “Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.” This means that when one goes to clean up a big mess, don't lose sight of what is truly precious. Don't dispose of that precious baby while getting rid of the messy, objectionable crud that has gotten attached to it.
Many want to just get rid of our old system, our American style liberty, thinking that some other system, some system that is either untried or has proven in the past to be a failure, can't possibly be worse than what we have. We should look around this miserable world and realize that what we have had here has actually been a remarkable success. That is indisputably true, even though our union could certainly use some more perfecting.
The most important question to ask is; Where are we going into the future? The alternatives to American self government that are on offer, from some kind of theocracy to some kind of totalitarian socialism, while they might be attractive to this generation of Americans, are attractive only because they, and we, all of us, have forgotten the great promise and reality of the American experiment in popular self government. We need to remember and re-imagine how well our system can work, and how well it can accommodate our diversity and our differences without causing us to devolve into mutual hatred and hostility.
What's more, we simply must see that what has deformed and mutilated our system to the point we find it repugnant has been those same corrupt elitist interests who are waiting in the wings to take complete control if we let them. Just throwing up our hands in frustration, just chucking it all is not the way to go. Getting rid of our precious system of free popular self government in favor of some corrupt and corruptible elitist system would be far worse than just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It would, in fact, amount to throwing out the precious baby of Liberty, and retaining what we have come to loathe, the filthy bathwater of oppressive elitist corruption. Let's hope and pray that we not be that foolish. We must not throw out the baby and keep the bathwater. Duh?