H. Lee Fisher - Crunch Time: To Save Our Constitution

Crunch Time, to Save Our Constitution

H. Lee Fisher

Copyright 2020 H. Lee Fisher

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2020

ISBN 978-1-64628-330-9 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-64628-331-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To those civilians and military who served in a spirit of solidaritya cohesive communitybeing the driving force to win World War II, emerging as the global economic and military power.

Introduction

T his book was craftedbut not distributedat the beginning of year 2012 when Obamas political footprints were but modestly discernable. Fast forward seven years. Rereading of this manuscript with the intent of revisions and fortified with perspective of political events in recent years, the first seven chapters were left intact to underscore the erosion in our political system accelerated during the Obama era, and the Trump administration. Chapter 8 defines the effects of Democrat maneuvers to unseat or neutralize the Trump presidencyand unmasks the purpose. Chapter 9 offers a bold solution to return to our Constitution and its principles. Chapter 10 illuminates why our experiment in democracy has failed.

Up frontI am not a political analyst, author, or literarily inclined, just an American chagrined that our government of the people has mutated to a government over the people by departing from our Constitution. This manuscript reflects my views regarding the political direction of our nation within the past few generations.

I am awed by our Constitution and how it has guided our history of creative national development, cohesiveness of purpose, the will and wisdom to surmount adversities, and the leader of the free world. It is a gift of my ancestors to be born as an American citizen.

Within half a century I have observed a steady decay of our once proud nation as our Constitution was abandoned, and we were seduced by the lure of government dependency. Hope for a leader to emerge and awaken our people to the cancerous effects of a domineering and incompetent bureaucracy has faded; this nation no longer produces statesmen of the character manifest by our Founding Fathers. Even a leader of merit would be challenged to be heard considering liberals have largely met their objective of controlling the mass print media, primary television stations, the entertainment industry, and the education system.

The strategy of liberals to absorb power through a process of encouraging people to be dependent on government had no effective counterbalance from conservatives who had lost their doctrinal compass. And the power of money in selecting our political leaders and representatives virtually demands corruptive and deceitful paybacks without regard to the wounds imparted on our national integrity and sovereignty. Money fuels political greed, corruption, and political betrayal in swearing to protect our Constitution.

Due to the indisputable failure of our government, this nation is spiraling away from a government representing the people to an autocratic authority. The dominant fault rests with our pompous, incompetent Congress having neglected to perform their constitutional role and the politically naive voters who keep them in office.

A decade ago, I could not have envisioned the bold redirection defined herein, a course correction to return to our Constitution and its values. However, the political calculus onstage leading to the year 2020 presidential election compelsmy respect for our Founding Fathers and those who made the ultimate commitment to preserve our freedoms demandspresentation of my case.

Should we not unite and change course now, historians will ponder why we shelved our constitutional freedoms in favor of a centralized authoritative system, after casting aside the British monarchy and creating the greatest peoples democracy the world has ever known.

Acknowledgments

W ithout the guidance and encouragement of Janet McNulty and her editing I would not have progressed beyond the first chapter. Cindy Vogels professional touch put the chapters in final form, and Page Publishing Cover Design Team created the cover and did the first printing; it takes a team. My brother, Louis Fisher, over the decades has published many books related to the Constitution, hundreds of articles, and our close relationship expressing his views on our government made a lasting imprint. Having worked for Congress for forty years and intimately involved in guiding that body on constitutional issues, his observations on government are instructive. Though we view the federal government from different perspectiveshis from an elite position at the head of the bull and mine from the trenches seeing what comes out of the other endhis vast knowledge on the Constitution and the workings of government has implanted my deep appreciation and respect for our Constitution and the foresight of our Founding Fathers.

Over many decades I have sought to keep abreast of our political system by reading many books, magazines, reports by nonprofit organizations on their investigations of government and the news media. My subscriptions to magazines encompassed liberal and conservative sources. That exposure has molded my opinions on how our political system functions or fails to function. To the hundreds of people that have delved deep into operation of the three branches of government and documented their works, I express my appreciation.

This book reflects my opinions only.

Chapter 1

Dysfunctional Government

O ur forefathers crafted our Constitution to avoid the concentration of power in a single entity, as evidenced in the British monarchy. They did this by creating three branches of governmentlegislative (Congress), executive, and judicial. The purpose of the three branches is to distribute power and to balance one another so that one branch would not have supremacy. Each branch was expected to protect its constitutional turf. Notwithstanding, each branch has deviated from its constitutional role. The legislative branch, over the past six decades, shifted many of its constitutional responsibilities, including fiscal controls, laws to protect our sovereignty, and the declaration of war, to the executive branch; and the executive branch has absorbed or grasped authority beyond its assigned role, while the Supreme Court, largely unchallenged, has not limited its role to interpreting the Constitution, viewing it as a living document subject to the social trends of the day. The result is centralized power in the executive branch much aligned to the English monarchy our Constitution sought to avert.

Though it is evident that our political system at the national level is inept and is void of the leadership, character, and nobility our Constitution demands, the root cause of our national demise is the public who vote politicians into office whose self-interests override our national interests. Albeit the process of selecting political candidates is flawed and money plays a corruptive influence on the political process, the fundamental problem is that the American public is not politically intelligent or concerned about the direction of this nation to demandby whatever meansthat this nation return to our Constitution, the values it represents, and resolve the many issues that have accumulated over the past several decades.

Congress has apparently defined its primary role as retaining their congressional seats, national interests being secondary. The legislative branchreferred to as the peoples branch as they are voted into office by the people to represent their state or districtis the linchpin of the three branches, vested with the authority to contain the actions of the other two branches. However, in the process, Congress has abrogated critical elements of its constitutional role to the executive branch, including the level of budgets, direction of the economy, our national security, and the roles of government.