It’s Not Broken
After the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government the United States was going to have. His answer was, "A Republic, if you can keep it.”
Well, we have kept it, more or less, for 233 years. That record, however, does not reflect the many attempts to abandon or substantially modify the Republic.
Approximately 11,770 proposals to amend the Constitution have been introduced in Congress since 1789. Not counting the first ten amendments, the so called Bill of Rights, which were adopted almost simultaneously with the Constitution, the Constitution has been amended only 17 times.
Actually make that only 15 times. The 18th Amendment that established prohibition nationwide was repealed by the 21st Amendment several years later.
That record of almost 12 thousand faced attempts to fiddle with the document that guarantees the most vibrant and free republic in the world indicates that we are constantly under attack from within.
The framework of the Constitution and its 27 Amendments guarantees a government that cannot be dominated by one person or one political party for more than eight years. Currently, in this country there can be no supreme leaders like Putin, Kim Jong-um, the Ayatollah Khamenei, and others who hold their country in their hands indefinitely.
To some extent the system also makes it difficult for one political party to be the dominant or controlling party for prolonged periods. That, however, can change and the Socialist/Democrat Party is working hard to make that change.
Currently, Clauses 2 and 3 of Article II of the Constitution establish the Electoral College and provide that the President shall be elected by a majority vote of the College. That effectively keeps the White House from being dominated by states with the large cities that typically lean liberal.
The system gives a voice in the process to that huge area called Fly Over country where self sufficiency and freedom from government regulation are prized.
As giving voice to rural America is anathema to socialist/democrats, there is a movement to replace the Electoral College system with a law that the candidate who wins a majority of the votes nationwide is President. If that becomes the law, New York and California will own the White House indefinitely.
Another movement in favor with the Socialist/Democrats is to provide mail-in voting for all. Some would completely do away with in person voting at polling places. These are the same politicians who are opposed to requiring picture IDs to vote.
Those favoring this easy voting for all scoff at the argument that open voting by mail would lead to fraud. They argue there is no proof of voter fraud anywhere.
The scoffers are too young to remember or choose to forget how President Lyndon Johnson became known as Landslide Lyndon.
So here is a short refresher course on that name.
On election night, September 2, 1948, in the Democrat Primary runoff against former Texas Governor Coke Stevenson, it appeared LBJ lost. Then, mysteriously, a box of uncounted ballots was “discovered” in Alice in Jim Wells County, Precinct 13.
When the votes in that box were counted, LBJ won by 87 votes. Shortly afterward, that box mysteriously disappeared again, never to be found.
Now jump forward 34 years for a personal experience. That is when I was a candidate for County Judge of Washington County. I was the first Republican to seek a local office in many years.
During the campaign, several Democrat operatives visited every retirement and nursing facility in the county and solicited absentee ballot requests from the residents. When the ballots arrived, the same operatives reappeared to “help” the residents complete their ballots..
I have often wondered how many votes I got from those absentee ballots.
So here’s the perspective.
Let’s give Old Ben a handshake and keep our election system the way it has always been.
The system is obviously open to fraud, but it has generally provided a good government system that has remained free of dictatorships.
Why try to fix something that is not broken?
enough
