Let’s call it ‘Utopianism’

Listening to the political rhetoric over the airways today reporting on the constitutionality of the killing of a U.S. citizen in Yemen prompted me to dig out my library of columns by Joe Sobran to read his thinking on the subject. He was a true Constitutionalist, one with a great sense of humor and wit.

I believe he would have asked the conservative presidential candidates, if elected and you take an oath to protect the Constitution, what is it you’re trying to conserve and what are you willing to discard? To those who support the killing of the cleric without benefit of arrest and trial, he would have likened it to giving the Constitution the middle finger.

The loss of freedoms, property rights, over taxation, constraints on religious speech and assembly have advanced so far in this country that even us simpletons feel the heavy breath of tyranny in our government. And it didn’t start with Obama. Perhaps the most important happening during this election season will be the debate over Constitutional government. Do we have it? Do we want it? Or do we really want an American style of communism? Let’s give it a name. Utopianism works for me.

In our Utopia a clever word or phrase will carry more value with the vassals than truth, justice or the rule of law. But when the ruling forces turnaround on us, “where will we hide, the laws all being flat ...” Sir Thomas More, once Chancellor of England and a great legal mind finished that sentence by saying, “I give the devil benefit of law for my own safety sake.” Without Constitutional government where will we hide?

Joan Solms

Aurora