-An Open Letter to the President-
July 3, 2009
Dear Friends,
In just another day, we will all observe Independence Day. Yet, like you, we all realize that our freedoms have never been so threatened both from within and without. We wonder what actions we should take. We wonder what happens if we wait too long? I know we all wish for some clarion call from some leader with a response commensurate to the challenges we are seeing. A recent news analysis from Rachel Maddow (MSNBC News) of a major policy speech made by our President in May prompted me to write this open letter to the President as my next step. As you watch this news clip, you will likely find that the President’s attitude toward the Rule of Law and the Constitution is even more alarming than what he is proposing. I hope that this video and my letter will further develop your thinking as we celebrate Independence Day. While I stop short of suggesting a specific collective action that American citizens can take, I believe that history lays out the pattern.
Please watch this video, and then read my “Open Letter to the President.”
Dear Mr. President,
I write to you as one elected official to another on behalf of average American citizens. We listen to your words and measure them carefully. With hope, we watch your actions. We then look to history and compare the events of our day with the events of yesterday. We look to our Founders and read carefully their intellectual discourses and their moral debate. They ultimately concluded that the actions of the king were best described as tyranny, because they could not be honestly described any other way. Having come to such a serious and reasoned conclusion, their path was charted-unknown as to its outcome-but certain as to its demand upon them. Mr. President, we are doing what Americans have done before.
Many of your words, at face value, inspire and offer some level of hope. This is why many Americans cast their vote for you. Yet, now that you are in office, your actions are inspiring fear and distrust. At nearly every level, Americans, regardless of political party, are being forced to walk down the same road our Founders were forced to walk – questioning, analyzing, and looking deep within their souls. The similarities between the past and the present are amazing. If you desire to test the American people’s resolve and challenge their patience, you are accomplishing your goal. You know what is happening within the hearts and minds of the average American. That is why state legislatures are offering and passing resolutions, re-affirming the 10th Amendment and state sovereignty issue. That is why the Tea Party movement is growing by the day and is attended by rich and poor alike. That is why you and Congress are hearing from the American public in record numbers on an increasing range of major issues including the bail-out, the stimulus plan, “cap and tax”, and government intrusion into health care.
Your speech sounds sensitive to the economic and emotional needs so heavy on our people. Yet, your continued references to being guided by the “Rule of Law” (our Founders knew this meant God’s Higher Law and the Highest Law of the Land – the Constitution) are hollow and disingenuous. Your recent speech in front of the original Constitution of the United States of America in the National Archives makes it all so clear that your words mean nothing. Your agenda and you yourself appear to be that “rule of law” – effectively setting aside all Constitutional constraints. It’s unfortunate that I must be so direct, but you are leaving the American people with very few options.
Mr. President, it is clear by your speech and actions that your oath to the Constitution is not binding to you and, therefore, is a broken oath. On many fronts, so much of significance has happened in such a short time. You (and the Congress) are overriding state sovereignty and encouraging the states into unsustainable programs through Stimulus Funds: this will force them to beg you and the elite in Washington for help when the funding runs out. Your policies are destroying the wealth of hard-working Americans by plunging this nation into inescapable debt to our enemies and by justifying the disastrous printing of trillions in fiat money. What you and the Federal Reserve do not destroy immediately by exploding our debt, will be completely devoured by the ensuing hyper-inflation. What an insidious way for you and Congress to spend what you do not have by robbing it from every hard-working American who has responsibly worked and saved!
You have violated historic contract law by choosing who wins and who loses, while Chrysler and General Motors is eviscerated and turned into ‘Government Motors’. You have thumbed your nose at the ‘Balance of Power’, so carefully conceived and implemented by our Founders, by appointing unaccountable “Czars” to function as your direct emissaries over fundamental areas of public policy, thereby blatantly by-passing the checks and balances of Congressional oversight. You pursue special interest agendas motivated by the faddish science of “Global Warming” or “Climate Change”, or whatever it will be called next. In the ‘cap and tax’ plan, you justify the biggest tax assault on the American people ever conceived. Yet, you boldly assure the American people that it will cost them nothing, since only the “polluters” will pay. But, in the process you will destroy thousands of truly sustainable jobs (in exchange for temporary “green” jobs – like insulating buildings and re-caulking windows). Bringing America to its knees in financial dependence, in energy dependence, and a gutted manufacturing sector is sadly what’s happening. It appears that in reality, the “Change” you promised is just your personal change-clearly not what the American people so desperately hoped for.
So Mr. President, these things that I and the American people have come to observe and conclude are bringing this nation to a point closer each day that resembles the circumstances that forced the hearts, the minds and then the hands of our Founders. As we quickly approach the remembering of Independence Day – July 4, 2009, please remember that as you make your choices, so must we. May you and all the American people reread the Declaration of Independence – very carefully. Identify the principles they clearly stated and then apply them to today. Feel the intensity of the letter sent to the King. Understand the careful steps they undertook to make the moral case for freedom and independence in the context of the history of mankind. Note in particular the foundational precepts woven into paragraph two, written as much for the benefit of Americans yet unknown and unborn as it was a message to King George. As the President who holds the highest elected position in both honor and responsibility in this Republic, place yourself in the position of the King, look in the mirror, and then look across this great land at the faces of our great people and listen to their pleas. The King didn’t know for sure all that Declaration Letter would mean for him, but I am certain that he knew he had ignited the will and passion of a freedom-loving people for which only time would prove the outcome.
So it is today. Now, we have the Constitution against which to compare the words and actions of those in public office. The people, Mr. President, are awaking. They are realigning their priorities, purifying their motivations, and galvanizing their wills. Their freedom and their families are what they love and, thankfully, what they will defend. As to what comes next, I cannot say. I do know that another Declaration Letter is not necessary since this country already belongs to us. Our freedom and this republic are already ours. It is the return of freedom they demand. It is nothing less than the adherence to the Constitution and to the oath we have both taken that they demand. We, continuing to carefully note and compare as our Founders did, are also coming to serious and reasoned conclusions. Our path is charted – unknown perhaps as to its ultimate outcome – but certain as to its demand upon us.
From all those who love their Freedom,
Samuel E. Rohrer
State Representative Sam Rohrer
District 128 – Berks County