The 41

The 41 People Standing Between You and Tyranny

We all remember what happened last December in the Senate and then again in March in the House of Representatives.  After a full court press and in outright defiance of the clearly stated will of a majority of Americans, the Senate voted on Christmas Eve to approve so-called health care reform, now ubiquitously referred to as ObamaCare.  Even though solid majorities of Americans opposed the measure, every single Democrat voted for it, even the fictional “blue dog” Senate Democrats who were once able to claim adherence to fiscal conservatism.  In March the House then voted to pass their version of ObamaCare, once again in the face of clear opposition from the American public.

Even though these politicians should have been concerned with keeping their jobs after their next election, they disregarded the wishes of the American people in order to pass this sweeping new legislation.  Knowing that they were less than a year from the next election and while receiving quite a bit of feedback from their constituents at town hall meetings and rallies across America, they still pursued their agenda against the will of the people.  In fact, I remember seething when I heard Nancy Pelosi say that they had enough votes to allow some Democrats to “vote their district”.  These three dangerous statists – Obama, Pelosi, and Reid – are simply intoxicated by their ideology and have proven over the last 18 months that they will do anything and say anything to advance their agenda, which always seems to boil down to more dependency-based control over Americans.

Now consider this.  Given the likelihood of significant GOP gains in the November elections, just imagine what the fired congressmen will be willing to do in the interim period between receiving their pink slips from the voters and actually leaving office in January.  We have all been forced to recalibrate our government outrage meters in the Obama Age, but we should prepare ourselves for affronts that we simply cannot even imagine today.

Ask yourself a few questions.  Why aren’t they trying to pass Cap and Tax right now?  Why no push for amnesty for illegals Comprehensive Immigration Reform?  Further, have you heard that they have no plans to pass a real budget any time soon?  They are already clumsily tipping their hand to their plans.  They are saving everything for the lame duck session of Congress.  How many times have you been stunned at the audacity and gall demonstrated by this gaggle of statists?  Unfortunately, I think that we have not seen anything yet.

We all know from experience that when people get fired or laid off, they get shown the door immediately and there is a good reason for that.  When someone has been terminated, you can expect that employee to be worthless at best and damaging at worst, with a bit of revenge mixed in.  But in contrast with private sector people, the angry employees that we will terminate in November will retain significant power over our lives until January.  Perhaps more significantly, these “public servants” will feel a pressing need to cut deals to land their next government job.  They will throw us all under the bus and by now we should all accept that fact.

At first I naively thought about proposing a scenario in which every candidate would publicly ask for a pledge from the incumbent that he or she will not vote on any significant legislation during the lame duck session if they are defeated on November 2^nd.  But just thinking like that makes me look like someone who just fell off the turnip truck – in fact I surprised myself with that half-second of naiveté.  These dishonest charlatans have proven that they will do whatever they want even when they still have a chance at reelection.  They would violate any pledge without remorse.  Does the name Bart Stupak ring a bell?

Then I finally arrived at the obvious and unavoidable core reality of our situation, and wondered why it took me so long to figure this out.  When the rubber hits the road, there are 41 people in America who can stand between us and tyranny.  The only people who can stand in the way of truly significant outrages – potential death blows – against the American Experiment are the 41 Republican Senators who possess the so-called nuclear option of the filibuster.  If they stand together, and only if they stand together, we can weather the two dark and dangerous months between our national repudiation of the Obama agenda and the seating of our new Congress.

234 years ago the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their “Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor” to further our independence and begin the task of creating the American Experiment.  I honestly do not consider it hyperbole to argue that the 41 Republican members of the United States Senate will face a challenging period that could decide the future of our country.  Though it will not even begin to compare to the tribulations faced by the Signers, in duration or in danger, let us hope that they are up to it.  Given that their number includes weak links like Graham (SC), McCain, and Snowe (ME), I worry about whether they possess the principles and intestinal fortitude to stand up to the predictable juggernaut.  Further, imagine what an angry and resentful John McCain will be willing to do if he is defeated in his primary with J.D. Hayworth.  The future of the Republic could depend on whether these 41 Americans are willing to be pariahs for two months.

If they do the right thing, these 41 Senators may go down in history as having fought a holding action that helped save the nation and preceded the restoration of our Constitutional Republic.  The ancient Greeks who fought a desperate holding action at Thermopylae against Xerces’ invading Persians were dubbed The 300.

If they do the right thing, these 41 Senators should be remembered as The 41.

The only thing that will make this idea work is getting it out there.  Please pass this along to your conservative friends and even consider calling into a talk radio show with the idea.  Most importantly, pass it along to your Senators.  Let’s make it clear to The 41 that we understand the seriousness of our situation.  We are watching.  We will be sitting next to our children and grandchildren, the ones who will pay the biggest price for the selfish orgy of the Obama Agenda, and we will be watching The 41 to see if they are up to the challenge.

The new web site will be up soon…

[Note to regular readers: It’s not unusual for me to percolate on a blog post for a month or two, chatting with my wife about it regularly but not quite getting it typed up in a timely manner.  The observed downside to that slow process is that sometimes I end up throwing away a half-written blog post because I do not want to be a “back-bencher”, which is what Mark Levin calls the other pundits, commentators, and bloggers who borrow material from his radio show for their next-day offerings.  In the most recent case, I was mostly done with a blog post – ultimately the one that you just read - that I was going to call Lame Duck Tyranny or Lame Duck Danger in which I intended to discuss the real danger that we face between the next election and the seating of the next Congress.  But on Saturday I listened to Friday night’s Mark Levin show only to find that he was covering the same topic and making some of the same points. This is not the first time that he and I have espoused similar positions and it likely will not be the last – after all we both arrived at our very similar philosophy by reading the same things, studying the same history, and observing the same events.  However, this time I decided not to toss my blog post because this topic gets me worked up and worried.  Mark Levin would likely prefer that even more people are exposed to the idea of this lame duck tyranny anyway.  Finally, I am such a small time blogger that I do not even qualify as a back-bencher!]