Wednesday, May 7, 2025

#127 / RIP?

 


The image at the top of this blog posting is a "Letter To The Editor" that appeared in the April 29, 2025, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. The Joe Mathews column mentioned in that "Letter To The Editor" appeared in the Chronicle a couple of days earlier, on April 27th.

Our current president was elected last November, in what appears to have been a free and fair election. So why do Joe Mathews and Mr. Verkozen believe that "The American democratic republic has died?" Presumably, they believe this because our current president does not, in fact, operate according to what the Constitution requires. I have made that point, repeatedly, in my daily blog postings. Click here for an exaample. If that is the point being made by Mathews and Verkozen, I agree with them.

However, I am not at all convinced that this is the point being made, and I most emphatically do NOT agree that "The American democratic republic has died" simply because our current president is operating in an unconstitutional manner. The president has claimed, in essence, that the only person who "counts" in this republic of ours is him. His statement that "I, alone, can fix it" is one way that our current president has articulated this idea, and his continued (and illegitimate) use of "Executive Orders," treating them as if they are the same as laws enacted by the Congress, is another way he has advanced his undemocratic and unconstitutional view that he (and he alone) gets to say what happenss in this country.

As I hope everyone understands, "We, the people" are ultimately in charge of our government. Of course, in order to exercise our democratic power to "run the place," we need to act, and to insist upon our right to decide what our government should be doing. 

So far, there hasn't really been any appreciable - or maybe the right word is "effective" - pushback against the illegitimate claims of our current president. That does not mean, though, that "The American democratic republic has died." 

Someone who stipulates that she or he is dead will be treated as if they were. Try it out. Send a letter to the Social Security System, for instance, and tell them you're dead. You will probably stop receiving any Social Security payments you may currently be receiving. 

We are not "dead," democratically, until we stipulate that we are. That is what is disturbing to me about the Mathews-Verkozen assertion. They seem to say that they have given up, and capitulated to the illegitimate claims of our current president. Lots of us haven't! Here's some proof, showing a recent picture from Santa Cruz, California. 


More and greater efforts are what I endorse, not proclaiming that democracy is dead before we have even begun to challenge those who would, indeed, seek to eliminate it.

Foundation of Freedom

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