We The Nothing

Of the nothing, in order to form nothing, to establish, insure and provide nothing, and so forth.

The Constitution is dead. It has been rendered obsolete as surely as the tactical scramble replaced marching and shooting in line abreast, as the aircraft carrier sealed the fate of the battleship, as steam did for sail. And. So. Forth.

The advent and relentless perfection of lawfare has turned our legal system — the government which operates it, the laws which define it and the Constitution which provides it — into what the Navy would refer to as a private lake. The Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean used to belong to the United States Seventh Fleet, but not anymore. The branches of government used to defend their prerogatives but not anymore. The Executive in particular used to operate as though somebody were watching, but not anymore. A litany of abuses and usurpations could fill this post, but why bother?

And I know that abuses are not new — crises are not new, humans behaving badly, not new, power assembling in few hands, likewise not new. But this is different. America has already morphed into a post-Constitutional entity. I hesitate to call it a Republic anymore — I should like to preserve that term for better things than what we have become.

Do you know the popular federal acronym NCR? See if you know what that stands for without looking it up. Then there’s the matter of what it means.

It may be that in order to defend the monolithic no-longer-federated “Federal” nation from external threats, our federal republic has needed to evolve in an extra-Constitutional manner. But then why is the power of this armored Leviathan focused so firmly inward? If we were going to have a government start kicking butt across the planet on the sly, you would think some benefit would accrue. Instead, we the former people are plumped by a government formerly under our control to receive our foreign invaders, hungry, destitute, and riddled with disease, but somehow we are unworthy to ask them if they’ve had their shots.

How dare we limit immigration? How dare we defend borders? Whom do we think we are to call anybody foreign?

We are no longer the people who formed the government. This is a new government, and it answers to a different master. It has no use for the Constitution. It breaks the former laws faster than any entity can even recognize the instances, much less investigate, much less attempt to enjoin or otherwise halt or at least delay the damage.

The mechanisms of the Constitution are off limits to us. Too quaint, too legalese, too too too something. Meanwhile, the Earth (yes, the planet) effectively has standing in the US courts, and it is represented by the EPA. Soon, animals will literally have standing in our courts, which is out of reach for most Americans.

I used to think that the important thing was to demonstrate in reasonable terms that the government is largely in the hands of domestic enemies of the Constitution. If we could figure out what that meant, what sort of limiting principles might apply, what behaviors and tactics were covered by criminal or political remedies, in order to identify the remaining credible threats, reasonable responses and appropriate remedies — well then we would have a path out of the wilderness!

Nope. As principles have given way to pragmatism, to expedience, to corruption and finally to the exercise of power in its own name, as its own justification, to the applause of the Bill Maher’s poo-flinging monkeys and UniVision’s desperadoes somewhere across a border with no moat, with no alligators, and soon with no meaning, as the value of citizenship has been cheapened through dilution and definition down (“just a piece of paper”) and abandonment (Chris Stevens, Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty), and inversion (Bergdahl — I spit!) — and. so. forth. — the Constitution has become not a living document but an undead one.

No I don’t have an alternative Constitution, and to entertain one is to miss the point. We have finished losing battles because we have lost the war. We of the slow-footed conservative trailer park of lost hope are just getting traction with the idea that there may be a fight coming, and it’s already over. This is what defeat looks like. We should be so lucky as to see a boot smashing a human face forever and so forth. Instead we are co-opted into doing it to ourselves for them. We mash our faces into the dirt because that’s the system. Can’t help you at window A, please take a ticket for window B and have a seat. By the time WIndow B tells us to try window A, it’s a different crowd, and they think we’re crazy. Sorry, you don’t have standing. Sorry, you have to win elections. Sorry, the media won’t like it. Sorry, you don’t have standing. This is what defeat tastes like. We will not see a return to the rule of law, a resurgence of a people worthy of self-government, nor the restoration of a country so esteemed in the world that its institutions are aped by even the most tyrannical dictatorships in a bid for legitimacy. I would say kiss it goodbye, plant a tender peck on its cool forehead before the box is closed, but it’s too late for that too. There’s nothing left.

The Constitution needed to be defended in order to defend us. This did not happen, and now that will not happen either. The meaningless scrap of paper now properly reposes in museums, an article of historic significance, but obsolete now. Drafting a new Constitution is a sucker’s game, a homework assignment for those who fail to grasp the situation. That’s the professoriat preparing to re-legislate the last court battle, unaware that the execution has already been carried out. Somewhere along the way to ceding the media, the schools, the culture, the institutions, and so forth, we ceded everything. The Constitution is paper for us, a howitzer for them. We are clients of the legal system they operate. We are the subjects of the government they constitute. We are held to the laws they glide above. This defeat, this disaster, this nakhba will not be set right by any amount of debate, argument, writing, words, ideas, facts, people, lives, and so forth.

A loyal friend left exposed has been beaten to death by low and evil persons, and I do not feel like making a new friend to set things right.

I feel like fighting. Well, it beats waiting to die.