I recently finished reading a fantastic book about the Republic of Rome. Not the Roman Empire, the Republic. It’s a marvelous history dealing with the last years of the Roman Republic, which existed up to 450 years before the Roman Empire. It’s titled RUBICON, The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland, Copyright 2003 through Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc. This history book reads like a novel. There have been several nights in which I couldn’t put it down, and found myself finally turning out the light at 3:00 or 3:30 AM. 

The fall of the Republic came about, I learned, from a variety of events and other factors I never gave any thought to, because I always associated the word “Rome”, insofar as ancient Rome was concerned, with the Roman Empire, and the fall of the Empire came primarily as a result of depravity. It’s amazing how much one can learn through reading. In many ways, there is more education one can obtain through the simple reading of books than there is through our current – and exceptionally leftist – “higher academic institutions of learning”. But to read history is even more vital, especially in times like what we are living right now. George Santayana made one of the most profound, although simple, statements in all of history when he said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905 .)

The ancient Roman Republic was established much the same way that the United States was established. The people, weary of the tyranny of dictatorial kings and corruption, overthrew the establishment and instituted a new republic which was based on – get this – a constitution. For almost 500 years after that, the people of Rome, rich and poor alike, jealously guarded their newfound freedom and institutions with a vengeance. Any threat, regardless of its origin, perceived or real, within or without the boundaries of the Republic, was dealt with quickly and severely, often pre-emptively. Never again would the people of Rome allow themselves to be ruled over by anyone or anything that even remotely resembled a tyranny. They held regular elections, and those elected to high government offices were subject to strict term limits, usually lasting no more than one year.

The downfall came as a result of political intrigue, fraud infested elections, an arrogant elite that manipulated the emotions and desires of the people, fear-mongering, limitations imposed on free speech, and outright lies, combined with various acts of coercion, blackmail, bribes, and often, the use of force.

But the bottom line on the fall of the Republic, the decisive blows to the freedom of the people, the ultimate cause for the collapse of that free people, who experienced more liberty than anyone in the known ancient world, was the insatiable lust for power by a few elite and the blatant, unchallenged disregard for their Constitution.

And that’s what enabled tyranny to return to Rome. That’s what brought the freedom and unparalleled liberty of an entire nation and society to a screeching halt.

Does any of that above sound familiar? Does anyone reading this see the obvious parallels of that time and that republic, over two thousand years ago, to the American republic of today? The more I read this book, the sicker and angrier I got.

I have listened, I have read, I have watched, I have waited during all the talk, all the debate, all the deliberation, for one person in the Congress, the Supreme Court, the White House to say one simple thing: “Hey, where do we get the Constitutional authority and right to do this? We are violating the Constitution, we’re overstepping our enumerated powers.” Instead of seeing or hearing that,  I have had the misfortune of watching as my country, our Republic, that Constitution is being dismantled, one brick at a time, by the very people we have put into power to defend and protect it.

I have watched as the “Representatives” and Senators in Congress flatly ignore the will of the American people, choosing instead what is best for them and their insatiable lust for power over our lives.

I have watched as a free people, protected for over two centuries by the greatest document in the history of the world, defended by the greatest and most powerful array of military strength the world has ever seen, and possessing rights and liberties present nowhere else on earth in any other country or society, brush aside every single aspect of those things in an hysterical and irrational mania to elect a man to the Presidency who very well probably does not even fulfill even the most basic and simple Constitutional qualification for the office.

I have watched as the moral fabric of our society, the values and principles of our people, the spiritual power of our country’s underyling foundations – the once profound and unwavering faith of this nation in Almighty God – wither and decay to a point where we, the United States of America, are unrecognizable to ourselves, let alone the rest of the world.

And the reasons for all this? Apathy and fear. The emergence of a people who are so terrified of their own government, so conditioned by the political hyenas in Washington, D.C., so wrapped up in themselves and their own individual lives and desires and aspirations and greed and their immediate wants that they are willing to roll over like trained dogs and expose their underbelly to the vultures calling the shots, just so they don’t have to make any decisions for themselves. They’d rather hand that over to “better men and women”, who “know best” what is good for them, regardless of the consequences.

Romans. Frightened sheep. Weak, quivering cowards. I am watching ancient Rome before the Empire.

I’m sorry to say that. I really am. But it’s how I see my once proud and strong countrymen. 

Whatever happened to the courage to just say “NO” to the current regime ruling over your lives in Washington? 

“No. You can pass all the laws you want, make all the rules you want, make all the demands you want, impose all the fines you want, threaten all you want, tax all you want, but you’re being put on notice right here, right now. You do not own me, and you will not run my life. I will not obey your illegal and unconstitutional laws, I will ignore your self-serving rules, I will not succumb to your inane demands, pay your illegal fines, bend to your threats, pay another cent in taxes. I own you, not the other way around, and the sooner you get that through your thick arrogant heads, the better off you will be.”

“No. I don’t want your face in my health care. You have no business there to begin with, and I will not tolerate your involvement when it comes to what is best for me and my family.”

“No. The Federal Government will not dictate when it comes to the education of our children. Show me one word in the Constitution that gives the Federal Government the authority and power to re-write history, ram propaganda down our kids’ throats, withhold our money from states and schools who don’t tow the party line, and dictate who is allowed to teach our own children, not to mention dictating what they may be taught. Show me one thing in the Constitution, or for that matter, any other law, legal document, or official government policy, that gives some NEA lackey teacher the right to teach our kids and grandkids – and then require them – to sing songs in praise and adoration of Barack Obama. ”

“No. You say the word “tax” once more, without the words “elimination of” or “reduction in” included, and you’re going to find yourself in a whole lot of serious trouble. I’m not talking tea-bags here. I’m talking boatloads of ‘we’re sick of this.’ You want one more cent of my money, you may very well have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. That is, if there’s any left to take. Who knows, what little is left might have been spent on guns and bullets to defend myself from my own government.”

Never in my life did I ever imagine things would come to this, that I would feel so compelled to feel this distrustful of my own government. Don’t get my patriotism and love of my country confused with the government. Once, I suppose when I was growing up, and for several decades thereafter, one was identifiable with the other. Things have changed. You, my government, are the instigator of that change. I’m not the only American citizen who feels this way, you can bank on that. Now, you “reap the whirlwind”, as Billy the Kid would say. 

While we’re on the subject of bullets and guns, we might as well cover this also. How about, “No. We don’t fight wars to make our enemies like us. We fight them to win them and make our enemies fear us. It needs to be said. A civilian Commander-in-Chief is fine, and Constitutional, and right, but it’s the military man who is out there doing the fighting. We’re not going to have him doing it with his hands tied behind his back because the Commander-in-Chief lacks the courage and know-how to get the job done and worries more about the possibility of killing or hurting some “innocent civilian” than he does about our own troops. For every American soldier killed or wounded in battle, this Commander-in-Chief should be held personally accountable. His edict that our Marines and soldiers withdraw if there are civilians that can be hurt is ludicrous. Maybe he doesn’t know it, but terrorists are civilians, the Taliban is civilian, Al-Qaida is civilian. This business of running around bawling in self-righteousness and indignation every time some “innocent civilian” gets hurt or killed in some bullcrap display of concern for those “innocent civilians” is getting old real quick. If they weren’t out there growing poppies to make and sell heroin with, they wouldn’t get hurt. Tell ‘em to stay inside and quit protecting the people we’re after. Otherwise, they suffer the consequences. In the meantime, leave the war to be fought by better men who know what they’re doing and keep your Occidental - Columbia - Harvard, “paid for with American tax dollars” educated face out of it.” 

There’s a whole lot more I could say, but I think you get the point.

Look at history. Look at Rome. We have our modern day Ciceros, Catos, and Hortensius’s. They sound the alarms. Lord knows, the mainstream media doesn’t. What’s it going to take before the America people recognize the peril our Republic is facing from those jackals in Washington, D.C.?

Because right now, just as we have those others, we also have our modern day Caesars, Pompeys, Crassus’s, Sullas, and Clodius’s.  They have been placed in their positions of power through deceit, lies, ill-gotten money, and the ability to execute the biggest con job the world has ever seen.

The White House – our White House – is currently occupied by a narcissistic egomaniac who sees himself as a present day Gnaeus Pompeius. He’s supported by a mentally unstable Clodia Metelli who runs the House of Representatives like it’s her private club, and a lying thief who, like Marcus Licinius Crassus of ancient Rome, runs the Senate through intimidation and corruption. These people see you, the American public, in exactly the same way as those characters 2000 years ago saw the Roman public: as the great unwashed. You are not worthy to shine their shoes. You will be part of what they call a “health care plan” that not one single one of them will have anything to do with, much less allow to cover them and their own family.

If you don’t know who those ancient characters are, or the way they were, and you’re not exactly able to identify with my comparisons above, then you really need to buy and read this book. It’s guaranteed enlightenment. 

You want an Emperor? You want a Sulla? Keep sending your kids to the public school so they can sing praises to the world savior, Barack Hussein Obama. Let that man cajole and sweet talk you into anything he wants and just sit back so he can lord it over your life and that of your family. Serve him and his minions, wave palm branches as he passes by, and submit meekly when he snatches everything you own or hold dear. Nod your bobbing heads as he eradicates our country’s heritage, institutions, and God from living memory. He does, after all, know what’s best for you.

Otherwise, defend yourself against him and his plans for your future. Fight tooth and nail against the coming Empire. Preserve and protect the country and Constitution your forefathers fought and died for, bequeathing to you the greatest, most powerful land in the history of the world, packed with freedom and liberty and opportunity to be and do whatever your heart desires, created and sustained by the Great I AM, the Almighty God of the Universe.

When the end came for the Roman Republic, it came as a result of the conditioning of the Roman people. Like the frog in a pot of cool water, we, like they, are gradually becoming accustomed to the increase in temperature, and soon, we, like they, will be cooked and ready to serve up to whoever wants to devour us. Don’t let it happen America. When our end comes, it will do so suddenly and without our realizing it, just as it did in Rome of old.

There is only one way we can avoid it, and that way is to return to our roots, our foundation, the rock upon which we, as a nation, were built.

“Choose you this day whom you shall serve; as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)

Dear Senators and Representatives in Congress:

I am a retired veteran of the United States Air Force, having served for 22 years, 10 of which were as a Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. I was a ground radar technician and a personnel specialist. I conducted over 350 polygraph examinations as a certified Polygraph Examiner with the OSI. I testified in courts martial. I served on the DEW line in Alaska for a year on a mountaintop. During my career, I moved on the orders of my country ten times, uprooting my family and disrupting the lives of my wife and children. I initially joined the Air Force during the height of the war in Viet Nam, separated in 1971 for 22 months, and rejoined in 1973. I did this because during the time I was out, I felt an emptiness and sense of worthlessness because I didn’t feel I was doing much of anything for my country.

I tell you this because I feel it’s necessary to lay out some of my background in order to impress upon you that I am not some sort of whacko, conspiracy nut, or other derogatory term so casually applied by those who have political or other viewpoints contrary to my own.

Simply put, I am an American citizen. I believe strongly in the heritage of our country, our position in the eyes of the world, and our purported concepts of freedom, liberty, and justice for all. I am an avid supporter and believer in the Constitution of the United States as written and intended by the Founding Fathers of our country. I firmly believe it to be the supreme law of the land, and the document upon which our country was built.

The United States Congress – the House and the Senate – is on a path right now that is a dangerous and volatile precedent that will impact the future of our country and generations to come in such an adverse way that it will essentially nullify and render the Constitution a useless scrap of old parchment.

I am talking about this eligibility issue regarding Barack Obama. Frankly, I couldn’t care less, at least for the purposes of this letter, about where this man was born, or whether he is legally qualified to hold the office of the Presidency, or any of those other issues that are so important to so many people in reference to Obama’s competence and experience. 

My concern – my only concern – is that Constitution. I spent at least 22 years defending and protecting it in what small and insignificant ways I could. I swore an oath to it. I promised to die for it and what it stands for. That Constitution is the very lifeblood of our country and our society, despite what many might think. It is more important to me and to many others than any other single written document – short of the Holy Bible – in existence.

For at least 100 years, and probably longer, the Federal Government has violated, distorted, marginalized, and trivialized the provisions set down in the Constitution to such a degree that it is hardly recognizable as the “law of the land” anymore. Congress has passed laws relating to matters in which it has no constitutional business involving itself in, the Supreme Court and other Federal judges have made decisions – termed, naturally, “opinions”, as they should be termed – relating to matters of vital importance and national impact which have been construed and pronounced as “the law”, and thereby applied across the board in our society, without any legislative approval or action, and the Executive has taken upon itself the practice of making legislation through Executive Orders, creating departments, appointing unaccountable, unelected, uncontrollable, not to mention unscrupulous people to administer programs and other special projects that further intrude on the lives of the American people. We have agencies within the Federal government whose mere mention of their initials strikes fear and loathing in the hearts and minds of the public, other agencies whose ineptness and practices have become a source of jokes among the American public and a laughingstock in the eyes of the world for the bureaucratic and regulatory restrictions and mandates they have either self generated or had foisted on them by other self important bureaucracies.

But worst of all, and possibly as a direct result of all of the above, plus some, we have what is currently being viewed and perceived by the American people as an arrogance, an elitist mentality, and an “I – don’t – have – to – answer – or – account – to – you – commoners” attitude that is increasingly prevalent on the part of what used to be the “public servants” in the Federal government.

Nowhere, other than as pertains to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and the appropriate chambers over which they preside, is this attitude,  arrogance, and elitism more evident than as displayed by Barack Obama and the rest of his White House and Cabinet minions, in particular when it comes to this eligibility issue.

It is not a matter of where Obama was born, or when, or to whom, or whether his parents were citizens of the United States, or he had dual citizenship, or any of that drivel. None of that matters when one directs their attention to the real issue, the most important aspect of the whole argument, the one that nobody seems to be putting any emphasis on.

Our Constitution. Our rule of law. Our basis for existence as a free and sovereign nation. And whether it means anything or not.

I think it goes without saying that Barack Obama is not capable, in any way whatsoever, of competently exercising the incredibly awesome responsibilities of the Presidency of the United States. His Peter Principle began and reached its pinnacle with ACORN. His competence is not the issue. Nor are his politics, his beliefs, his policies, or his intentions in that office. Those things can be dealt with in other ways.

The issue is whether we are a nation of laws, and whether we have the will to adhere to those laws, rely on them as the basis for the order of our society, and believe in them as the foundation of our Republic. And all of that begins and ends with our Constitution, from the Preamble right down to the last word in the 27^th Amendment.

Do we follow what we have claimed to the world is the founding document of all our laws? Or do we disregard those parts of that document that we find inconvenient at any given point in time, depending on the situation? Does the Constitution apply in that respect in the same manner as the words of the Holy Bible? Is it an anachronism, a nice piece of literature to be pointed at when we want to brag to the world about how righteous we are, an outdated and inapplicable jumble of words that no longer has meaning in a modern world, written by a bunch of feeble minded old idealists, or is it the standard by which everything else we live by is measured when it comes to “the rule of law”?

If it is the latter, the standard, and is still applicable to our present day, then it needs to be applied, regardless of the circumstances, or how it will affect a major (or minor, depending on your viewpoint) segment of the population, or how it will look to the world. If nothing else, doing so will make it clear to the citizens of this country, and the rest of the world, that we mean what we say when it comes to calling ourselves a Constitutional Democratic Republic governed by the rule of law.

If it says in Article II, Section I of our Constitution that the President of the United States must be a natural born citizen – in the true intent of those words by the men who wrote them – and everyone knows exactly what that intent was, so let’s not play with it semantically – then by God, it’s the responsibility of the Congress and Supreme Court of the United States to ensure that the President of the United States is a natural born citizen. I would feel the same way if Newt Gingrich, or Sarah Palin or one of my own sons was elected President.

Anyone in a position of responsibility and leadership in the Federal government who says, with a wave of the hand, that they have seen the necessary proof of citizenship and know it’s valid because “Fact Check.org” or “Snopes.com” said so, and because Obama himself has said so, does not belong in that position and needs to get out before an enraged citizenry puts him/her out. This is especially important when there remains even a semblance of doubt as to the veracity of the document or the assertions of the subject of the document.  The necessary information must be produced, brought into the open, laid on the table. The matter has to be settled in the most expeditious and credible way it can be, without holding back, without reservations, without any doubt whatsoever. This business has to be put to bed. The only way to do it is to produce the necessary documentation for open, public examination. Failure to do so places our nation on a sure road to anarchy.

Then, and only then, can those who so desire mock, scorn, and attempt to make fools of those who want simply to ensure the Constitution, the rule of law, the supreme law of the land, the basis on which we exist as a sovereign and free nation, is being followed. 

It’s the Constitution. It’s the very document John McCain spent several years of his life being tortured for. It’s the very concept for which hundreds of thousands of men and women fought for, spilled their blood for, suffered for, and gave up their sacred lives for. It’s not a political issue, or a race issue, or a competency issue. It has nothing to do with what party is in power or what party wants power, or what color you are, or what religion you are, or whether you love or hate the United States as a country.

It’s the Constitution. If we’re going to say we live by it, and are governed by it, and are ready to defend it and die for it, then let’s do what we say and quit this tiptoeing around so that we don’t “offend” anyone, or make anyone feel bad, or appear “insensitive”. It’s not a matter of “reaching across the aisle”, or “bipartisanship”, or political correctness (which is the worst thing that has come down the pike in our history).

It’s the Constitution. You took an oath to preserve and defend it. You either meant it or you didn’t. If you didn’t, then shame on you. If you did, then do what you know is right, and good, and equitable, and truthful, and principled. For once.

Demand the document(s). Get the truth. Stifle the arrogance and contempt with which this administration addresses the people of this nation. Take courage, and persevere. You will have the backing of a lot more people than you can imagine. You will either make history, or you will let history make you. My grandchildren, your grandchildren, the multitude of generations of Americans in the future, and the survival of our Republic as a free and just nation is depending on it. Inaction on your part, judging from the current mood of a vast majority of the people in this country, could very well lead to consequences you don’t even want to think about. If it is discovered later, after irreparable harm is done to this nation and its people, that this man in the White House has defrauded the American public and you did nothing about it when you had the opportunity, I can assure you, you will face wrath the likes of which will be unbelievable.

Next,  all you need to do (aside from what the main body of this letter is about) is to vigorously oppose any form of government health plan and vote NO” on that horrendous cap – and – trade bill. You stand in the gate, the real Americans in Congress who know the terrible damage that both of those bills will do to the people.

Keep us free. Do your job. Preserve this nation and its Constitution. It’s what we sent you there to do.