It will be no surprise to the half dozen regular readers of posts hereon (who prove by their persistence not so much loyalty as a complete lack of any other use of their valuable rod and cone time) that the Colonel is, among other things that set most folks' teeth on edge, an unapologetic proponent of a revival of the strategic movement that is the second most important reason for our Republic's greatness.
The first most important reason for our Republic's greatness is, of course, the remarkable form of limited government, with expansive protections of individual and state rights, guaranteed by our Constitution.
The second most important reason for our Republic's greatness, and the spiritual renewal for which the Colonel calls, is expansion.
Expansion is as much a spiritual concept as it is a physical requirement for greatness.
Were our ancestors as timid and cowed by tyrannical governments as we -- more concerned about what the dictatorially bureaucratic few allow than by what the God-given rights of man demand -- the United States of America would never have become the greatest nation the world has ever seen (the Colonel has seen most of the other candidates for that laurel either personally or by historical study and can easily attest to our Republic's place at the top of the list). Had 18th Century Americans obeyed the restrictive dictates of a distant king, they would have remained huddled behind the Alleghenies. They would have exhausted the resources on the Eastern Seaboard and then stunted both physically and spiritually.
Our ancestors did not remain huddled behind the Alleghenies. In fact, well before they officially declared independence, they openly disobeyed that distant king's royal decree that they remain so huddled and headed west. They crossed the physical wall of the Alleghenies -- free rangers determined to live free and prosper.
Funny thing about freedom -- it breeds a desire for more of it. Once a man shakes off the shackles of fear of the unknown, declares his independence of the bureaucratic boundaries imposed upon him by other men, and claims his God-given birthrights of life, liberty, and property, he becomes a truly FREE man.
Free men don't depend on government for their bread. Free men collectively agree to limited government in order to provide a level economic playing field, infrastructure, and liberty to earn their bread.
Free men collectively agree to maintain a common defense against entities that would restrict their freedom.
Another funny thing about freedom -- it breeds a desire to share it with others. Liberty loves company more than misery does. A company of free men may share hardship and deprivation, but they will never count it as miserable. This old Marine infantryman knows a little about voluntary shared hardship and deprivation and he retains only the fond memories of free men toiling to maintain freedom for their families and countrymen, and toiling to secure the freedom of others whose tyrannical governments deny it. In that there is no real misery.
Today our Republic is embroiled in the myopic inward-focused politics of grasping for a larger slice of the power pie. It's what happens to all empires when they cease expansion. An inward focused empire erects walls to protect the power pie. One power-seeking political faction builds outward-facing walls to maintain the power status quo ("we got ours; get your own"). Another power-seeking political faction builds internal walls to restrict individual freedom ("you got too much; you gotta share it").
When a nation thinks there's only one pie -- forgets or forsakes the ingredients for baking more pies -- it loses the spirit of liberty. Our nation has lost the spirit of liberty.
When the greatest nation on the planet loses the spirit of liberty, the rest of the world suffers. The greatest gift a free people give to another people is the ingredients to the freedom pie. We've forsaken the ingredients for our own unrestricted freedom pie bakery, and worst still, are refusing to share it with others.
What our nation needs is a return to the ideal that liberty loves company.
That's why the Colonel is an unapologetic American Expansionist. He believes, without a shadow of a doubt in his military mind, that the American form of government is the greatest, most liberty-protecting, freedom pie baking form of government the world has ever seen. He believed that fervently in the halcyon days of his young adulthood when he swore a solemn oath backed by his very life to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic." That fervor has only grown with time, and he is no less bound by that oath today than he was at 18.
The Colonel believes with every fiber of his being that our Republic must continue to expand if it wants to endure.
There's a very good reason, the Colonel believes, that the founders of our Republic did not choose to name the new nation rising from the spiritual revival of liberty, the United States of North America. There was no intent to restrict the blessings of liberty. Certainly not to the eastern seaboard of the North American continent. Frankly, there was no intent to withhold the blessings of liberty guaranteed by the Constitution to anyone, anywhere.
Article IV, Section 3.1 of the Constitution of the United States, ratified by the original 13 States, specifically foresees the expansion of the Republic -- with only internal limitation as to geographic location:
"New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress."
States have been Constitutionally admitted to the union of the original 13 States that were physically separated from the then-contiguous states of the Union -- California, Hawaii, and Alaska, for example.
Other sovereign nations have been Constitutionally admitted to the Union as states -- Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii.
Most of the current states Constitutionally admitted to the United States subsequent to the original 13 were people living in territories claimed by the United States as a result of occupation following hostilities with other nations -- France, Great Britain, Spain, etc. The United States still possesses territories liberated and seized as a result of hostilities with Spain -- Guam, American Samoa, and Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific; and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean -- all of which could Constitutionally be admitted as states.
Parenthetically, the Colonel believes that no such Constitutional right of statehood belongs to the District of Columbia, as Article I, Section 8.17 of the Constitution makes clear: "The Congress shall have Power To… exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States…" Indeed, Madison, the chief architect of the Constitution, wrote in the Federalist #43 that,
"The indispensable necessity of compleat authority at the seat of Government carries its own evidence with it. It is a power exercised by every Legislature of the Union, I might say of the world, by virtue of its general supremacy. Without it, not only the public authority might be insulted and its proceedings be interrupted, with impunity; but a dependence of the members of the general Government, on the State comprehending the seat of the Government for protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonorable to the Government, and dissatisfactory to the other members of the confederacy."
So, no statehood for the federal District of Columbia.
Statehood, then, for the other U.S. territories if they so desire? The Colonel says, unequivocally, YES! And, by logical extension, statehood for future territories in the Americas, or elsewhere, liberated from tyrannical governments unable or unwilling to guarantee their suffering citizens their God-given rights of life, liberty, and property.
Our Republic was not founded to be static -- neither physically nor spiritually. Liberty loves company. Loving your fellow man means sharing the ingredients of the liberty pie with him. The Colonel knows of no other constitution in the world that produces a liberty pie as sweet as the one to which he has pledged his own sacred honor.
What is the logical, honorable extension of the Colonel's argument?
Expansion of the Republic. We're not the United States of North America. From the Hudson Bay to Tierra del Fuego, we should be the United States of America!
1 comment:
Very well stated sir!
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