The Constitution Is A Maze

Congressmen Chasing the Cheese in the Maze that is the Constitution

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “What does impeachment entail?  Why is the impeachment clause in the Constitution?  That’s the first thing we have to ascertain.  There are already clauses in the Constitution that would allow the Congress in the new general government to deal with those that were violating law.  In other words, the rule of law is firmly established in parts of the Constitution.  So if someone is in violation of said law, then you prosecute them as having broken the law.”  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  I wonder what is entailed in the very abstract we will be forced to use the tools afforded to Congress by the Constitution to stop your administration from successfully carrying out your plan.  Ladies and gentlemen, on this show we have pondered the concept of impeachment on several different occasions.  If you’re a new listener, you’re going to hear things in the next ten minutes that you’ve never heard before.  You’re instantly going to reject them.  You’re going to call me a charlatan, a hick, a hayseed, a liar, [mocking] “You’re disagreeing with the great one?”  Now, I’m going to give you the historical point of view as the understanding would have been handed down from the framers and those that lived under the Constitution and from those that ratified it.  Your talk radio mafia and television news heroes have misled you, in other words.

What does impeachment entail?  Why is the impeachment clause in the Constitution?  That’s the first thing we have to ascertain.

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There are already clauses in the Constitution that would allow the Congress in the new general government to deal with those that were violating law.  In other words, the rule of law is firmly established in parts of the Constitution.  So if someone is in violation of said law, then you prosecute them as having broken the law.

The Constitution, though, is not one of those laws.  You must understand this.  The Constitution is a plan of government.  It’s not a law.  It sets up rules.  Just think of it as a maze that a rat runs around in trying to find cheese.  Members of Congress, judges, and the president are the rats.  There are walls that are put up and they can’t get outside the walls.  They still have to find the cheese in the maze, but the walls are there for a purpose.  The walls keep them in the maze.  They operate inside the maze in search of the cheese.  Got it?

Laws come from inside the walls of the maze where the rat searches for the cheese.  They emanate from it and then they are promulgated or administered to and then executed on those that have sworn an allegiance or have agreed to be bound by them.  But the Constitution — this is where many of you people misunderstand — is not law.  It is principle, it is guidance.  Just think of it as guardrails.

There are some laws in the Constitution, very few.  There’s the treason law.  There’s the habeas corpus law.  There may be another instance that I’m not seeing.  You should get the point; the Constitution is not law.  Drop the silliness, [mocking] “We’ll all get a class action lawsuit together and we’ll sue Obama.  He’s violating the Constitution.  He’s violating the law.”  The Constitution is the framework for writing laws.  It’s not the law.  It has ultimate authority saying the kind of laws you can write but it’s not law.  I hope that makes sense.  I realize that may shock some of you.  Again, you have been misled your entire adult lives.  It’s my job to undo the misleading.

Let’s deal then with the impeachment clause.  Why was the impeachment clause put in there?  Number one, it doesn’t have anything to do with violating laws.  It has to do with — again, your rat in the maze.  The walls of the maze are there.  The walls are immovable unless you have this thing called an amendment.  You can’t move the walls.  When some of the rats in the maze somehow illegally smuggle in a bulldozer, a wrecking ball, or a sledgehammer and start whacking at the walls in order to knock them down, what are they damaging?  They’re not damaging law; they’re damaging the Constitution.  They’re damaging the institution of the presidency, the judiciary, or the legislature.  In other words, they’re committing what would have been called in those days a high crime and misdemeanor.  They are bringing ill repute to the maze.  This is what you need to know.  They are bringing ill repute.  Here’s an old word that’s only used in Roman Catholic circles these days, but I’ll resurrect it.  It used to be used in the days of the founders.  They are bringing calumny to the system of government, the plan of government known as the Constitution.  Here’s the question that must be asked.

Here’s the question that must be asked in an impeachment: Will the president bring calumny?  Is he going to damage, by his actions, the Constitution, the system and plan of government?  Well, there is a separation of powers issues here.  I think it’s undeniable that he’s going to damage by this the Constitution, the plan of government.  So then, impeachment is the rightful remedy.  Repeat after me: Impeachment is the rightful remedy, not lawsuits, not hauling him off to court, although a state may choose to have the Article III judiciary power invoked to settle a dispute, as Governor Perry is saying he may seek in Texas.  I think that is a ridiculous maneuver to ask the federal government to settle a dispute over one of its powers being executed.  The state in this instance needs to take unilateral action.  It just needs to say: How about no?  You can write all the executive orders you want; we’re not going to obey them.  We’re not going to allow them to be enforced in this state.

Impeachment is the rightful remedy.  In order to facilitate this, and so that you’ll understand this — I’m also speaking to some of our friends out there that are members of Congress.  You need to understand this.  You need to understand what your responsibility is.  You took an oath, too.  The president is not the only one that took an oath; you did, so this is now on you.  Yes, you can threaten him with the power of the purse.  That’s fine.  He’s causing damage to the system of government, the Constitution.  In the office of the executive, impeachment is thus the rightful remedy.

So to facilitate this understanding, I found last night the most wonderful essay.  It is called “Citizens’ Guide to Impeachment of a President: Problem Areas,” written by a Dominican professor at Catholic University.  [mocking] “Oh, there he goes again.”  Just ignore the pedigree.  It doesn’t matter.  Let me just assure you that Albert Broderick, the author, does not mention the pope.  This was written at the time when Richard Nixon was going to be impeached, and that’s why Professor Broderick undertook the task.  It’s a wonderful essay.  I’ll tell you where you can find it.  If you’re a Founders Pass member at MikeChurch.com, click on the Prep Better tab under the Pile of Prep.  It is the top story and linked to the PDF files there.  You can download it and either read it online or print it out.

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Professor Broderick covers impeachment, what it meant, what high crimes and misdemeanors meant at the time of the Constitution being drafted.  I’ll read some of it to you so we can gather a complete understanding of this.  In the beginning of the essay we find: “Impeachable Offenses—The Constitution Parameters”:

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Our legal system has standard methods of determining the meaning of statutes. [Mike: By the way, this is written for the layperson. It’s not written for scholars; it’s written for the layperson to understand impeachment. That means you and me.] “…But where doubt arises, the court turns to the legislative history and the official statements of the authors or sponsors, either in conference or committee reports or, less reliably, in legislative debates in the course of enactment.”

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If doubt still exists, or perhaps to buttress conclusions already reached, the court may turn to contemporaneous extra-parliamentary interpretation of the authors or sponsors or of the officials whose task has been to administer the statute. The Constitution is, of course, a form of statutory enactment, the prime statute by which all laws and decisions are measured. [Mike: As I said, it’s not a law; it helps to make law.]

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End Mike Church Show Transcript