Opus 2017-024: Foundations of Transition

The left was calling for insurrection.  They were openly hoping for the assassination of Donald Trump.  Students in my classes still openly talk about killing the president.  The media called rioting and looting “demonstrations”.  The violent left was on the move.  In spite of that the inauguration went proceeded and there were no major issues.  Why are we able to have such peaceful transitions?

Those of us on the right are used to the childish nonsense but I, for one, live in an awareness that all it will take is one progressive leader to declare a state of emergency and try to stay in power.  Every time a Democrat president has come to the end of his reign I have heard the speculation.  We keep hearing about how certain presidents are going to create a crisis and refuse to leave.  It hasn’t happened yet.  We still have certain traditions in our culture that make it unlikely for a few more years.

As Americans we don’t endorse the concept of a king.  If we had a king then we might have a revolution.  Would you really have put up with King Obama for the rest of your life?  Would the left have put up with King Ronald or George II.  I doubt it.  Instead we say we can wait four years for a change and go back to work organizing.  The snowflakes in the street are wanting a king but that is because they think he will take care of them.

Democratic forms of government are based on the mature attitude of delayed gratification.  That is based on the Christian balance of respect for authority and trust in God.  This is eroding as the influence of Christian values are driven out of the square.  How long will the old traditions continue if the people do not embrace the source of that tradition?

Our military swears to uphold and protect the Constitution not the president.  In order for a president to sidestep the 22nd Amendment he would need to get a sizable portion of the military to ignore the clear words of “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”.  So far there have been no rumblings of that.

We still have the Second Amendment.  This had a reason and it wasn’t so people could go hunting.

"During the early years of the Republic, the internal military threat against which a citizen army was supposed to stand guard was a military coup against constitutional government."  Russel F. Weigley, History of the United States Army.  Macmillan, 1967, p. xii.

The Democrats are doing everything they can to gut this part of the Constitution.  They keep chipping away at it.  So far it is still in force.  How long depends on whether we keep voting in people who believe in limited government.

So we seem to have made it through another transition.  I hope to see many more.  That will depend on whether we keep deserving the government we deserve.

homo unius libri