Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, july 5, 2022, by devadmin
The violence and riotous uprisings over the US Supreme Court’s most recent opinions illustrates a troubling misunderstanding with regard to constitutional precedence, lawful authority and freedom. Our U.S. Constitution exists to limit power. It does not exist in order to organize the usurpation, or concentration, of power. The Constitution exists to distribute power; it does not exist to accumulate or consolidate power. Self-government of the respective States and their supremacy over the Federal government is the Rubicon of Jeffersonian republicanism.
The recent DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION, Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) opinion, is a perfect example of returning to local control under Federalism. The opinion clarifies,
“Our decision returns the issue of abortion to [state] legislative bodies, and it allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office.”
This fits nicely with the Jeffersonian view, “It is not by the consolidation, or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution, that good government is effected.”
Yet, the Democrat majority, in Oregon and other states, found themselves whipping up frenzied outrage at the SCOTUS opinion. This move is uncannily similar to the days of 1776, when a British observer in London wrote,
“Ministerial Hacks were immediately set to work to fabricate Lies (and publish them in the Newspaper) to delude and deceive the Electors; that little or no Opposition might be made to the Tools of Government. By these low Artifices and ministerial Lies, the People of England were lulled into a State of Supineness, and even made to lend a helping Hand to complete their OWN RUIN.”
To illustrate let me present several examples of Oregon Democrats trying to stoke and fuel outrage. Shown below are several contradictory statements, starting with an outrageous claim followed by a more accurate statement. No doubt this style was used in the hopes that people won’t read past the headline or first paragraph. Each pair of these samples come from separate Democrat Press Releases, (emphasis added.)
So, which is it? Does this SCOTUS opinion strip power from Oregon, or not? Was the violence during the recent Night of Rage appropriate? Is this outrage about women’s reproductive health, or something else – like a bigger culture war? Can the leftist-Democrats or any post-modern supreme court justices even define the word ‘woman’?
What values will be imparted to our children and grandchildren if our warranted fear of the “cancel culture mob” and their violent reactions force Oregonians, who still cherish traditional Judeo/Christian values, to be bullied into silence, or self-censorship?
Electoral integrity is paramount because our federal constitution leaves most decisions in the hands of the people and their local state governments. The SCOTUS opinion stresses that local citizens should, “seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office.” Each of us has a right to direct our own futures at the local level.
Per the Bill of Rights, or the first ten amendments to the Constitution, we read:
• Amendment No. 9 – The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
• Amendment No. 10 – The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
We should not focus on federal rule, brute force, or even, majority rule, other than with regard to a restraint on government. We ought to think about our freedom, our lives, our liberty and each of us seeking our own just pursuits. This is the stunningly clear focus of our founding document – “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.”
Our constitutional perspective ought to be about the preservation of our human and inalienable rights as codified in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. Period.
In a draft for the Kentucky Resolutions (1798), Jefferson wrote,
“It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights… Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. …
“Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go… In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
Unfortunately, Oregonians have been living under a legislative body that has a distorted vision of what the rule of law is supposed to be. In their zeal to control they have pushed our state further into an anti-science, irrational and illogical world of fake-issues and fake news.
Americans have inherited a birthright. This is why we celebrate Independence Day (not the “4th of July”). We have the right to live in freedom and to establish a moral order that protects the unborn and minorities while judiciously adhering to our longstanding constitutional order. We can do this by working “to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office.”
We must stand firm in using our long history of traditional wisdom and moral values to restore order, prevent societal decay and, “secure the Blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our Posterity.”
If we don’t stand for rural Oregon Values and common-sense… No one will!
Regards,
Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28