At the Twilight's Last Gleaming: The Honduran army PREVENTED a coup, but don’t hold your breath waiting for Obama to admit it

June 30, 2009

The Honduran army PREVENTED a coup, but don’t hold your breath waiting for Obama to admit it

If a coup is defined as an illegal seizure of power, then the Honduran army didn’t stage a coup this past weekend, it prevented one. Every action taken to stop President Zelaya from proceeding with his illegal referendum was done in accordance with the Honduran constitution.

Read this WSJ article from Monday for some background information.

Zelaya was looking to remove the constitutional limits on his retention of power (following in the footsteps of his buddy Hugo Chavez), but the national Congress refused to call an election to put the constitutional amendment to a vote by the people.

Despite the fact that only the legislature could call such an election, Zelaya determined to move forward anyway. The president even whipped up a mob to storm the military installation where the ballots (printed by Venezuela) were stored.

The Supreme Court and the Attorney General – completely within the boundaries of their constitutional power – ordered Zelaya to stand down, but he refused.

It was because of Zelaya’s criminal actions that he was arrested on Sunday morning by troops acting on the orders of the Supreme Court – again, all within the boundaries of their constitutional power.

In light of the foregoing facts, it would be absurd to accuse the military of staging a coup, but the Obama administration has joined the chorus of those making just such an accusation.

I am not at all surprised that Obama would take the side of those who despise the rule of law. His administration has been doing that very thing in our country over the past 5+ months.

UPDATE: The WaPo opines that the Obama administration should continue to push for Zelaya's reinstatement, but adds that the administration should also be bold enough to confront the antidemocratic forces spreading like a cancer throughout Latin America (in Venezuela and Nicaragua, for example) that emboldened Zelaya in the first place.

WaPo seems to imply that confronting the Marxists would be out of character for Obama, and with that sentiment I heartily agree.

(Map credit: geology.com)

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What Happened to C-Pol?

For over a decade, this blog was called "C-POL: Constitutionalist, Conservative Politics". Over time, my deep-thought ponderings have been moving away from the rough-and-tumble of everyday political wrangling and toward the larger philosophical, ideological, and cultural currents of our age.

I've changed the title of the blog to highlight my conviction that the "fundamental transformation" (to adapt President Obama's phrase) of the United States that's currently underway is, in the long run, bad not only for this country but for the world in general.

Scoff if you must; I'm okay with that. I aim to make my case as time goes on. I'm okay with being on the "wrong side of history" if I'm actually right.

Why our country is where it is

As I have traveled across the country, I have been astounded just how many of our fellow citizens feel strongly about their constitutional rights but have no idea what they are, or for that matter, what the Constitution says. I am not suggesting that they become Constitutional scholars -- whatever that means. I am suggesting, however, that if one feels strongly about his or her rights, it does make sense to know generally what the Constitution says about them. It is at least as easy to understand as a cell phone contract -- and vastly more important.

-- Clarence Thomas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, October 16, 2008 speech

The U.S. is not a democracy!

Q. If we are not a democracy, why are our officials elected by a majority of the people, and why are our laws passed by a majority of the lawmakers?

A. We are not a democracy because both the people and the lawmakers are limited by the fundamental law of the land, our written Constitution. Election by the people is not a grant of power beyond the constitutional limits of the office. A representative government limited by law is a republic, not a democracy. In a republic a majority of the people cannot vote away their own rights, or the rights of others -- unless ... unless they step outside the Constitution.

-- Preserve The Constitution, By Don Fotheringham (October, 1995)

The Cancer of Democracy

Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome.

— Lazarus Long, in Robert Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset

At the Twilight's Last Gleaming

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June 30, 2009

The Honduran army PREVENTED a coup, but don’t hold your breath waiting for Obama to admit it

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