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Letters - Rep. Perriello doesn't get it; the Great Divide |
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Wednesday, 24 February 2010 17:36 |
What Perriello doesn’t seem to get is that in January 2009 he took an oath of office swearing to uphold and defend the Constitution.
That includes making sure laws are constitutional. But a year later he tells a constituent that Congress doesn’t have to follow the Constitution.
He says essentially that Congress can do whatever it wants unless the Supreme Court tells it not to. That should frighten every freedom-loving person.
Perriello doesn’t understand the Constitution limits government power, and that Congress is bound by it.
But the people of the Fifth District do. And we will hold Perriello accountable on Election Day for his wrong understanding.
Edward W. Clark, Jr.
Blue Ridge, VA
The Great Divide
Editor:
We keep hearing about the rise in partisan politics and how one party or the other is dividing this country. But there has always been partisan politics since the very beginning of our nation, so what makes it any different now?
Consider that during George Washington's first administration, the Jeffersonian Republicans favored strong state governments but Jefferson also stressed individual rights. The Federalist Party led by Alexander Hamilton supported a strong federal government, but also favored pro-business policies.
What we ended up with as the consensus and guide was The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
In other words, they may not have always been on the same page, but they were in the same book.
Today's partisan standoff has been heating up since the last century. It is a new line in the sand between the Conservative constitutionalism of our past and the socialism being advanced in the present by the Progressives and Marxist ideology.
In other words, they're not only on a different page, but not even in the same book!
You can certainly hope to achieve civility and compromise in the first case, but not in the second. It's a clear choice between one manifesto or the other; they cannot mutually survive in the same government. So people shouldn't fool themselves. The increasing political division is not only unavoidable, it is necessary.
We must get decisively back to the same book, the one that both Hamilton and Jefferson could find common ground within. Then we will find more common ground.
Ira White
Portsmouth VA
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Letters To The Editor 