Greatly Troubled

January 15, 2009

Dear Senators Shelby, Sessions and Representative Aderholt,
I am greatly troubled by the direction our country has taken and those plotting the course. If America is the "country of the people, by the people, for the people" that Lincoln described at Gettysburg, then why didn't "the people" have "standing" to view, question and determine the validity of documentation and the qualifications of anyone aspiring to govern them before this recent tidal wave of financial and political dishonesty swept over this country and left the damning details buried under a layer of muck? I am further disturbed that the "republican loyal opposition" has surrendered and not bothered to unravel the webs of deceit to get at the truth.

I find no constitutional requirement for political parties, congress, the states or the administration to verify a candidate’s qualifications. It appears this is one of the tasks to be done by the people. For it to be otherwise opens the door to chicanery and tyranny. For the Supreme Court to rule that a citizen has no standing to demand a candidate prove he meets the constitutional requirements for the highest office in the land adds yet another layer to infamy. I don’t recall the decision specifying just who has the responsibility if not the people. Is the electorate obliged to take the word of a liar as proof of eligibility?

The near total disregard for federal statute that seems pandemic in the democrat congress at this time has utterly destroyed their credibility and my respect for that institution. It seems steamroller legislation and in-your-face lawlessness is the order of the day. Must honest citizens just sit down and shut up while the government of the congress, by the congress, for the congress makes a mockery of justice, shreds the Constitution and empties private bank and savings accounts to preserve the political power of the democrat legislature, reward its bankers and plaster over its glaring failures? Is that what our founding fathers would have done, just let lawlessness run unchecked, accept injustice as beyond our control and turn our faces away from political dishonesty and chicanery? Is it? Would they have ceded America to liars, scofflaws, cheats, self preservationists and thieves? There must be no mirrors in Washington DC. I cannot fathom how many in the current administration and anyone taking any office in the coming administration can look themselves in the face after swearing to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”.

We once fought a bloody war to force the King of England to recognize our rights as free men. We fought another even bloodier war among ourselves to establish the supremacy of God given rights over state’s rights. Have we learned nothing from those conflicts? Must we fight yet another devastating civil war to reestablish the superiority of the electorate over government and reset the limits of government to those which existed at the birth of this nation? Must it be as Thomas Jefferson has said:

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.
...And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

I pray God it isn’t so. If it is, we are more than a century and a half over due and the reckoning will be horrifying. Surely there is another way.

I look to you for leadership. Tell me what I must do to return honesty, decency and lawful, ethical behavior to Congress. What must I do to remove the power of the press and elected officials to destroy with impunity any opposition by lie and innuendo that forever sullies a reputation? What are my options to ensure blatant congressional lawbreakers are investigated, indicted, tried and jailed and not just those members not in power? What can I do to get Congress to abide by the Constitution that I am honor bound to support and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic? I need specific answers, gentlemen, not empty words or platitudes.

Sincerely,

William S. Fortner