Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Dr. William Scott

During the early part of the Cold War years (’50s and ’60s), Nikita Khrushchev uttered, “If you don’t like us, don’t accept our invitations and don’t invite us to come to see you. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!” This, ‘We will bury you’ was said in a send-off reception of Poland’s Wladyslaw Gomulka in Moscow. It concluded by saying that “…we Leninists are convinced that our social order, socialism, will in the long run conquer capitalism. Such is the logic of the historical development of mankind.”

Ambassador Henry Cabin Lodge II, responded, “The words which Khrushchev said — we will bury you — are the fruit of idle talk by those who are instructed to handicap the improvement of Soviet-American relations.”

Let’s wait to see how historical development will respond!

Since the inception of this country, and its final victory, our ideological principles of equality and freedom have always been at the forefront of our government, even though these ideals were slow in gaining traction. Freedom and equality require strength and force to gain it and to keep it.

The American revolution was fought to gain freedom from Great Britain and the feudal/mercantile/caste system headed by that monarchy. In our declaration of independence, we listed 27 colonial grievances against King George III asserting certain natural and legal rights, including a right of revolution. As Thomas Jefferson stated in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

[U.S. President Abraham] Lincoln made this single sentence the hallmark of his political philosophy as he asserted that it is a statement of principle through which this country and its constitution should and must be interpreted.

And it is the very Constitution of these United States that is in danger. Our form of government is in grave danger as the impeachment of President Donald Trump has highlighted. Our founding fathers formed this government with three co-equal branches (separation of powers). Each with the power to check the “unconstitutional behavior” of the other. This is called abuse of power. The process of dealing with it is impeachment! If that process is abused, then we lapse into kingship, or dictatorship, or oligarchy or ochlocracy (mob rule).

On the conservative side of the ledger, there are those who say that the founders did not create three co-equal branches of government, but apportioned them according to their functionality: Executive – 12 powers; Legislative – 48 powers; Judicial – three powers. This data is dependent on James Madison and the Federalist papers 51. Since the legislative branch retained the most powers, it had to be divided into two branches (the upper branch called the senate and the lower branch called the house of representatives). Though these views appear correct with respect to the senate and the house and the proportion allocated to each, [they] in no way create the so-called “myth of the three separate and co-equal branches of government.” If we don’t challenge this misinformation — dis-information — of what our founding fathers actually intended, then we start the short journey towards kingship, or dictatorship, or oligarchy, or ochlocracy (mob rule). The senate has started the journey for us by not allowing all the information from key witnesses to come out at the impeachment trial!

We didn’t pay attention to Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State, when she said to be careful and watchful of fascism. We have arrived, because the upper chamber of the United States Congress (the Senate) refused to function according to its legal constitutional right to judge fairly the impeachment process offer by the lower chamber (the House of Representatives). Judging simply means to follow well establish evidence that supported the judgment of the House of Representatives by gathering all the facts germane to the impeachment activity — 75 percent of the citizens of this country wanted that to happen.

Seems we are nearing ochlocracy, because the upper chamber Senators are scared, personally scared of what possibly may happen to them or their family members or both. It also seems the “Mob Godfather” and his thugs has offered them a deal they can’t refuse!

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who is running his ochlocracy/oligarch-led government with his brand of thugs, is basking in the ’50s and ’60s Cold War Nikita Khrushchev’s fake assumption/assumed victory. Though he has a powerful United States quisling on his team, we are not giving up on 245 years of our brand of government.

DR. WILLIAM SCOTT is a guest columnist for The Tidewater News. He can be reached at garwhit2@charter.net.