By Rick Manning
Peter Frampton once asked in a time not too long ago, “Do you feel like we do?” While the context of this song that led the Frampton Comes Alive climb up the charts is different, it is a question that I often find myself wondering.
A guy who I know from my short time as House leadership staff back in 1999, asked in a Facebook response to an article I wrote for FoxNews.com on March 3 in the aftermath of Speaker Boehner’s capitulation on the executive amnesty funding issue if I was delusional for thinking the House should fight the issue.
I chose not to reply because sometimes it is best to tame the tongue (or in this case, the keyboard).
Now with a few weeks of retrospection, I will answer. No, I’m not.
It is not delusional to expect elected officials to keep their word. When a politician says they will fight tooth and nail for something, it is reasonable to expect that they will.
It is not delusional to expect an elected official who put his or her hand on a Bible and swore an oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States to do that.
And it is not delusional to expect elected officials to assert their own constitutional authority in a dispute with the executive branch.
However, what would be delusional would be to continue to hold out hope that this Congress would do any of the three things enumerated above.
Do you feel like I do?
For this reason, I am going to focus upon what this Congress can do based upon the real-life conditions up on the Hill.
It is reasonable to think that this Congress can play small ball, pushing amendments to appropriations bills that tie the Administration’s hands as Obama rushes to finish his mission to collapse America’s heritage of individual freedom.
It is reasonable to believe that this Congress can limit spending increases rather than pass budget-busting measures, such as the $140 billion doc fix deal, that institutionalize Obama’s growth of government as having bipartisan support.
And it is reasonable to expect that elected officials and the candidates for President can tell the public the truth about how they would fix this mess created by the past six years of government expansion not seen since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.
This should not be viewed as giving up on demanding that our elected officials stand up for freedom, I just won’t expect them to hold the line when the chips are down.
It is every freedom-loving American’s job to hold their elected representatives accountable and to provide them the political spine so it takes an act of betrayal to oppose individual liberty.
I won’t expect these elected officials to use every power at their disposal to fight tyranny, sadly, but instead will continue to do my darnedest to expose the fights that should be fought and spotlight those who are lions for freedom and those who lie down like lambs.
America deserves men and women in Congress whose first response will be to defend liberty, the God-given inalienable rights that are enumerated in the Constitution, and the constitutional separation of powers.
The task over the next eighteen months is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and elect those who can honestly quote Barry Goldwater saying, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
The only two questions that remains are, is this an impossible dream and do you feel like I do?
The author is president of Americans for Limited Government.
