alt.education

Dedicated Conservatives, we could join the chorus of jackals, barking
at the problems of the very "Liberal" New York Governor; but all of
the hoopla misses the essential point: Governor Spitzer's sex life is
none of our business; really none of our interest. His Left of center
politics are the problem of the people of New York, of course, but we
are Ohioans; so that too, is really not our problem.

The missed point in all of this is this. The Mann Act was one of the
early results of a growing corruption in Washington; a growing
avoidance rather than adherence to our written Constitution. That
a well known "Liberal" would be unhorsed by the Mann Act gives us
no joy--none whatsoever. The issue is not Elliot Spitzer, but a
decline in the political morals of the American Government--as
evidenced not in Spitzer's immediate extravagant folly--but in the
very legislative vehicle that has brought him down. Those who
frequent the Return Of The Gods Web Site, may already be familiar
with the following quote from an article that Senator James A. Reed
wrote for H. L. Mencken in 1925. For those who are not familiar
with the piece--one of our favorite posts--here is how Reed described
the essential problem:

"Truth to tell, Washington has become the universal Mecca of human
freaks. To that city protagonists of vagaries gravitate by all known
routes, some by election, some by appointment, and some by "divine
command." The great majority, however, merely follow noses that
itch for the business of others. There they bed and breed. They
haunt the corridors of the public buildings, crowd into the offices
of congressmen, and insist upon displaying their fantastic and
sometimes loathsome wares. Consumed by passion for
experimentation, they regard the public corpus as a legitimate subject
for ceaseless exploratory operations and clinical vivisection.

"To this array of freaks, the Constitution is not a bulwark of liberty
but a shackle upon progress which they hold in contemptuous
disregard. Congress itself is full of men who do not think of the
Constitution save as an obstacle to their desires. They study it only
to devise some plan for its circumvention. There is no subterfuge
they will not employ, no deceit to which they will not resort, if
peradventure the limitations imposed by the Constitution may be
cheated.

"A favorite device is, by a false recital of the real objects of a bill,
to bring it apparently under some specific power granted to the
federal government. Witness:

"The Mann Act which, pretending to be an exercise of authority to
regulate commerce between the States, in fact sought to regulate
commerce between the sexes."

Reed went on to list other examples of his point. But the above
excerpt will make our point.

The purpose of this post, again, is not to rub salt in anyone's
wounds. Our hope is that the present fall out will yet prove a
wakeup call to some who have been willing to go along with such
subterfuges in the past. Even as the French Revolution devoured
its protagonists, the corruption of our own Government devours
some of those whom one might least expect.

William Flax
http://pages.prodigy.net/krtq73aa
[Return Of The Gods Web Site--Your Resource In Defense Of The American
Tradition]