What do you call it when one government tries to kill the leaders of another government?
You call that War.
War is not unfamiliar to us humans. Our history is saturated in war. War is our heritage. Every single person alive today has a family tree full of badass warriors who didn't die for their country but instead made the other guy die for his country.
Historians will tell you how we can take our warfare instinct too far. How it can get out of control. How a nation can be bankrupted by constant conflict. How the long term consequences of crippled young men can harm the economy. How blood feuds can cause untold misery, death, and suffering for decades and centuries to come.
So at the outset of this great experiment in constitutional democracy, at the founding of the United State of America, we wrote it very plain in the rules how wars would be started and waged in this nation.
[The Congress shall have Power...] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution
This is a pretty good fix for the kinds of wars that the founders were seeing. It's short and to the point.
No longer could a King or the aristocracy secretly instigate war. No longer would unilateral declarations of war embroil young men in deadly conflict.
No, Congress operates in the open. Their decrees are democratic and require public debate. If you don't like how your Congress is leading the nation, if you think they got us into a dumb war, then just vote them out at the next election.
By requiring declarations of war to be voted on and passed before we went to war, we not only slowed down the process and made it public, but we also made sure that clear goals are laid out before we begin any conflict. Our enemy knows the terms of surrender and what our grievance is.
It's a good system but what happens when the government simply chooses not to comply?
In 2013, a shocking revelation was declassified: America had gone to war without a declaration of war.
Not only was there never a declaration of war, but the American people were not allowed to know about this war. Not while it was happening. Not after it was over. Not even 20 years after it was over.
No, we had to wait 60 years to find out the truth. (And more details are still slowly tricking out.) Sixty years is more than enough time for the perpetuators to be long gone. The perfect crime against our democracy and against our Constitution.
Can you believe that?
Only after 60 years are we allowed to know of our nation's involvement in deposing the democratically elected leader of Iran. It's unthinkable!
We will never be able to deter this type of behavior if we aren't even able to learn about it until decades afterward. Who do you make an example of? Whose career do you end? Who do you vote out of office?
Americans today are faced with a terrible decision. We are in crisis. How do we deal with a government that has seized power? How do we reinstate the Constitution as an authoritative document?
One thing is certain, the American government will not cease this criminal behavior until the American people demand it. We must awaken the inner patriot inside our friends and neighbors. We must demand our country back. We must stop believing the lies of politicians. We must see the truth that the founders did. We need to reawaken their skepticism toward those in power.
And maybe the best place to start is with all these classified documents.
The fox is watching the hen house. It's time for us to put an end to it.