The word “incredible” is seriously over-worked, but it fits here: America’s response to recent events in Washington, DC is truly incredible.

“What,” you ask, “is happening in DC?”

How about, for the first time in American history, a serious attempt at a coup d’etat, that is, the overthrow of a duly-elected president? The incredible? Our general attitude about it. Our hair ought to be on fire, but we’re glued to “Cupcake Wars,” either metaphorically or actually.

(1)  I am not sure a single anchor on a major television company, excepting Fox, would not be elated if such a coup occurred. And joyously report as news whatever aids and abets such an act, regardless of a total lack of accuracy or pertinence of their charges against the president.

(2)  A “special counsel” with immense resources and illimitable time is desperately attempting to find cause to unseat the president. Period. There is no reason to believe they will ever forsake their goal, even if, as currently, not a scintilla of evidence of anything akin to “high crimes and misdemeanors” on the part of the president exists.

(3)  Key members of the FBI and Justice Department (heretofore the envy of the world!) have admitted their desire, and actual attempts, to remove the president from office, going so far as to seek out any of the president’s staffers who might help them depose him, confessing a plot to wear wires to catch him out. And casually reporting their efforts to giddy major television interviewers, while getting richer by writing self-adulatory books for their crimes. A dozen of them—and their acolytes—should be in orange jump-suits. No, this is not about a banana republic; this is about the greatest nation that ever existed on earth. And we sit unabashed.

(4)  Before the president was actually installed, there were—and continue to be—howls from members of Congress for his impeachment, and it is openly discussed throughout the media/political realm as a real possibility. (Another openly-discussed subject: must the military get involved?)

(5)  Etc., ad infinitum!

This is no call for the beatification of our current president; it is to state the facts. Listen up: a coup of an American president! How is that not incredible? Why are not Americans, of every stripe, marching in the streets, screaming by every means possible that this is a violation of the very first foundational principle of American political philosophy and practice—the right of Americans by means of the ballot box to determine the shape and practice—and leaders— of our political process?

In a secularized society, as America certainly is, the right to vote is, to use theological language, sacrosanct, the cardinal virtue. It is at the very apex of American societal practice. And extremely rare on the planet. But we are so far down the road—can you bear to hear it?—that a visceral and cerebral (I admit, with low-powered batteries) hatred for America dominates the seats of power in the country. The proof? Ponder this: he who believes non-Americans should have the right to vote in our elections hates America. What is it but idiocy for census-takers to be disallowed to ask if a resident is actually an American? Further: he who does not accept the absolute necessity of secure borders hates America. How in the name of common logic does either position make sense? You’re reading this and wondering, “Why, in the name of God, are such subjects even up for discussion?” That’s because you’re rational. Rationality, alas, is a foreign country to the America-haters on the left. Think AOC!

Are any serious prosecutions in the works against the coup d’etaters? Surely you jest. Hatred for America in high places is incurably toxic, but very chic. Being otherwise makes it much more difficult to get to DC. Or to stay there.

Bill Anderson
Grapevine, Texas

More about America’s descent into barbarism as indicated by recent legislation in New York state. (See Descent – Part A). Consider twenty questions:

1. How is it that an immigrant has the immediate and full protection of the US Constitution upon setting his/her foot on US soil when a child born in America does not have a single constitutional right?

2. If an unmarried teenage girl gives birth and tosses her baby into a dumpster, can she be tried for murder if the baby dies? Or any other crime whether the child lives or dies?

3. What happens to the medical personnel and/or institution which refuses to perform an abortion?

4. What will the response of our Catholic friends be? (My prediction: they will be stupefied or stupid. No criticism of Catholics, but historically they have been staunchly pro-life. My hope is that biblically-literate evangelicals—my crowd—will be stupefied into serious action.)

5. The fifth amendment of the US Constitution guarantees “due process of law” (against, among other things, deprivation of “loss of life or liberty”). Shall we revoke the amendment? (An amendment, by the way, which is the envy of the world and purchased with the blood of American patriots.)

6. Who will determine at which age the life of an abortion escapee must be protected under US Constitutional law?

7. Under NY law, if a normal child is born and the mother chooses not to let it live, how, precisely, will the life of the child be terminated? Is it given water? Food? An injection to make passage easier for the child? Gentle suffocation? Who, precisely, makes such a decision?

8. Does such legislation lead us to the persistently repeated promise of “few, safe, and legal” abortions?

9. Are we on the road to the time when the state, and not the mother, will be able to dictate which child may live and which may not?

10. Should American taxpayers continue to pay over 40% of Planned Parenthood’s abortion bill— over half a billion dollars a year—when most of us decry the act?

11. Why is there no provision in the bill against the widespread selling of fetal tissue/parts? Remember “I want a Lamborghini?” (To put it otherwise: if it is morally acceptable to make money by taking a baby’s life, why is it morally unacceptable to make money by selling parts of him?)

12. What effect will all this have on the life of the elderly who, like babies, are economically non-productive, thus expendable? If an infant’s personhood may be denied, why not that of the elderly?

13. A healthy baby is born; the mother doesn’t want him to live; the father does; does the father have legal grounds against the mother?

14. Why is there no feminist outcry about more female babies being aborted than males, as is the case?

15. How far are we from some government functionary telling us which babies may be allowed to live or not? (I am thinking here of babies who may be discovered, either in-utero or after birth, having some abnormality: mental, emotional, physical, societal, or imagined.)

16. Can any Democrat who is openly pro-life be elected to the presidency? To the Congress? Same, by the way, with pro-lifers!

17. Lincoln once said about the central moral issue of his day (as abortion is of ours), “As I would not be a slave, I would not hold a slave.” Does his unimpeachable logic hold in the current situation?

18. Jesus once said that we should do to others what we wish they would do to us. Does His unimpeachable logic hold in the current situation?

19. Do you, personally, ever wonder what the Creator thinks about this issue? (Yes, of course, you believe in Him! You know the eminent Russian philosopher, Nikolai Berdyaev, was right when he wrote, “If God does not exist, anything goes,” and you don’t want somebody shooting your kids at school today and giving in defense, before the jury, “I agree with Berdyaev; there is no God and therefore I cannot be held accountable.”)

20. When Mother Teresa was asked, in an American television interview, about the future of western civilization, she said that when a woman can kill the baby she’s carrying for no reason but a dislike for the inconvenience, “there is not much in western civilization worth saving.”

An Irishman, Jonathon Swift, who has the reputation of being the most gifted satirist in the English language, wrote, with withering wit, about how to solve the problem of unwanted babies being aborted in Ireland in his day (in 1729!). You will never forget his “A Modest Proposal,” which is horrific, but, says a biographer, “The proposal is no more shocking than the condition which calls it forth.” The essay sounds, well, very New Yorkish.