Thomas Paine Would Be Proud: A Cheesehead Double-Dose Of Common Sense

My correspondent in Cheeseland, Tom Terrific, forwarded an excellent Op-Ed column from his local fishwrap this AM. While surfing through the fishwrap's Website, another item jumped up and bit me. So, without further ado, this blog is proud to feature a double-barreled dose of Cheese Gee Whiz. First up, John Nichols — the fishwrap's associate editor — teaches an excellent lesson on ¹Madisonism. Joining this hymn to Little Jemmy is an ²editorial appreciation of the local U.S. Representative, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wi), for her opposition to the move to legitimize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Little Jemmy Madison would be so proud of Tammy Baldwin. She stands for the Bill of Rights as did its author, James Madison. No weasel-words, no flip-flopping, and no prevarication: either you stand for the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States or you stand with the forces of Darkness and Evil. That goes for The Hopester and The Geezer and it goes for The Dubster (and may the God of his choice have mercy on his miserable soul). Kudos to Tom Terrific, John Nichols, and Tammy Baldwin: nobody has moved their cheese. Brickbats to those who would subvert the Fourth Amendment. If this is (fair & balanced) constitutionalism, so be it.

[x Madison (WI) Fishwrap]

¹Madison Knew Danger Of Wars And Kings
By John Nichols

The city of Madison is named for James Madison, the essential framer of the Constitution and the last of the nation's founding presidents. Eight years younger than Jefferson, 16 years younger than Adams and 19 years younger than Washington, Madison lived until the eve of the 60th anniversary of American independence in 1836, when former federal judge James Doty was hatching the idea of designating the high ground between Lakes Monona and Mendota as Wisconsin's capital city.

To further the link with the Constitution, the streets of Madison were named for the 39 signers of the document: Sherman of Connecticut, Gorham of Massachusetts, Mifflin of Pennsylvania, Spaight of North Carolina and their contemporaries. Jenifer Street is not missing an N; it is named for Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, the Maryland patriot who with his friend Benjamin Franklin healed the divisions that might have sundered the convention -- and the republic.

But Madison was the definitional drafter of the document. "As a framer and defender of the Constitution he had no peer," notes historian Garry Wills.

While some rank Madison among the weaker presidents, this is largely because he rejected opportunities to expand the authority of the executive beyond that outlined by the founders. Indeed, Wills observes, "The finest part of Madison's performance as president was his concern for the preserving of the Constitution."

Like his closest comrade, Jefferson, Madison feared a too-powerful president would serve as "an elected despot" or "a king for four years."

Madison, above all the founders, feared such a circumstance because he recognized that it would turn his country from the path of peace and liberty toward the monarchical wastelands of war making and domestic tyranny.

As we honor the 232nd anniversary of the July 4, 1776, rejection by the American revolutionaries of the divine right of kings and the 220th anniversary of the July 2, 1788, determination by Congress that there was sufficient support for the Constitution to establish a governing system based on its principles, Madisonians would do well to recall our namesake's sternest warning to those who would guard the republic against all enemies foreign and domestic.

"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes and the opportunities of fraud growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both," Madison wrote. "No nation could reserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established. They are read in every page which records the progression from a less arbitrary to a more arbitrary government, or the transition from a popular government to an aristocracy or a monarchy."

Madison suspected, correctly, that in a future when revolutionary idealism waned, presidents would begin to see themselves as kings and their domains as empires.

"War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement," the framer of the Constitution wrote. "In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will which is to direct it. In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast, ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace."

This July Fourth, as we celebrate the American experiment, those of us who call ourselves "Madisonians" would do well to recognize that this constitutionally inclined city can best express our patriotism by raging with all our might (and all the power of our votes) against our current King George, Crown Prince John McCain and their colonial enterprise in Iraq.

[John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times.]

²Baldwin stands up for Constitution
An Editorial

There is an inclination, perhaps especially at the approach each year of the Fourth of July holiday, to believe the great struggles for freedom are a part of our history rather than the stuff of a current affairs quiz. But the Bush administration's attempt to rewrite the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in a manner that attacks our Fourth Amendment privacy rights confirms that the wisdom of Sam Adams remains as timeless as the promise of the American experiment.

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks," the old revolutionary warned at the inception of our national endeavor. "We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men."

What is to be celebrated with the greatest enthusiasm this Fourth of July is not the past, but the present.

While it is surely true that false and designing men occupy stations of public trust and power, and that they are conniving to wrestle our freedoms from us, it is equally true that we are still able to identify a few worthy heirs to the legacies of Sam Adams and his fellow members of the Continental Congress.

When the House of Representatives considered whether to retroactively legitimize Bush's warrantless wiretapping schemes -- and to immunize telecommunications corporations that violated the trust of their customers by cooperating with the illegal spying -- most members abandoned their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution. And Americans would be well advised to remove the offenders from their positions.

But, amid the disappointments, there were echoes of Sam Adams.

Our own representative, Tammy Baldwin, stood on the floor of the House and declared:

Two hundred and 22 years ago our nation's Founders enshrined in our Constitution the values and principles upon which our nation was founded, defining what it meant to be an American. Its first words, "We the people," make clear to all that our government derives its power from the people.

Our nation's Founders recognized that the full definition of what it meant to be an American required a clear statement of the protection of individual liberties. The protections enshrined in the Bill of Rights cannot be waived by the president and are not statutorily amendable by Congress. Those rights belong to the people -- they are, in part, what it means to be an American.

Since our founding, the world has looked to the United States as a beacon of freedom, a nation leading by example, a nation governed by the rule of law. As we act on this legislation, the world watches to see whether we as a nation still have a commitment to the very principles we seek to spread around the world.

There are those who see this legislation primarily in the context of granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies, merely transactional legislation. But, in fact, this is about something far more important and fundamental.

Today, this House seeks to legislatively amend the Fourth Amendment. This bill retroactively denies to Americans the protections of the Fourth Amendment. It retroactively insulates government from accountability for infringing upon one of the most basic rights of Americans.

This infringement is not theoretical. Today there are more than 40 pending lawsuits alleging that our government illegally and unconstitutionally violated the privacy rights of citizens by conducting a warrantless spying program. Through this bill, Congress now seeks to deny these individuals a remedy. Moreover, if this legislation becomes law, Americans may never learn the full extent of the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping program.

Further, the bill establishes a permanent framework for the violation of the civil liberties of our citizens. This legislation permits the government to conduct mass, untargeted surveillance of communications coming into and out of the United States, without any individualized review, and without any finding of wrongdoing. And it permits only minimal court oversight.

Some argue that this legislation is necessary to protect our nation from terrorists. I reject this argument. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which this bill seeks to amend, has, since 1978, provided a legal framework for law enforcement to secure a secret warrant to intercept electronic communications related to national security. In emergencies, the attorney general may authorize emergency employment of electronic surveillance as long as he or she makes the requisite application for approval from the FISA court as soon as practicable within 72 hours.

By authorizing a program to conduct illegal surveillance on Americans, the president and his attorneys general have chosen to ignore the law and the Constitution. Today by passing this legislation, Congress chooses to stand with the president.

By voting no, today I will stand with the American people in the defense of their civil liberties and their Constitution.

Along with Wisconsin's Russ Feingold, the Senate's stalwart champion of civil liberties, Baldwin represents not just her constituency but a commitment to the Constitution every bit as inspiring as that of the Founders she so eloquently recalls.

[Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin has been a Democrat member of the United States House of Representatives since 1999, representing Wisconsin's 2nd congressional district (including Madison). Baldwin is the first woman elected to Congress from the state of Wisconsin, and is currently serving her fifth term. She was also the first ever openly gay non-incumbent to be elected to the House of Representatives, her election having won the backing of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. Baldwin is one of two openly gay members of Congress, the other being Barney Frank of Massachusetts. Her partner is Lauren Azar. Tammy Baldwin is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.]

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