Has the question changed?

HAS THE QUESTION CHANGED?

POSTED JANUARY 5, 2009

It’s eery. The things we saw as kids in the movies seem to be coming true in real life today.

"The Fall of the Roman Empire" came out in 1964 and starred greats like Alec Guinness, Sophia Loren, James Mason, Omar Sharif, Stephen Boyd, Christopher Plummer and Mel Ferrer. The movie was loosely based on history as it dealt with events surrounding the last months of the reign of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the succession by his son Commodus, and the degeneration of imperial rule under that son in the late Second Century. ("The Gladiator" which came out in 2000 is based loosely on the same movie.)

Livius, played by Boyd, was a great general, a patriot of Rome and a favored of Marcus Aurelius. His strong, upright character stood in stark contrast with that of the pleasure-seeking, distrustful person of Commodus, the rightful heir to the Imperial Throne. The movie is pretty much about how the two clash against a backdrop of the political troubles of the time and the social pressures being put on the Empire as a result of the growing non-Roman peoples on the frontiers.

But the final scene is chillingly memorable, and applicable today.

Livius slays Commodus in a fight to the finish in the Coliseum while surrounded by the elite Praetorian Guards who make and break the emperors. Livius is then proclaimed emperor by the Praetorians, but he turns it down because he takes the girl (Sophia Loren) and walks away from it all. As the couple depart, glad to be alive and together but sad to be in a society in such a state of affairs, we hear bidding for the job of Emperor. As the camera fades out we hear auctioning as one aspirant after another places a bid – in the millions – for the most powerful job on earth at the time, that of the Emperor of Rome.

The viewer is left to surmise that what follows off camera is the painful and bloody decline and fall of Rome. In reality, after the murder of Commodus in 192 A.D., the Roman Empire writhed in terminal agony for nearly two centuries until Alaric, a German and unassimilated into Roman society, sacked the capital of Rome and instituted the power of the Gothic kings as the ultimate in the Empire.

Today, the Praetorian Guard is whoever has the power to deliver or direct political power as they see fit. Sometimes, it is for money, sometimes it is to increase their own power. It is not anymore, if it ever was, for the people who certainly are not the allegorical Praetorian Guard.

Obama’s vacant Senate seat was apparently and allegedly being auctioned off by the Governor of Illinois until he was arrested by Federal agents at 6:15 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Biden’s Senate seat is supposedly being held for his son who will return from fighting in Iraq at some point. Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat may go to a Kennedy – Caroline, the daughter of JFK former emperor, er, president of the USA.

Like Rome, public office in America is for sale to the highest bidder who is then manipulated and controlled by the richest and the most powerful in the society. Or, again like Rome, public office has become an inheritance. This is where America is, and it is what America has become. America is Rome by another name where only the wealthy and the powerful rule because they have the money or they have the right DNA.

So, if America selects its leaders like those of the Roman Empire of long ago, then it is hypocritical and sick. The hypocrisy lies with the reality that merit no longer matters, and the sickness lies in the pre-eminence of money (that is, power) as the fundamental principle of the government and hence the society. And, like Rome before it, this sickness will send America to the dustbin of history.

The jockeying for a few Senate seats in the last several weeks is an indication of how deep the rot has spread. The reality is that the corrosion has been an ongoing thing for a very long time in America. America was based on faulty principles from the beginning, and two great popes, Blessed Pius IX and Leo XIII so much as said so during the Nineteenth Century in a number of encyclicals. With a bad start and without the guiding hands and infallible teachings of the Roman Catholic Church given pre-eminence in and by the United States, this country and society just cannot correct itself. It was bound to come to auctioning off Senate seats. The predictions contained in Leo XIII’s Humanum Genus have come true.

For the last sixty years or so, we have been told that there is a conservative movement, or position, and a liberal movement, or position. The conservatives stood for limited government, a strong defense, "traditional values" like pro-life and pro-religion, personal responsibility, and free enterprise with minimal government intervention. The liberals stood for unrestricted individual freedom and rights, secularism, government as the solution to all the problems, international cooperation, and where necessary, foreign adventures to protect, if not advance, democracy.

GW Bush’s Presidency destroyed the conservative cause in the United States. Many of us value voters cast our ballot for GW in 2000, and again in 2004 (I didn’t as I had seen through this guy by then.) What we got was war, bailouts for the wealthy speculators, ever larger government, and the loss of civil liberties. Our phones were tapped, our emails were read, our taxes increased, and many of the non-aborted children came home in wheelchairs or boxes, to name just a few benefits of the GW presidency. "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell" remained the policy in the armed forces, racial and preferences still existed for government benefits, the poor got poorer, and the rich got richer. Millions remained without health insurance, garbage continued to be pumped out of Hollywood, and abortion continued unabated. In fact, children continued to be aborted at the rate of about 3500 per day which is statistically just a bit lower than the rate as during the 1980s; RU-486 remained approved thereby allowing chemical abortions in the privacy of one’s home; and hundreds of thousands of families disintegrated through divorce.

In the 2008 election, many Catholic prelates called abortion the pre-eminent moral issue of the day. So how did GW do on it? GW said that abortion was a great evil but that the culture was not yet ready for change. Did he do anything to change the culture? Of course not. GW could have set up a blue-ribbon commission to study how the culture could be changed. But he didn’t. GW could have answered Mark Crutcher’s letter with tens of thousands of signatures to start a dialogue on how to stop abortion. But he only sent a one line response thanking Crutcher for his letter. GW had 2900 days in the White House. How many days did he speak up for the unborn? Is it hard to answer that because of the large number of times he did so, or is it hard to answer because of the small number of times he did so? It is the latter, of course.

GW was supposedly pro-life in 2000 and 2004. And, in all fairness, he did a few things around the edges of the abortion situation. McCain was not considered pro-life in 2000, but suddenly, in 2008 he was pro-life. Obama was not pro-life and we were told by the conservatives we had to vote against him. If he were elected, we were told, there would be socialism, and abortion, and the Moslems would take over and even worse things would happen. So we were told that we had to vote against the guy who would destroy. Yeah, right. A lot of people, myself included, were wise to the hype and we did not vote.

A lot more people voted for Obama because they wanted change. They thought he would end World War IV – after all, he questioned the Iraq involvement. The liberals saw him as their man. After all, he had promised change and "change" was plastered on every one of his campaign signs. Change, change, change. It was in the air. And Obama was elected overwhelmingly on November 4 with a mandate for change!

And change there was for about 12 hours.

Rahm Emmanuel, an Israeli citizen who served in the Clinton administration, was appointed Obama’s chief of staff before noon of November 5. Then there came Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, Eric Holder as Attorney General, Paul Volcker head of the Economic Advisory Recovery Board, etc etc etc. The list of appointees quickly became a list of Who’s Who of Yesteryear. In the primaries, Obama had said that Hillary was a return to the 1990s – I guess he forgot to say that electing him was a return to the 1990s -- and the 1980s.

Then the word was from GW and from the commentators that Obama would keep the war in Afghanistan and Iraq going. In other words, Obama would keep World War IV going and as proof of that he said he would increase US troops in Afghanistan – shortly before the US commander in Iraq announced plans to stay in that country until 2011. Of course, Obama did not comment on the commander’s statement thereby rendering tacit approval.

Obama will undoubtedly provide unqualified support for Israel. His economic policies will by no means hurt the wealthy speculators who damaged so many. And the uninsured rolls will remain or grow. Like under GW, chemical and surgical abortion will continue at the same high rates.

Obama is not likely to turn against the magnates who run the American economy. Were he to truly help the little guy by submitting and implementing the plans needed to transfer the control of the means of production, or property, to individual families and the little guy, he would lose a lot of the support of the important people. Were he to persist in breaking up the monopolies of the rich and powerful he would likely find himself in deep personal distress.

Liberals believed what appears to be the hype that Obama would bring change – real and liberal change -- but they are starting to question that. It has gotten to such a point that Liberals are starting to question whether Obama will bring the change he promised, and which they thought they were electing. David Corn, Washington bureau chief of a liberal magazine wrote a piece in the Washington Post entitled "This Wasn’t Quite the Change We Envisioned." The liberals are complaining about Obama even though he has not yet taken office, and the media, which elected the Obama-man, is giving it play. Like the conservatives who supported GW, there are liberals who support Obama who are becoming disillusioned because they really believe the things they have been spouting over the last several decades. So now the liberals, like the conservatives of the last eight years, are starting to see that it is all not about fulfilling the principles of their particular ideology.

Obama’s administration will be a continuation of the policies of GW’s. Which was a continuation of the policies of Bill Clinton. Which was a continuation of the policies of Papa Bush. Which was a continuation of the policies of Ronald Reagan and so on and so forth.

You get the picture. There is no longer a practical difference between the two major political parties – which are theoretically the material manifestation of the two major political lines of thought in America. They are both about big and all-engrossing government (except when it comes to permitting all forms of sexual license, and abortion), extended foreign adventures, unrestricted markets, and radical individual autonomy.

Both parties will pursue foundational principles that work against the common good as set forth so clearly by the Roman Catholic Faith in the Catechism. Morality will not be protected nor will virtue be enhanced, a false view of the purpose of life will be proposed, a culture as well as economic and social systems that lead to the propitiation of lies that will cause further isolation and exploitation. All the material manifestations of breakdown we see today, and the American political system has discussed for at least the last 30 some years, will continue unabated.

If the policies are the same regardless of which party governs, or if the results of the policies are the same regardless of who is elected, then what are we to conclude? Isn’t the idea in a democracy, and hasn’t the idea been in the American democracy, that different people with different world views have an opportunity to govern in accordance with these beliefs? Aren’t the people supposed to have a choice in the policies by which they are governed? But if the same results regardless of the outcome of an election, what then must we conclude?

The first conclusion that we have to reach is that the ideologies that are bandied about – conservatism and liberalism – are nothing more than a way to rationalize policies or give the appearance of legitimacy to a system that only serves the powerful. True believers of the conservative and liberal ilk are beginning to see, and to understand, that the only beliefs, or, as is more popular in the USA, the only values that make any difference are those held by the ones with the power or ability to create and sustain the conservative and liberal groups battling away at each other. The values that are always honored, regardless of who is elected, are those that benefit the smartest, the wealthiest, the most influential. The poor, the weak, and the marginalized receive neither care, nor a voice, nor protection.

The second conclusion we must reach is that We, the People, cannot be heard and our opinion no longer matters. This point was brought home by the United States Federal Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania earlier in 2008, and by the United States Supreme Court when it refused to consider the issues raised by Phil Berg, former Pennsylvania Attorney General, after the District Court’s decision.

Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the US Constitution clearly sets forth the requirements for someone to be elected as President: "No person except a natural born citizen….shall be eligible to the Office of President". Pretty important stuff – having a US citizen serve in the most important job in the US. Berg believed that Obama was not a natural born citizen and so ineligible to be President. The blogosphere resounded with rumors that Obama was born in Indonesia or some other place and that his nationality was not USA.

Judge R. Barclay Surrick on October 24, 2008 decided that Phil Berg, a citizen of the United States of America, did not have standing to bring a cause of action questioning whether Obama was qualified under the US Constitution to serve as President of the United States. In other words, Judge Surrick, apparently basing his opinion on other legal cases and authorities, concluded the following:

"The alleged harm to voters stemming from a presidential candidate’s failure to satisfy the eligibility requirements of the Natural Born Citizen Clause is not concrete or particularized enough to constitute an injury in fact sufficient to satisfy Article III standing….

"Plaintiff’s stake is no greater and his status no more differentiated than that of millions of other voters. Plaintiff acknowledges as much in the Amended Complaint when he avers that he and `other Democratic Americans’….will experience irreparable harm. This harm is too vague and its effect too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters.….

"To reiterate: a candidate’s ineligibility under the Natural Born Citizen Clause does not result in an injury in fact to voters…."

So, the fact that a candidate for president is not a natural born US citizen does not harm a voter – the governed. When a candidate for President does not comply with the basic requirements for the office, the voters – the governed -- cannot contest this. In essence, the voters – the governed – have no say in who is President as long as a candidate is put on the ticket by whoever. And, the fact that one of the governed, who happens to be a voter, cannot contest the constitutional qualifications of a candidate for the highest office in the land, then what value is the vote, and what is the real status of the governed? When a voter is not injured by a non-citizen running for President, what is the value of the Constitution, and what is the value of the vote in the United States?

When we are told that Catholics can inform politics and social realities with the principles of Christian values, one must look at the above and conclude that this work cannot be done with the current socio-economic and political systems that are in place. And so one has to pose deeper questions.

With the election of Obama, the question has changed, and we cannot ignore this subtle, but fundamental shift. The question is no longer: How is America to be governed? That used to be the question while there was a believable and real difference between the so-called conservative and liberal ideologies with their corresponding political arms of the Republican and Democratic Parties. Recent events show that the differences are non-existent, and that the reality is the country will be governed for, by and of the rich and powerful. And, because there is no way for the systems, for America, to truly reform itself since it has separated itself from the Church and the Faith, it is not likely that this question will be raised with any credibility anymore.

Therefore, I submit to you that the question is become: What should be done with America? If the only two accepted ideologies are covers for advancing the interests of the few, if the political system permits no other viable alternatives, and if voting really does not mean anything anymore, then is not this great experiment, known as the United States, at an end? If the will of We the People is ignored, then has there not been a breach of the essential trust, the essential unity, set forth in the Constitution, the foundational document of the country? Should we not then stop believing the drivel that comes out of Washington and New York and Hollywood that tells us things can be different, that we live in a democracy, that we are free, etc., etc.?

Again, is it possible to reform this American system when its founding documents and principles refuse or ignore the primacy of the Roman Catholic Faith and of the Church? Is it possible, or worthwhile, to correct these mortal errors? For years Catholics have worked, and talked, and fought, and voted, and participated in this American system which has ground slowly to its current status because non-Catholics ultimately called the shots, held the money, were in the inner circle. American Catholic leaders, like JFK, surrendered the minute they were offered high office by publicly refusing to let the Faith govern their actions.

Or is it time to build something new, or rebuild what we have? Should we get away from the good ship America as she slips below the waves and threatens to suck us under with its increasing perdition? Perhaps today we face a similar situation as Christopher Dawson noted concerning Europe in the Fifth Century, and it is time to climb into, and help keep afloat, the only real life boat we as Roman Catholics have – the Roman Catholic Church.

This will require a break from how things have been in the past. We will have to see ourselves first and foremost as Roman Catholics, and not Americans. That could just be too much for a lot of people. That could very well be the only way for the remnant.

JMJ

	HOMECommentsEDITORIAL POLICIESARCHIVESCONTACT INFORMATIONRADIO INTERVIEWS
Has the question changed? HAS THE QUESTION CHANGED? POSTED JANUARY 5, 2009 It’s eery. The things we saw as kids in the movies seem to be coming true in real life today. "The Fall of the Roman Empire" came out in 1964 and starred greats like Alec Guinness, Sophia Loren, James Mason, Omar Sharif, Stephen Boyd, Christopher Plummer and Mel Ferrer. The movie was loosely based on history as it dealt with events surrounding the last months of the reign of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the succession by his son Commodus, and the degeneration of imperial rule under that son in the late Second Century. ("The Gladiator" which came out in 2000 is based loosely on the same movie.) Livius, played by Boyd, was a great general, a patriot of Rome and a favored of Marcus Aurelius. His strong, upright character stood in stark contrast with that of the pleasure-seeking, distrustful person of Commodus, the rightful heir to the Imperial Throne. The movie is pretty much about how the two clash against a backdrop of the political troubles of the time and the social pressures being put on the Empire as a result of the growing non-Roman peoples on the frontiers. But the final scene is chillingly memorable, and applicable today. Livius slays Commodus in a fight to the finish in the Coliseum while surrounded by the elite Praetorian Guards who make and break the emperors. Livius is then proclaimed emperor by the Praetorians, but he turns it down because he takes the girl (Sophia Loren) and walks away from it all. As the couple depart, glad to be alive and together but sad to be in a society in such a state of affairs, we hear bidding for the job of Emperor. As the camera fades out we hear auctioning as one aspirant after another places a bid – in the millions – for the most powerful job on earth at the time, that of the Emperor of Rome. The viewer is left to surmise that what follows off camera is the painful and bloody decline and fall of Rome. In reality, after the murder of Commodus in 192 A.D., the Roman Empire writhed in terminal agony for nearly two centuries until Alaric, a German and unassimilated into Roman society, sacked the capital of Rome and instituted the power of the Gothic kings as the ultimate in the Empire. Today, the Praetorian Guard is whoever has the power to deliver or direct political power as they see fit. Sometimes, it is for money, sometimes it is to increase their own power. It is not anymore, if it ever was, for the people who certainly are not the allegorical Praetorian Guard. Obama’s vacant Senate seat was apparently and allegedly being auctioned off by the Governor of Illinois until he was arrested by Federal agents at 6:15 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Biden’s Senate seat is supposedly being held for his son who will return from fighting in Iraq at some point. Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat may go to a Kennedy – Caroline, the daughter of JFK former emperor, er, president of the USA. Like Rome, public office in America is for sale to the highest bidder who is then manipulated and controlled by the richest and the most powerful in the society. Or, again like Rome, public office has become an inheritance. This is where America is, and it is what America has become. America is Rome by another name where only the wealthy and the powerful rule because they have the money or they have the right DNA. So, if America selects its leaders like those of the Roman Empire of long ago, then it is hypocritical and sick. The hypocrisy lies with the reality that merit no longer matters, and the sickness lies in the pre-eminence of money (that is, power) as the fundamental principle of the government and hence the society. And, like Rome before it, this sickness will send America to the dustbin of history. The jockeying for a few Senate seats in the last several weeks is an indication of how deep the rot has spread. The reality is that the corrosion has been an ongoing thing for a very long time in America. America was based on faulty principles from the beginning, and two great popes, Blessed Pius IX and Leo XIII so much as said so during the Nineteenth Century in a number of encyclicals. With a bad start and without the guiding hands and infallible teachings of the Roman Catholic Church given pre-eminence in and by the United States, this country and society just cannot correct itself. It was bound to come to auctioning off Senate seats. The predictions contained in Leo XIII’s Humanum Genus have come true. For the last sixty years or so, we have been told that there is a conservative movement, or position, and a liberal movement, or position. The conservatives stood for limited government, a strong defense, "traditional values" like pro-life and pro-religion, personal responsibility, and free enterprise with minimal government intervention. The liberals stood for unrestricted individual freedom and rights, secularism, government as the solution to all the problems, international cooperation, and where necessary, foreign adventures to protect, if not advance, democracy. GW Bush’s Presidency destroyed the conservative cause in the United States. Many of us value voters cast our ballot for GW in 2000, and again in 2004 (I didn’t as I had seen through this guy by then.) What we got was war, bailouts for the wealthy speculators, ever larger government, and the loss of civil liberties. Our phones were tapped, our emails were read, our taxes increased, and many of the non-aborted children came home in wheelchairs or boxes, to name just a few benefits of the GW presidency. "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell" remained the policy in the armed forces, racial and preferences still existed for government benefits, the poor got poorer, and the rich got richer. Millions remained without health insurance, garbage continued to be pumped out of Hollywood, and abortion continued unabated. In fact, children continued to be aborted at the rate of about 3500 per day which is statistically just a bit lower than the rate as during the 1980s; RU-486 remained approved thereby allowing chemical abortions in the privacy of one’s home; and hundreds of thousands of families disintegrated through divorce. In the 2008 election, many Catholic prelates called abortion the pre-eminent moral issue of the day. So how did GW do on it? GW said that abortion was a great evil but that the culture was not yet ready for change. Did he do anything to change the culture? Of course not. GW could have set up a blue-ribbon commission to study how the culture could be changed. But he didn’t. GW could have answered Mark Crutcher’s letter with tens of thousands of signatures to start a dialogue on how to stop abortion. But he only sent a one line response thanking Crutcher for his letter. GW had 2900 days in the White House. How many days did he speak up for the unborn? Is it hard to answer that because of the large number of times he did so, or is it hard to answer because of the small number of times he did so? It is the latter, of course. GW was supposedly pro-life in 2000 and 2004. And, in all fairness, he did a few things around the edges of the abortion situation. McCain was not considered pro-life in 2000, but suddenly, in 2008 he was pro-life. Obama was not pro-life and we were told by the conservatives we had to vote against him. If he were elected, we were told, there would be socialism, and abortion, and the Moslems would take over and even worse things would happen. So we were told that we had to vote against the guy who would destroy. Yeah, right. A lot of people, myself included, were wise to the hype and we did not vote. A lot more people voted for Obama because they wanted change. They thought he would end World War IV – after all, he questioned the Iraq involvement. The liberals saw him as their man. After all, he had promised change and "change" was plastered on every one of his campaign signs. Change, change, change. It was in the air. And Obama was elected overwhelmingly on November 4 with a mandate for change! And change there was for about 12 hours. Rahm Emmanuel, an Israeli citizen who served in the Clinton administration, was appointed Obama’s chief of staff before noon of November 5. Then there came Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, Eric Holder as Attorney General, Paul Volcker head of the Economic Advisory Recovery Board, etc etc etc. The list of appointees quickly became a list of Who’s Who of Yesteryear. In the primaries, Obama had said that Hillary was a return to the 1990s – I guess he forgot to say that electing him was a return to the 1990s -- and the 1980s. Then the word was from GW and from the commentators that Obama would keep the war in Afghanistan and Iraq going. In other words, Obama would keep World War IV going and as proof of that he said he would increase US troops in Afghanistan – shortly before the US commander in Iraq announced plans to stay in that country until 2011. Of course, Obama did not comment on the commander’s statement thereby rendering tacit approval. Obama will undoubtedly provide unqualified support for Israel. His economic policies will by no means hurt the wealthy speculators who damaged so many. And the uninsured rolls will remain or grow. Like under GW, chemical and surgical abortion will continue at the same high rates. Obama is not likely to turn against the magnates who run the American economy. Were he to truly help the little guy by submitting and implementing the plans needed to transfer the control of the means of production, or property, to individual families and the little guy, he would lose a lot of the support of the important people. Were he to persist in breaking up the monopolies of the rich and powerful he would likely find himself in deep personal distress. Liberals believed what appears to be the hype that Obama would bring change – real and liberal change -- but they are starting to question that. It has gotten to such a point that Liberals are starting to question whether Obama will bring the change he promised, and which they thought they were electing. David Corn, Washington bureau chief of a liberal magazine wrote a piece in the Washington Post entitled "This Wasn’t Quite the Change We Envisioned." The liberals are complaining about Obama even though he has not yet taken office, and the media, which elected the Obama-man, is giving it play. Like the conservatives who supported GW, there are liberals who support Obama who are becoming disillusioned because they really believe the things they have been spouting over the last several decades. So now the liberals, like the conservatives of the last eight years, are starting to see that it is all not about fulfilling the principles of their particular ideology. Obama’s administration will be a continuation of the policies of GW’s. Which was a continuation of the policies of Bill Clinton. Which was a continuation of the policies of Papa Bush. Which was a continuation of the policies of Ronald Reagan and so on and so forth. You get the picture. There is no longer a practical difference between the two major political parties – which are theoretically the material manifestation of the two major political lines of thought in America. They are both about big and all-engrossing government (except when it comes to permitting all forms of sexual license, and abortion), extended foreign adventures, unrestricted markets, and radical individual autonomy. Both parties will pursue foundational principles that work against the common good as set forth so clearly by the Roman Catholic Faith in the Catechism. Morality will not be protected nor will virtue be enhanced, a false view of the purpose of life will be proposed, a culture as well as economic and social systems that lead to the propitiation of lies that will cause further isolation and exploitation. All the material manifestations of breakdown we see today, and the American political system has discussed for at least the last 30 some years, will continue unabated. If the policies are the same regardless of which party governs, or if the results of the policies are the same regardless of who is elected, then what are we to conclude? Isn’t the idea in a democracy, and hasn’t the idea been in the American democracy, that different people with different world views have an opportunity to govern in accordance with these beliefs? Aren’t the people supposed to have a choice in the policies by which they are governed? But if the same results regardless of the outcome of an election, what then must we conclude? The first conclusion that we have to reach is that the ideologies that are bandied about – conservatism and liberalism – are nothing more than a way to rationalize policies or give the appearance of legitimacy to a system that only serves the powerful. True believers of the conservative and liberal ilk are beginning to see, and to understand, that the only beliefs, or, as is more popular in the USA, the only values that make any difference are those held by the ones with the power or ability to create and sustain the conservative and liberal groups battling away at each other. The values that are always honored, regardless of who is elected, are those that benefit the smartest, the wealthiest, the most influential. The poor, the weak, and the marginalized receive neither care, nor a voice, nor protection. The second conclusion we must reach is that We, the People, cannot be heard and our opinion no longer matters. This point was brought home by the United States Federal Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania earlier in 2008, and by the United States Supreme Court when it refused to consider the issues raised by Phil Berg, former Pennsylvania Attorney General, after the District Court’s decision. Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the US Constitution clearly sets forth the requirements for someone to be elected as President: "No person except a natural born citizen….shall be eligible to the Office of President". Pretty important stuff – having a US citizen serve in the most important job in the US. Berg believed that Obama was not a natural born citizen and so ineligible to be President. The blogosphere resounded with rumors that Obama was born in Indonesia or some other place and that his nationality was not USA. Judge R. Barclay Surrick on October 24, 2008 decided that Phil Berg, a citizen of the United States of America, did not have standing to bring a cause of action questioning whether Obama was qualified under the US Constitution to serve as President of the United States. In other words, Judge Surrick, apparently basing his opinion on other legal cases and authorities, concluded the following: "The alleged harm to voters stemming from a presidential candidate’s failure to satisfy the eligibility requirements of the Natural Born Citizen Clause is not concrete or particularized enough to constitute an injury in fact sufficient to satisfy Article III standing…. "Plaintiff’s stake is no greater and his status no more differentiated than that of millions of other voters. Plaintiff acknowledges as much in the Amended Complaint when he avers that he and `other Democratic Americans’….will experience irreparable harm. This harm is too vague and its effect too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters.…. "To reiterate: a candidate’s ineligibility under the Natural Born Citizen Clause does not result in an injury in fact to voters…." So, the fact that a candidate for president is not a natural born US citizen does not harm a voter – the governed. When a candidate for President does not comply with the basic requirements for the office, the voters – the governed -- cannot contest this. In essence, the voters – the governed – have no say in who is President as long as a candidate is put on the ticket by whoever. And, the fact that one of the governed, who happens to be a voter, cannot contest the constitutional qualifications of a candidate for the highest office in the land, then what value is the vote, and what is the real status of the governed? When a voter is not injured by a non-citizen running for President, what is the value of the Constitution, and what is the value of the vote in the United States? When we are told that Catholics can inform politics and social realities with the principles of Christian values, one must look at the above and conclude that this work cannot be done with the current socio-economic and political systems that are in place. And so one has to pose deeper questions. With the election of Obama, the question has changed, and we cannot ignore this subtle, but fundamental shift. The question is no longer: How is America to be governed? That used to be the question while there was a believable and real difference between the so-called conservative and liberal ideologies with their corresponding political arms of the Republican and Democratic Parties. Recent events show that the differences are non-existent, and that the reality is the country will be governed for, by and of the rich and powerful. And, because there is no way for the systems, for America, to truly reform itself since it has separated itself from the Church and the Faith, it is not likely that this question will be raised with any credibility anymore. Therefore, I submit to you that the question is become: What should be done with America? If the only two accepted ideologies are covers for advancing the interests of the few, if the political system permits no other viable alternatives, and if voting really does not mean anything anymore, then is not this great experiment, known as the United States, at an end? If the will of We the People is ignored, then has there not been a breach of the essential trust, the essential unity, set forth in the Constitution, the foundational document of the country? Should we not then stop believing the drivel that comes out of Washington and New York and Hollywood that tells us things can be different, that we live in a democracy, that we are free, etc., etc.? Again, is it possible to reform this American system when its founding documents and principles refuse or ignore the primacy of the Roman Catholic Faith and of the Church? Is it possible, or worthwhile, to correct these mortal errors? For years Catholics have worked, and talked, and fought, and voted, and participated in this American system which has ground slowly to its current status because non-Catholics ultimately called the shots, held the money, were in the inner circle. American Catholic leaders, like JFK, surrendered the minute they were offered high office by publicly refusing to let the Faith govern their actions. Or is it time to build something new, or rebuild what we have? Should we get away from the good ship America as she slips below the waves and threatens to suck us under with its increasing perdition? Perhaps today we face a similar situation as Christopher Dawson noted concerning Europe in the Fifth Century, and it is time to climb into, and help keep afloat, the only real life boat we as Roman Catholics have – the Roman Catholic Church. This will require a break from how things have been in the past. We will have to see ourselves first and foremost as Roman Catholics, and not Americans. That could just be too much for a lot of people. That could very well be the only way for the remnant.