Welcome and introduction

This blog is properly titled "Impeach the president: The political and economic blog of a strict constitutionalist". I have been looking at creating this blog for about 5 years now.

I am not picking on Obama. Since I started paying attention during the Reagan years, every president has violated the oath of office at least once a month. *EVERY* president. The oath of office requires that the president defend the constitution, and generally the president does not take action to stop bad court decisions or other issues.

What finally motivated me is this whole "Corporations have the same rights as individuals" ruling of the supreme court. This is as bad as the Dred Scott decision, and will result in a constitutional amendment.

The biggest question is: Who will write it? What choices willl the Senate pass on to the states? Will there be only one proposed amendment, or multiple?

This is what actually drove me to start this blog. I want to make sure that all the issues that lead up to this bad decision by the Supreme Court are addressed and fixed. And unlike most lawmakers who just say "Here's the answer", I want help. I want feedback and discussion with people, not just lobbyists.

I am a strict constitutionalist. I believe that the 10th amendment limits the federal government like handcuffs, and then gives the leftover rights to states and individuals. Not the corporations. It is this view -- the second half -- that separates me from people like Ron Paul.

I believe that the constitution does NOT grant rights. It recognizes rights. The 9th amendment makes it clear that there are more rights than those recognized by the constitution. Any time someone says "The constitution doesn't give you the right to X", they are really saying "The government controls you except where the constitution says otherwise".

That's not how our system is supposed to work. And any time a president lets a court or other official get away with that, they are not defending the constitution from internal threats to it.

Is violating the oath of office an impeachable offense? Until the 14th amendment, that answer is no. The 14th amendment, section 3, permits removal from office of officials who take the oath and then fail to uphold it.

Is impeachment bad? No. Impeachment is no different than a threatened "vote of no confidence". An impeachment vote is nothing more than "Do we think that this is a violation". It is the equivalent of an indictment. I believe that every president should get at least 1 such vote per year, probably several per year. I believe that the risk or threat of such a vote should happen multiple times a year. An actual 50%+ vote should happen perhaps once every 10-20 years, and an actual conviction? Maybe twice in the last 50 years.

But that constant threat of removal from office for failing to do the job is critical. Without it, we have the current state of government.