The Will of the People

I was watching a popular cable news/debate program last night. I usually can't handle it because the liberal guy is one of those who not always, but often enough can put a very clever twist on the truth. It is subtle and misleading. The conservative guy is like a broken record on issues and instead of engaging with his guests to reason with them he often gets verbally in their face and any reasonable dialogue is instantly shut down.

Last night they had a young woman from the Democratic Party on their show who asked excitedly, "Why isn't this president following the will of the people who elected him?" She was speaking in regard to pulling out of Iraq.

What kind of a question is that? She said it with such indignation. In the first place, I'm certain that she didn't elect him. We all know how polarized the election was. So, if she is speaking generally, how is she so certain that she knows what the majority of the people in this country want? What, by polls?

Even at that, let's say that her assumption is correct about the majority. Who ever said that a president was either supposed, or required to directly serve the will of the people where war was concerned? The Declaration of Independence states that in order to secure our rights that, "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". That means that we vote these ladies and gentlemen into office, but the president's job is to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States," and to the best of his ability to, "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

There isn't anything in his job description about cow-towing to the will of the people every time we don't like the current political or social landscape in matters domestic or foreign, including war. The constitution declares that our forefathers established the U. S. constitution "in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,"

There are plenty of things I would have the president do differently if I had a say in the matter, but I don't, and it is extremely hard that Americans and citizens and soldiers from the nations allied in the fighting with us there are dying daily, but if the contention of those against the war that it is illegal and immoral could be proven, they would have done so. Almost the entire Democratic Party is against the war in Iraq. If this war is illegal, let them take steps under the constitution to do something about it. They have spent enough time complaining about it and swearing that they were going to do something about it. I wonder if Michael Moore will hold them as accountable as he claimed he would while swearing that he and others like him were responsible for giving Democrats the majority?

The war in Iraq is an extremely hard thing, because we have soldiers in Iraq and in Afghanistan who are dying to insure our domestic tranquility. Just yesterday, six radical young Muslim men were arrested here on our soil while trying to purchase weaponry to take the lives Americans on American soil. Thankfully a private citizen showed some courage and law enforcement organizations stepped in to stop them. How much more frequently would this be happening here at home if we were not fighting terrorism where it is bred? How many of these cells, either professionally organized or not would slip through the cracks and wreak even more havoc here on our soil?

I don't like war. I don't like the war in Iraq, but we have to have a unified front for the sake of our soldiers and for the sake of this nation. If the heads of terrorist organizations state publicly that a sudden, swift withdrawal of our troops from Iraq would constitute a huge defeat and failure for the United States, is that something that we should ignore? Or should we just expect the president to bend to the supposed will of the people?

As our Sovereign Lord, what if Jesus had bent to our will? The Cross was plenty hard, and none of His Apostles wanted Him to go to it. Where would our victory have been then?