Editorial-Opinion August 2018

This fall is going to be a dangerous season for sportsmen and for the country as a whole. Between now and the November mid-term elections, two very important paths will be decided in this country. The choices made this fall will have a tremendous impact on everything in this country, including hunting and fishing.

What are these two important choices? The first is the confirmation of the nominated candidate to be seated on the Supreme Court. The second is the conservative-liberal mix in Congress come January of 2019.

It is vital that the nominee be confirmed and that conservative control of both sides of Congress remain, hopefully enhanced. This fall is the critical, tipping-point period, and it is the second one in less than two years.

The first one came with the unelection of Hillary Clinton. Had her campaign been successful, the swing toward “Statism” and away from citizens with standing and freedom would have been completed. The vision of America we share would have faded away.

The unlikely election of Donald Trump stopped that swing from completion and has kept this vision alive. But the fight is not over.

This fight is the rule of law versus the rule of government.

The rule of law limits the government and places the individual in the forefront. Government exists to benefit the people who elect and empower it, and control it.

Conversely, the rule of government places government in the forefront. The government permits the people who live there to behave as the government decrees. For most of recorded history, countries and people were governed by the rule of government.

Our Founding Fathers demoted government. They created a Constitution that pre-dates our federal government. Our Constitution protects me from certain excesses of that government. I swore an oath to protect that Constitution. That oath does not have an expiration date. And I believe to my core that the original Constitution is the bedrock of this country’s freedom and its greatness. It follows that my freedom, and your freedom, also flows from that basic, core legal protection.

There are those who disagree with me. They are equally passionate, smart, talented and motivated in belief that the Constitution is flawed, incomplete or misinterpreted, and that it can be reinterpreted or, in certain cases, ignored.

While I will defend their right to say what they think, I will also work to make my view of our future prevail.

So far, everything I have said has just been more or less chest-beating. It accomplishes little.

What does work is money and sweat. Clearly, those on the liberal side believe in sweat. It always amazes me how many people with signs can show up to raise Cain about almost any issue.

Clearly it worked with the Tea Party. Two years after President Obama was elected (in 2008), there was a land-slide red wave of conservatives who voted in many of today’s members of the House or Representatives. Do you remember the conservative crowds who stood up for America then? I do. I was one of them. But the conservative Congress let us down. I was sure it was all lost. I was sure Clinton would win and my America vision would fade rapidly away. That changed on election night, 2016. Hallelujah!

But the left knows that if they can delay the Supreme Court appointment until the new Congress is seated in 2019, and win back one or both houses of Congress this November, they can prevent to Supreme Court from going conservative and hamstring President Trump with impeachment and more investigations into (pardon the pun) trumped up charges.

This truly is the most significant political tug-of-war in this country in many years. The winner will win not only this battle, but could win the war, as well. There will be key spots where the country’s future will be determined. I don’t have enough money to make much of a difference, but I can do retail politics. So, this bow season, and maybe past opening day of gun season, I may be stalking the wilds of some other state knocking on doors, stuffing envelopes or whatever the campaign manager needs, all on my own nickel.

I hate to eat alone. If any of you think you might want to form a group of traveling grunts, I am starting a thread in the forum (see www.forum.gon.com) where we can make our plans… and keep our oath.