Dear Senators Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Susan Collins, and John McCain,
In moments of peril, it is often difficult to fully understand the “moment” in a broad historical context. The implications of certain actions or lack-of-action can remain obfuscated until years later. Moments of armed conflict such as WWII, where territory is won or lost, and in which ideals are played out on a tangible battle field, offer some clarity. But this moment is especially challenging – the threat is domestic – it is of our own making, abetted and cheered on by the hostile nation of Russia whether through their direct or indirect influence.
The moment is made especially more perilous because the “checks and balances” which James Madison and Alexander Hamilton wrote of eloquently in “Federalist Papers”, in which it is my interpretation that the principle of limited government – not less government or smaller government, per-se – but government in which one branch acts as a check on the other, is imperiled by a combination of extreme partisanship defined by fanatical devotion to party identity rather than to the Constitution and the Rule of Law, and by complicity through inaction by those who recognize this but lack the certitude and moral courage to lead with a strong voice those who are now being led astray by strong voices of dubious ethical standards.
Within your party, you have all demonstrated through speech and by some recent votes in certain cases, a degree of independence from Party and alignment with the Constitution and basic universal social norms over and beyond the loyalty of the moment.
Building on that courage, I call on you now to all abandon the Republican Party, at least temporarily, and re-register as Independent. If the four of you do so, the Senate control will switch to the Democratic Party. This switch is necessary, at this moment, to ensure a proper check on a chaotic Executive Branch. While certain strong voices may deride you, the weight of History and of the vast majority of this country would be solidly behind you and this act of coordinated sacrifice and courage for the sake of this country will not be forgotten. Words speak not as loudly as action.
I leave you with a quote from Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum Address from 1838:
“Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.”
The Rationalist Dispatch 