Viva Honduras! Viva la revolucion!
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=102691
Dr. Michael Savage
It was a «coup» in Honduras in a way, but it was really a coup for democracy.
The Machiavellian plots of a would-be dictator were unexpectedly thwarted by the Honduran military last Sunday. President Manuel Zelaya, a Marxist socialist who is the protégé of his Venezuelan neighbor, President Hugo Chavez, unsuccessfully tried to turn his country into a banana republic to extend his term in office indefinitely by executive decree. (Can you say Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York?)
The report from Reuters said, in part, «Zelaya, who took office in 2006 and is limited by the constitution to a four-year term that ends in early 2010, had angered the army, courts and Congress by pushing for an unofficial public vote on Sunday to gauge support for his plan to hold a November referendum on allowing presidential re-election.»
Of course, Musolini-lite, Hugo Chavez is very angry by this recent «coup» in Honduras. Why? Chavez is worried that his people in Venezuela will get dangerous ideas of liberty and freedom. Coincidentally, Chavez escaped his own coup in 2002; perhaps this time he won’t be so lucky. Indeed, dictators can be kicked out of office by force when they contravene the constitution.
Honduran ex-President Zelaya was allowed asylum in Costa Rica. «If holding a poll provokes a coup, the abduction of the president and expulsion from his country, then what kind of democracy are we living in?» Zelaya said in Costa Rica. I answer him in this wise: «Mr. Zelaya, the kind of democracy Hondurans are living in is the very kind that Thomas Jefferson dreamed of for America and eventually for the entire world to enjoy – Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.»
Here are the opening words of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence:
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The key phrase here is: «it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another.» I call that passage the exclusionary clause that any healthy representative democracy or republic must maintain as a last resort when any of its branches of government – executive, legislature or judicial – become unresponsive or even tyrannical to the will of the people. We see these despotic regimes in evidence with Chavez in Venezuela, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, Zelaya in Honduras and Obama in America. Therefore, it is the sworn duty of We the People, as a civilized body under this social contract, to overthrow any unconstitutional government by force if necessary and re-establish a constitutional one based on the rule of law, liberty and Veritas (truth).
When you really boil these leaders down to their component parts, there isn’t much difference in tone, style or substance. They are all neo-Marxist dictators with fascist tendencies. They all hate democratic strictures like freedom, separation of powers, bipartisanship and fidelity to the Constitution.
George Orwell once said, «During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.» It is so refreshing to see the Honduran military provoke truth by ushering in essence a counterrevolution to oust the would-be tyrant, President Zelaya, and prevent his sham referendum for making him «El Presidente» for life.
The unfolding events in Honduras remind me of a German proverb – Der Mensch denkt, Gott lenkt – Man proposes, God disposes. In other words, no matter the wicked designs of man plotted in secret places to oppress, disenfranchise and kill his fellow man, in time God will always arise, show Himself to be strong and frustrate and depose the evil intent of tyrants like Zelaya, Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il and Obama.
It is really a beautiful exercise of the doctrine of separation of powers the way Zelaya was summarily and quickly removed from office. The Reuter’s story read: «The Supreme Court, which last week came out against Zelaya and ordered him to reinstate fired military chief Vasquez, said on Sunday it had told the army to remove the president. It acted to defend the rule of law,» the court said in a statement read on Honduran radio.
For my socialist, progressive and liberal friends who characterize the military action of the Honduran army to be a coup establishing a Cuban-style junta, Reuters wrote: «An opposition deputy said Congress would chose Roberto Micheletti, the head of Congress, as acting president later on Sunday, and Honduras’ top electoral court said a presidential election would be held as planned on Nov. 29.»
Michael Savage was right; the revolution in Honduras isn’t a «coup» against democracy – it is a coup for democracy. Moreover the actions of the Honduran army amount to a counterrevolution to stop president Zelaya’s attempted coup.
While I prefer peaceful means to effect political change, history has repeatedly shown us that because of mankind’s irredeemable nature, absolute power corrupts absolutely. In the face of utter evil and tyranny, We the People are sometimes left with few options other than overt revolution. Once again, Thomas Jefferson said it best: The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Viva Honduras! Viva la revolucion!
Ellis Washington, currently a professor of law and political science at Savannah State University, former editor at the Michigan Law Review and law clerk at The Rutherford Institute, is a graduate of John Marshall Law School and a lecturer and freelance writer on constitutional law, legal history, political philosophy and critical race theory. He has written over a dozen law review articles and several books, including «The Inseparability of Law and Morality: The Constitution, Natural Law and the Rule of Law» (2002). See his law review article «Reply to Judge Richard Posner.» Washington’s latest book is «The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust.»
