MONARCHY: Maybe inching closer

Reference Mike Buzga’s request for facts regarding the word “monarchy.”

Before the rise of democracy in the 18th century, it took an actual revolution to overturn autocrats. Kings and other absolute rulers like Stalin and Hitler ruled with “iron fists,” often eliminating any and all opposition.

The English colonies in America faced that in the 18th century leading to the Revolutionary War and the establishment of the USA and its Constitution. That Constitution was an attempt to avoid the problem of absolute power.

Please read that document and other words of the Founding Fathers. Their primary purpose was to resist absolute power. They thought that the powers given to Congress, including the power to impeach presidents, would enable resistance to presidential absolute power. Only when the Congress hesitates to use their power can the power of the president trend toward absolutism.

As I write this, President Trump seems to be purging the federal government of anyone who appeared to resist him. Many of the responses of the president’s supporters attack those people as liars. It is easy to say that all of the people who testified to Congress were liars, but is it logical or more factual than their testimony under oath? Not at all!

You can attack Congress for overreacting but you cannot take away their power to impeach, at least as long as we still have a constitution. When we lose that, we will probably be living in a monarchy. That is a fact.

MORTON KRAUS

Coeur d’Alene