Jen, I decided to offer a narrow response to your concerning the Constitution under a given theory.
Suppose someone believes that government operates differently than the people have always understood. Suppose someone claims that the structure of government has fundamentally changed from what Americans have traditionally expected. That belief does not make it so. Correct?
Do you still expect a republican form of government?
Moreover, if government claims that it operates under some different authority or some different structure than the people reasonably understand, then government bears the responsibility of explaining that change openly, honestly, and completely. Has this happened? No.
So the theory or notion of any change in government makes no difference.
The American people have every reason to expect that government will honor the constitutional principles under which it claims to govern. We expect public officials to remain within the limits of the authority entrusted to them. And we expect every constitutional officer—especially the county sheriff—to honor his oath.
The people should not be expected to discover such a change by accident or through a theory offered by a guru.
They should never be expected to infer it through implication.
And they should never be expected to surrender their constitutional expectations without being fully informed.
A free people are entitled to know the nature and source of the authority that governs them.
They are entitled to understand it.
They are entitled to question it.
The people have every reason to continue expecting a constitutional form of government they have always been taught to believe exists.
That expectation does not disappear because someone makes a different claim.
Nor does it relieve a sheriff of the duty to preserve the rights of the people and to ensure that governmental power remains within its proper constitutional limits.
The sheriff’s oath is not to speculation.
It is not to assumptions.
It is not to hidden understandings known only to a few.
His oath is to the constitutional order he has sworn to uphold and to the people whose liberty depends upon it.
If government wishes to claim something different, then let government explain it openly.
Allow me to emphasize a key point one more time. The people have every right to expect the constitutional protections, and every right to expect their sheriff to stand with them in preserving those principles.
May truth reign supreme.
