A Republican Form of Government
The governor of Mississippi is acting like a dictator or king because the law is what he says it is via executive orders, such as mask mandates and the lockdown of Mississippi’s citizens.
Executive Orders and mandates are Politically Correct terms for dictates. However, the Constitution of Mississippi and the USA preclude dictatorship as a form of government.
Article 1, Section 1 of Mississippi’s Constitution states,
“The powers of the government of the State of Mississippi shall be divided into three distinct departments, and each of them confided to a separate magistracy, to-wit: those which are legislative to one, those which are judicial to another, and those which are executive to another.”
Article I, Section 2 of Mississippi’s Constitution states,
“No person or collection of persons, being one or belonging to one of these departments, shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others. The acceptance of an office in either of said departments shall, of itself, and at once, vacate any and all offices held by the person so accepting in either of the other departments.”[1]
Governor Reeves is no longer in the legislature. He executes the law but he does not make the law. Neither he nor the legislature are allowed to suspend the Constitution of Mississippi because Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States reads,
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”[2]
The author realizes that the governor is trying to make scared people feel better because Certificate of Need (CON) laws have left us with medical shortages.[3] The idea is that a good leader is supposed to force bad people to make good decisions for our collective health or safety.
Speaking to this form of government, the French economist Frederic Bastiat wrote,
“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”[4]
Jefferson Davis, as a US Senator from Mississippi speaking in the Senate on Feb 29, 1860 also commented on this form of government. He said,
“The condition of slavery with us is, in a word, Mr. President, nothing but the form of civil government instituted for a class of people not fit to govern themselves. It is exactly what in every State exists in some form or other. It is just that kind of control which is extended in every northern State over its convicts, its lunatics, its minors, its apprentices. It is but a form of civil government for those who by their nature are not fit to govern themselves.”[5]
Mississippians do not need a commander (imperator> imperative [command]> emperor). We need a Republic.[6]
“Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.” -Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785.[7]
At least we can pretend that the debt and inflation don’t exist while we argue about masks.[8]
Divide et impera.
“The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.” -Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Meet the Press, August 7, 2011.
“We can guarantee cash benefits as far out and at whatever size you like, but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power.” -Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Feb 16, 2005.
“Gold is a currency. It is still by all evidences the premier currency where no fiat currency, including the dollar, can match it.” - Alan Greenspan, in an interview for the Council on Foreign Relations, Nov 2014
[1] https://www.sos.ms.gov/Education-Publications/Documents/Downloads/Mississippi_Constitution.pdf
[2]https://constitutioncenter.org/media/files/constitution.pdf
[3] https://www.nashp.org/anticipating-hospital-bed-shortages-states-suspend-certificate-of-need-programs-to-allow-quick-expansions/ “As coronavirus (COVID-19) hospitalizations and ICU bed demand surge across the country, 13 states have quickly acted to implement temporary, targeted suspensions of their certificate of need (CON) requirements for construction or expansion of new health-care facilities to remove regulatory barriers to address this critical health care need.”
[4]http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html Pg. 46
The actual translation from French in this source is, “Do they consider that they are composed of different materials from the rest of mankind?” However, the translation used for the article sounds better.
[5]https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-davis-reply-senate-william-h-seward
[6] https://www.hamiltonmobley.com/blog/augustus-or-cincinnatus
[8]https://www.hamiltonmobley.com/blog/ch4l2ssqmdngldxo3xegkol02ngiqu
Art Source: Caesar Crossing the Rubicon: https://www.deviantart.com/pook1983/art/Ben-Pook-Caesar-crossing-the-Rubicon-753414634