The Higher Authority

The more I think about it, I think that Congress is the higher authority over the President. The reason I think that is Congress can fire the President, but the President can't fire Congress. Therefore, if the President gave you an unlawful order, Congress would be the higher authority to which you would report it. The Supreme court can over rule Congress, but Congress can limit the authority of the Supreme Court, although they almost never do. I don't think the Supreme Court can fire a congressman, only his fellow congressmen can do that. I'm pretty sure that nobody can fire the whole Congress all at once except the voters at election time, which would require all the voters to act collectively in concert, and I don't think that has ever happened. It would seem, then, that Congress is the highest power in our government. The Constitution is supposed to be the highest power of all, but it can be changed by actions of Congress and the state legislatures, so that still puts Congress on top. By the way, in case you were wondering, the reason you're supposed to report an unlawful order to the next highest authority is to cover your own ass in case there are repercussions. Being a witness may be inconvenient, but not nearly as inconvenient as being a defendant.

It was before my time, but I think what people were accusing the Birchers of was being a subversive organization. There was something in those days called "The Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations". I'm pretty sure that the John Birch Society was never on that list but, apparently, some people thought that it ought to be. Like I said, there was talk of a congressional investigation, but it never happened. The media was full of that kind of talk for awhile, and then it wasn't. Lots of people noticed the allegations, but not many people noticed that nothing ever came of them. Like I also said, the Birchers were looking forward to the congressional investigation so they could clear their name. When there was no investigation, the Birchers went looking for somebody to investigate them, again, so they could clear their name. Like I also said, the California legislature finally agreed to investigate them and didn't find anything wrong with them. By the way, I told you wrong yesterday when I said the allegations were proven to be wrong. What I should have said was that the allegations were never proven to be true.

I don't remember anything about the Birchers being secretive, you might have them confused with the Masons. Indeed, the Birchers' whole program was about publishing and publicizing their beliefs. We used to post notices of our meetings in our local paper's Community Calendar inviting all interested people to attend, but nobody ever did. That's why I finally got tired of them, they were all talk and no action. I never seem to get tired of talking to you, but you challenge my beliefs, which I find kind of stimulating. With the Birchers, we were just preaching to the converted, which gets boring after awhile. The only material thing I saw any Birchers do was post those billboards in Indiana saying "Get US Out of the United Nations" and "Impeach Justice Earl Warren". Their local chapter must have been much more activist than we were. The Earl Warren thing didn't last long, but, the last time I drove through Indiana, there was still a homemade sign in somebody's yard, right by the Interstate, saying "Get US Out of the United Nations". I don't remember when the big billboards came down, probably because of some silly zoning regulation, but it's nice to know that somebody in Indiana is still keeping the faith.

By the way, you don't have to worry about getting silly with your hat joke, that ship has already sailed.