Shimkus teaching the Constitution.…sagacious sanctimony.

Eliz­a­beth A. Lehnerer photo U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Collinsville) dis­cussed the Con­sti­tu­tion and his job in Con­gress with stu­dents at Holy Cross Lutheran School in Collinsville on Mon­day.

Well, so much for an igno­rance defense. If only the kid­dies who were sub­jected to his con­trived exper­tise in the Con­sti­tu­tion knew the appar­ent con­tempt he held for that parch­ment pro­fun­dity of polit­i­cal power.
I was for­tu­nate enough to attend a Collinsville Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment break­fast a year or so ago where Mr. Shimkus was the guest speaker. At the time, Illi­nois was embroiled in debate over the bestow­ment of being a “judi­cial hell­hole” and pro­fusely hem­or­rhag­ing physi­cians due to sky­rock­et­ing mal­prac­tice pre­mi­ums to cover out­ra­geous jury awards.

So, Mr. Shimkus felt it his appar­ent duty to work with Mr. Bush and the other tort-chasing-lawyer-hating Repub­li­cans in push­ing tort reform in order to usurp the power of juries to award dam­ages to plain­tiffs. Now granted, not all jury awards carry the pre­sump­tion of being well-reasoned and fair, but the state leg­is­la­ture bears the pri­mary respon­si­bil­ity for effect­ing change in civil law, not the fed­eral government.

I had the oppor­tu­nity to ask Mr. Shimkus a ques­tion at the break­fast and I pulled no punches and did my best to leave no out for an eva­sive answer or polit­i­cal plat­i­tude. I was par­tially suc­cess­ful. My ques­tion was this, where in the Con­sti­tu­tion does the fed­eral gov­ern­ment find the power to inter­vene in a state issue, involv­ing the power of juries to award dam­ages, and arbi­trar­ily set caps on com­pen­sa­tion for dam­ages? Because, if it acts on such power, the power must be ple­nary if not defined or lim­ited in the Con­sti­tu­tion, and if ple­nary, what is to stop them from later step­ping to save the auto­mo­tive insur­ance indus­try by lim­it­ing the amount of dam­ages when man­u­fac­tur­ers sell know­ingly defec­tive vehi­cles that result in death or injury?

Mr. Shimkus thought for a few sec­onds before prof­fer­ing his answer and stated in elo­quent polit­i­cal fash­ion that the power did not exist in the Con­sti­tu­tion but dog­gone it, Illi­nois needs doc­tors so he was going to do what was nec­es­sary in order to achieve that end and if the vot­ers find his actions dis­taste­ful then they would speak through the polls. Of course, I am para­phras­ing, but doing so very accu­rately. Basi­cally, the Con­sti­tu­tion be damned, I’m going to do it any­way because the court of pub­lic opin­ion will carry more weight than the Supreme Court.

Now, I’m cer­tain Mr. Shimkus knew that he had no author­ity to involve him­self in tort reform, as well as the fed­eral gov­ern­ment hav­ing no author­ity as well. To me, he looked vis­i­bly uncom­fort­able with the ques­tion, know­ing full well how he had to dis­sem­ble in his answer to save face. He relied upon the igno­rance of the small crowd and their kow­tow­ing adu­la­tion. Way to go Mr. Shimkus.

So now, Mr. Shimkus is gal­li­vant­ing around the ele­men­tary schools edu­cat­ing chil­dren about the Con­sti­tu­tion. In the story, he tells the chil­dren to look to the Con­sti­tu­tion for answers about gov­ern­ment. Allow me to cor­rect that state­ment. Chil­dren, do not look to the Con­sti­tu­tion. The gov­ern­ment has all but for­got­ten it. Do not claim Con­sti­tu­tional rights. Do not claim civil rights. Do not claim to have civil lib­er­ties. Do not peti­tion the cor­rupt and co-opted courts for redress. Instead, look to the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence. Your rights are antecedent to the for­ma­tion of any gov­ern­ment. Your rights do not derive from any earthly source. Gov­ern­ment is a tool designed to secur­ing our free­dom and guard­ing your lib­erty. It has failed. The Con­sti­tu­tion defined that tool. The tool no longer works. It is a rusty, worn, inef­fec­tive relic designed for a job that has been neglected; and now our repub­lic lies in a sad state of dis­re­pair. There is a say­ing, “chose the right tool for the right job”. The job is reclaim­ing our free­doms and reduc­ing gov­ern­ment to that lim­ited and spe­cific trustee of our power in secur­ing lib­erty. The proper tool now is rev­o­lu­tion through evo­lu­tion of thought. Exer­cise first the mind. If the foe proves too resis­tant, exer­cise the trig­ger finger.

Mr. Shimkus, you may fool some of the kid­dies some of the time, but God help you should they wake from their slum­ber. I hope to be one to shake their eyes wide open.