Thursday, January 5, 2012

Ferndale Oath of Office

On Tuesday, January 3, I witnessed the new members of the Ferndale City Council being sworn in. Here's what they promised, in front of God and everybody:
I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Washington, and that I will faithfully and impartially perform and discharge the duties of the office of [Title of Appointed Official] in and for the County of Whatcom, State of Washington, according to law and to the best of my ability, so help me God.
It is important to note that The Constitution of the United States and the State of Washington are included therein. The question I intend to ask (whenever necessary) is, "Which article of The Constitution gives government the authority to do that?"

This isn't some kind of "gotcha" moment. I simply believe that this is a fundamentally important question to ask. We the People are sovereign; government derives its just power from the consent of the governed. Those powers (and no more) are enumerated in The Constitution(s) and the City of Ferndale charter, as granted to government on our behalf by our forebears when they ratified or amended those documents.

2 comments :

  1. If only those elected officials understood this...

    Most of them obviously think the united states is a representative democracy where they are elected to lord over us with little regard for our opinions once they are elected. They behave more like we hand our sovereignty over to them as we cast our ballots.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous, it is obvious that some retraining is in order at all levels of government. And for many citizens, too!

    ReplyDelete

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