chicken come home to roost

So the situation in Honduras has gotten… interesting. Most of the news sources out there are decrying it as an “illegal coup”, and even our Glorious President has come out condemning the individuals and groups who (peacefully) overthrew the previous President. However, a little bit of a background always makes the story more interesting.
Bits and pieces of this story are being pulled from here, here, here, here, here, and here.
So, our story starts not too long ago, when ex-President Manuel Zelaya was, indeed, legally elected at an appropriate and legitmate free election in Honduras. Since then, however, his popularity has been steadily declining, to the point that his approval ratings hover somewhere around 30%. As with all politicians, though, the reason he took the job was not to keep people happy, but rather to secure power for himself, so he called for a referendum to bypass a law in the Honduran constitution that limits him to a single, four-year term. This bypass would effectively allow him to remain President indefinitely.
Small detail: the Honduran constitution specifically states that the Presidential term-limit law is one of eight that can never, ever be amended. Interesting…
Second small detail: according to the Honduran constitution, only their congress can call for a referendum.
Those two details taken into account, basically every governmental agency from the Honduran Electorial Tribunal to the Honduran Supreme Court said, “Uhm, no.” Ex-President Zelaya’s reaction? “Sunday’s referendum will not be stopped.” … and, oh, by the way, I will tell the military to “distribute” the ballots.
The Honduran Supreme Court stepped up to the plate, and declared that the referendum was unconstitutional and unlawful. The military refused to distribute the ballots, so Zelaya fired its boss, General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez (what a name). Their supreme court again stepped up and ordered that the General be re-instated.
Simultaneously, the Honduran Attorney General made a request to their congress to out the then-President, and their congress named a commission to investigate the then-President.
The ex-President apparently got bored with trying to work things through the appropriate channels, so, on Thursday of last week, he lead a mob that broke into the military base where the ballots were stored, and tried to distribute them in defiance of their supreme court. Oddly enough, the Honduran Congress (backed up by their supreme court) ordered the Honduran military to remove then-President Zelaya “for repeated violations to the Constitution”. Ambassadors from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua were also arrested. Ex-President Zelaya was exiled to Costa Rica, the old president of the Honduran Congress, Roberto Micheletti, has replaced him, and elections will be held, as scheduled, in November.
End summation? President wanted to illegally modify the Constitution. Appropriate authorities told him no. President threatened to use military force to illegally modify Constitution. Appropriate authorities told him no again. President actually tried to use miliary force. Appropriate authorities told him no again, military told him to pack sand, and appropriately sent him off to Costa Rica.
Our Glorious President’s reaction? He has joined the likes of Hugo Chavez, Fidel and Raul Castro, Daniel Ortega, and Rafael Correa in decrying this so-called “coup” as “not legal“. Yes, you heard me right – President Barack Hussein Obama declared that it was “not legal” for a country to try and defend its constitution from someone who was hell-bent on perverting, undermining, and bypassing it in order to secure himself more power. Furthermore, our President has sided with some of the most totalitarian, controlling, oppressing, socialistic, authoritarianistic, and corrupt officials in Central America.
Is anyone seeing a problem with this? Well, anyone aside from the lefties of our country, that is? Ironically, the same people who were absolutely horrified at the mythical and specious threat of “President-for-Life Bush” are now adamant that ex-President Zelaya has every right to be President-for-Life himself. The hypocrisy of the left knows no bounds…
The rule of law always has the implied threat of force behind it – it cannot exist any other way. If someone does not obey a law, and if that someone further does not obey the various non-violent sanctions and punishments that are brought to bear against them, then the time for words is over (and probably long-since so). At that point, the rule of law requires the implementation of force, otherwise the someone in question will just go on ignoring the law, and there might as well not be a law. This has always been the case for serfs, subjects, and other “citizens”, but it always seems as though the politicians of whatever age we are referring end up being above the laws by which they supposedly govern.
Our Glorious President’s condemnation of this legitimate overhthrow of a governmental usurper shows, very clearly, how he feels concerning politicians being held to the constitution and laws of their respective countries, and it must scare the gos-se out of him to see real, live, honest-to-God evidence that politicians are not above the law, and, in fact, are just as accountable to the country’s laws and constitution as anyone else is. Given the dim view President Obama has for our particular Constitution, it is no great surprise to anyone who has been paying attention that he is decrying and denouncing the legal, appropriate, and constitutional dethronement of a would-be dictator.
And here I sit, having once taken an oath to do just that, should the situation call for it, wondering if we Americans could ever follow the example laid down by our Honduran bretheren… and I find myself doubtful.