As we bow our heads today in remembrance of those brave Americans who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor 70 years ago, we should also reflect on the state of our nation & its Constitution, the very embodiment of which those gallant souls had committed to defending on that infamous day.

Such a frontal attack is visible to all; however, an attack of a very different nature is occurring and many Americans do not see it. America has always been quite proficient at defense, and that continues to be the case, as well it should be, as it represents the primary enumerated power granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution, and hence by the people.

But now, the most perilous threat that Americans face comes from within. This internal rot progresses apace, almost regardless of the party in power, aided & abetted, encouraged, or even ignored by those who have sworn an oath to defend America from its enemies both foreign & domestic.

Just last night no less than the President of the United States said that, in essence, the free enterprise system does not work, and must be replaced. By what? He doesn’t label it, but if you connect the dots you must come to the conclusion that it is some form of socialism/Marxism/fascism…….the fashionable terms now of course are progressivism, democratic-socialism, “fairness”, etc. Would this fit the old “lipstick on a pig” analogy?

The current front-runner “flavor-of-the-week” GOP contender has held the following positions: supported the Lautenberg gun ban (backed by the “Brady bunch”); has supported health care individual mandates both in the early 90s and again as recently as 2008; endorsed anthropogenic global warming & the need to legislate solutions; has told Iowa farmers that anyone opposing ethanol subsidies is “anti-farmer”; endorsed (leftist, pro-bailout) Dede Scozafava against (conservative) Doug Hoffman in an upstate NY congressional race; has called the Ryan budget plan “extreme”; has referred to the Tea Party as the “radical wing of the Republican Party”; supported the TARP bailout; has supported “No Child Left Behind”; supported various cap & tax schemes; favors the concept of GSEs (Fannie/Freddie) & has personally profited from them. He now pretends to be opposed to government largesse/intrusion that he actually had a hand in creating in order to lure the limited government crowd away from the former front-runner. Really, Republicans? Really?!

Congress will vote today on the REINS Act, which wouldn’t stop, but would simply reasonably limit the unconstitutional legislating/regulating promulgated by unelected bureaucracies. This is a simple measure, a step in the right direction, and will probably not pass. I expect bipartisan opposition to this common sense measure. The Federal Register for 2010 contained over 80,000 pages. Federal agencies have adopted over 3,500 new regulations in each of the last three years. There are over 4,000 new regulations in the pipeline, and the code of Federal Regulations now includes 165,000 pages. No one ever voted for the people producing this regulatory avalanche. Does freedom really require all of this?

At the time of our founding, the words “These are the times that try mens’ souls” were uttered. Well, they equally apply in our times. Sure, we don’t face a foreign army  physically invading our shores, nor are we opposing the threat bootless & leaving bloody footprints in the snow. But we must oppose our own modern version of the threat nevertheless. The cancer that is consuming our substance is more insidious, but certainly no less menacing to our liberty.

Mike Thibodeaux is President of the Baton Rouge Tea Party.