Color me green with envy for Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), but do not color my politics blue or call me a supporter of the Green New Deal. Color me red, not Red (or pink), because Greene is better than a squad of Democrats or a septet of Republican senators. Greene is also better than Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.) the Aaron Burr of scoundrels, because her votes match her veneration of the Constitution. Along with Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.),Greene is more sincere—and contrite—than any collection of keyboard warriors or masked politicians.
If Greene must be an outcast in a House of hypocrites, let her be the best voice for her constituents in the House of Representatives. If critics want to attack her, let them speak; if critics want to continue their attacks, let them try.
We attack ourselves, however, if we put the market ahead of the marketplace of ideas. Neither can flourish without certain moral sentiments, that among these are the rightness of the right of freedom of speech, that all other rights flow from this right, that freedom depends on this right.
Like Greene, Boebert is unafraid to defend her rights. She refuses to honor an organization, the World Health Organization (WHO), whose flag represents no country and whose host country flies the flag of surrender. She refuses to be an accomplice to the undoing of our right to know, while WHO stockpiles information and rations the truth. She refuses to disguise scientism with a face mask or dignify the Swiss cross with the white coat of medicine.
The gentleman from North Carolina (Rep. Cawthorn) appreciates these points. He raises a point of his own, too, regarding the role of government: that we have a government of limited and enumerated powers, not a leviathan with a crosier, crown, or sword.
We have a republic to keep, not a Republican Party to protect at any cost. We have an obligation—we take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion—to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
The obligation belongs to every member of Congress, just as the words obligate every American to prevent the death of liberty from the forces of materialism and material prosperity. The obligation is hard but necessary, because those who would break the commandment of our civil religion would soon command us, because the Tenth Amendment commands us to serve as a brake on runaway government. The commandment is clear:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Cawthorn draws faith from this text. Boebert bears allegiance to this text. Greene affirms the spirit of this text.
Their commitment is whole, despite attempts to silence, censor, cancel, or censure them. Their commitment is a rebuke to the tyranny of the mob and the rise of lawlessness. Their commitment is righteous and true.