Lamont, Cromwell, Washington

Cromwell dissolving the Rump of the Long Parliament

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master – George Washington

In 1653, Oliver Cromwell, God’s spokesperson on earth, entered Parliament and told the legislators assembled, to quit the premises, rudely dismissing the so called Rump of the Long Parliament.

“Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance. Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God's help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do. I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place. Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!”

The gentlemen disassembled because they saw standing behind Cromwell a New Model Army that had been successful in routing opposition to British rule in both Scotland and Ireland. In both countries, Cromwell had successfully destroyed the Catholic Church, an additional benefit. In long-suffering, independent seeking Ireland, a famine and the bubonic plague followed close upon Cromwell’s footsteps.

Whatever the members of Parliament did while the Lord Protector and Ruler of the English Commonwealth was securing his tyrannical sway over England and its expanded empire, they did not legislate.

When the monarchy and Parliament had been restored two years after Cromwell’s death, his corpse was disinterred, put on trial by Charles II, and posthumously convicted of high treason. Cromwell’s corpse was hanged and beheaded, a trophy mounted on a 20 foot spike outside Westminster Hall.

Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut, we should rejoice, is no Cromwell. And the General Assembly that had for two years conferred on him plenary powers similar to those of Cromwell is no Parliament.

Lamont’s extraordinary powers were conferred upon him not because the General Assembly in Connecticut feared dispersal by force of arms. Although everything done by Lamont during the past two years without the assent of the General Assembly might less easily have been done with the assent of the General Assembly, Connecticut’s legislature winked at its constitutional obligations – for two whole years – because governance by representative consent is somewhat more complex than governance by an executive swollen with extra-constitutional powers.

Moreover, the conferral of extraordinary powers upon the executive department in Connecticut has remained constant, while the precipitating cause of the abridgment of legislative and judicial powers has changed. The latest variant of Coronavirus, Omicron, all scientists agree, is less potent than its predecessors. Science tells us that variants of a virus are more contagious, less fatal and of shorter duration than the original virus, about which little was known two years ago, when a laboratory produced Coronavirus moved speedily from China throughout the world.

To put the matter in plain terms: Political science in Connecticut has not kept up with the known science of anti-viral medicine. Coronavirus 2020 is NOT Omicron-virus 2022. Because Omicron is less lethal and more contagious, it is likely to produce natural antibodies that are, two reliable studies show, more effective than vaccines in warding off a new pandemic. Omicron has been called by some doctors and scientists a blessing in disguise, a “natural vaccine,” more effective than those produced by Big Pharma which, quite suddenly and unaccountably, has become the love child of progressives who abhor Big Anything.

Politicians are most persuasive and credible in a federated republic when they refuse to adorn themselves with extraordinary powers. When King George III of England was told by American artist Benjamin West that President George Washington was going to resign, the King said “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

Recently, Lamont made a baby step forward towards returning his state to republican governance when he offered to allow the General Assembly to codify several of his executive orders. At the same time, he urged the Democrat dominated General Assembly to extend his extraordinary powers an unprecedented seventh time. Had he refused the extension and announced he was returning Connecticut’s government to its constitutional form in which laws are written by the legislature, executed by the executive and reviewed when challenged on constitutional points by Superior Courts, he would have been the greatest man in Connecticut.

Presently, Lamont may bask in the momentary glory of a Cromwell. Neither he nor leaders in the General Assembly have sufficient patriotic modesty to fully and constitutionally repeat the magnificent gesture of Washington, who trusted that a true republican form of government would not rob the public of its native, God given, independent force.