Went to dinner last night with some good friends – great food, even better company – but I made a statement at dinner, that upon further reflection, explains why I am not joyous in this joyous season.I said that, at no time in my 60 years on this beautiful blue-green orb, have I ever felt so disconnected from my country and its government.

I logically get the SCOTUS Texas decision – I don’t agree with it – but I get it. My problem is that “standing” has become such a flexible concept, it is no more than an “out” for the judiciary to escape political cases that would cause the court to be even more controversial than it has already become.

I believe the conservatives and progressives on the court agree on one thing, they have to protect the court from controversy even if that means denying that it is their role to address such situations and by not doing so, they are destroying the Constitution in the process.

What I mean by that is this: if you think of the entire population of all the judicial challenges in the total realm of the American court systems as a big funnel, the easiest get resolved by the lower courts as the funnel narrows and only the toughest appeals – and state level disagreements – make it out of the nose of the funnel and into the SCOTUS bucket.

It is the SCOTUS’ job to decide the tough cases, not hide from them.

My wife and I were driving to dinner last night when the news broke that the SCOTUS had decided not to decide the Texas case. I remarked then that our Republic is officially over and today would be recorded in history as the beginning of the end.

I said that, not just due to the SCOTUS decision, but due to the totality of the election fraud cases that have been brought to state and federal courts that have been dismissed on procedural grounds rather than on factual grounds – either for “lack of standing” or the “laches” concept – that the cases were brought too late. These concepts deny the right of evidence and complaints of parties to even be heard. They are being used by courts as a “Catch 22” situation to evade and cancel legitimate concerns brought by American citizens.

Take the case of Sean Parnell, the GOP candidate in Pennsylvania’s 17th District. After the election, Parnell brought a case alleging Pennsylvania’s Act 77, the one that changed Pennsylvania election rules by authorized massive, uncontrolled mail-out ballots, was unconstitutional due to the fact that the constitutional process to make such a change was never completed by the state legislature and unelected officials, executive branch officers and judges unconstitutionally modified election rules that only the PA legislature had the power to do.

His case was dismissed under the “laches” concept – the PA Supreme Court said he waited too long – but on the other hand, he could not have brought the suit until after the election because be could not demonstrate harm and therefore didn’t have standing.

My question is this – if an individual does not have standing to challenge an election that impacts every single individual at a state and federal level, who has standing? We now know that individuals can’t challenge elections for any number of reasons and states can’t challenge other states that run corrupt elections and that violate their own laws and rules just because they want a certain outcome.

What does that mean?

It means that state level corruption in a national election has just been legalized and nobody, not even the citizens of that state or their candidates, can do a damn thing about it.

I once thought that the catalyst, the spark that sets the whole secession shebang aflame and finally pushes us over the edge, would come from state taxation. I predicted that the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back would be a lawsuit, one filed by a high tax state like California against states that have low or no state income or property tax rates because they are unfairly “pricing” their states, the effect of which is to rob the high tax states of the taxpayers necessary to support their respective state governments. If the burden is increased in one state by out-migration to another, that will be called “unfair” and I think these states will turn to the courts for a remedy.

I thought there is a possibility that a governor or a state attorney general might try the invoke the Commerce Clause but it would be more likely they would try to use the Fourteenth Amendment which states, in part:”No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Now I believe that straw could be election processes. It is a simple fact that every fraudulent vote cast or counted erases a legal, properly cast vote. It is also uncontestable that a fraudulent vote for a presidential candidate cast in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada or Georgia cancels my vote in Utah.

Why is it so hard to understand that I, as a citizen of Utah, have a vested interest in the outcome of the Pennsylvania election process? Physical distance doesn’t change that standing, neither does the idiotic question asked by high functioning morons of whether “there is enough fraud to change the outcome” (which, curiously is not a question asked of any other crime – we never ask “Is there enough murder to prosecute just one murderer?” or “did he steal enough money to prosecute him for theft”?).

“Disconnected” really doesn’t come close to describing how I feel. If there was a word that combined it with utter disgust, contempt, disaffection, impotence and anger, that would come close. It is a feeling that I should be in the middle of a 12,000 acre plot in Northwest Montana with a long gun with a heavy barrel, one capable of a 1,500 yard shot, just so I can maintain a secure perimeter.

America is already a separated nation. It’s time we recognize that fact.