Understanding the Constitution with David C. Gibbs, Attorney

The Bible, Common Law, and the Founding of America

Okay, I'm Terry Camersell here on behalf of Creation Fellowship Santee. We're a group of friends who love to learn about our Creator God and believe that the Bible, when read properly, rules out the possibility of long ages.

We met for 10 years at the Creation and Earth History Museum in Santee, California, then and online. Our goal is to equip believers to defend their faith. You can find over 4 years' worth of our virtually there archives by visiting tinyurl .com forward slash cfsarchives, c for Creation, f for Fellowship, s for Santee, cfsarchives.

David C. Gibbs III serves as President and General Counsel of the National Center for Life and Liberty, a legal ministry that protects the rights of churches and Christian organizations nationwide, with offices in California, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas.

A graduate of Duke University School of Law, Mr. Gibbs speaks regularly at churches and conferences across the country, while also litigating cases as a trial attorney. Tonight, we're happy to have him come and speak to us on the topic of one of his five books, Understanding the Constitution.

With that, I'm happy to turn it over to you.

Terry, thank you. You said that masterfully. It is certainly an honor to be on your time together and to put this out for folks to hear. As was said in the introduction, I have the privilege as an attorney of representing God's people, churches, Christians, people that are challenged for practicing their sincerely held religious belief.

And I am honored to do that. As we go to court, a lot of people call us constitutional attorneys as we defend these rights across the nation. Tonight, I want to maybe just go back to the founding of our country.

As we think about the Constitution of the United States, I think we live in a world where people do not fully appreciate it or understand it, or are not even really aware of what it says. But as you look to the founding of our country, there was clearly a time where the country came together and unbelievably won a revolution, a war against the superpower of the time.

Now, as you think about startups, and we've all had our own experiences, you start a business or you start school or you start a new marriage or any type of startup can be amazingly difficult. Well, think about the challenges of starting a new country.

Having won the war, this country began to move forward. And as we all know from the history books, under the Articles of Incorporation, there was this difficulty between the states in terms of things that we still fight about today.

We fight over power, what type of authority, we fight over money, and this country that started out in victory under this Articles of Confederation almost ended up in disaster. There was a lot of talk amongst the founding fathers that maybe it would have been better to have stayed under some type of European or British rule, and they wanted to think about going back in terms of what they would do.

And so, there was an emergency business meeting that was called. Now, today, we look at that business meeting and we call it our Constitutional Convention. But the reality is things were going so badly, that's really the only way they were able to get everybody to come together.

And they would gather in Philadelphia, and as you know, they would draft what we now call the supreme law of our land, the United States Constitution. And with all of that, as they were looking to take it to the states for ratification and they wanted to go forward with it, they began to have sort of a fearful discussion.

How will we make this thing work? We started out under the Articles of Confederation and it wasn't working. What's going to make this work differently? How will we be successful? And they began to talk about legal models and what type of law would we have, and they began to discuss two key models.

One was called the English common law. Now, as you think back, you can think of a huge big strike against anything out of England. That was the mother country. That was the country that they had broken away from in revolution.

That was the country that had, in a sense, created tyranny. We remember the Boston Tea Party. And while they wanted liberty and freedom, they were also there saying taxation without representation. And they had felt that the British had not given them any type of representation in the parliament, and so they were having difficulties.

And so there was a lot of thought that anything out of England was not something that they wanted. And so the English common law was a well-known law that was based on the English standards that they had built their legal system on.

And it was really a legal system that was based on the word of God. The common law was common for the reasons that it had the original source, and it was used anywhere that was in the British rule. And so they understood it from a biblical perspective to be a solid legal system that they could rely upon and that was well known.

But there was a lot of concern because it had come out of England, and the common law was something that they felt would put them under the auspices of British rule. So there was a group of the founding fathers that said it's time to abandon the common law, and we want to go under what they called at that time the civil law system.

Now, the civil law was out of France, that part of Europe, and it was deemed as a trendier. It was avant-garde. It was newer. And what they did with the civil law system is they said, you know, what you do is you take educated, smart people, and you give them tough problems, and they come up with creative solutions.

And they said, with that model, you have a solid legal system. Now, you may be watching this recording, and you may be saying to yourself, well, Mr. Gibbs, if you take smart people, and you give them tough problems, and you let them come up with creative solutions, what's the difficulty?

Well, the difficulty is there is no undergirding moral authority. They can move it either direction. I'm going to hold in my hand a book here. And under the English common law, they understood that all of their rulings had to be within the confines of biblical authority.

They understood that there had to be a standard to the law. What the French had done is they had removed the standard, and in removing the standard, they allowed judges to move either direction. Now, there were a lot of believers or a lot of people of faith at the time, and they would stay within what we would call biblical or Christian parameters, but the system itself did not require it.

And so, those were the two legal models that our founding fathers looked at. That's what they debated. That's what they argued. That's what they prayed over. And it's kind of interesting if you think about it.

In the pages of history, when you see a country break away in revolution, you generally don't see them come back and proceed to adopt the law of the country they broke away from. But that's exactly what the founding fathers did when they said, we are going to be a common law nation.

And it was at that point that they adopted the phrase, and they said, we choose to be a nation under God, because they were bringing the authority of the Word of God to the entire legal system. And so, after having broken away in revolution, they adopted, by decision, the law from the country they broke away from, and they put the Bible as a cornerstone, as an anchor point into the legal system.

So, for example, when you look at Mr. Blackstone, who was a gentleman that tried to codify or write down a lot of the old English common law, he quoted scripture as original authority source 90 of the time.

The old English law cases were oftentimes adjudicated by pastors, ministers, clergy, people that knew the Word of God, because if you knew the Bible in that day, you knew the law. So, old English common law oftentimes would be, people would be upset at church or the religious gathering or revival, and they'd say, I have aught with my brother, and I want to take this matter to court.

And they would actually say, no, no, no, we're going to do church here, we'll have court, we'll call people together. And the minister would then assume the role of judge and would have people come in and they'd say, what do you wish?

And they would say, I wish for this. And they say, on what authority? And that person would go ahead and give scripture. And then the defendant, the person that had been called before the court would say, no, no, no, deny them what they're asking, don't give it to them.

And he says, on what authority? And that person would quote scripture. And what they had to do was they had to rightly divide the Word of God. And so the old English common law was just loaded with all of these references to scripture, the Bible, and the authority.

And that's what our founding fathers wanted to found this nation upon. That's why George Washington, our very first president, said, I'm going to be sworn in as president. And let's stop for just a moment.

He took the opportunity to really demonstrate some wonderful lessons for us. They wanted to call him king. And he said, no, no, no, you're not going to call me king. I'm going to be president. They wanted to appoint him for life.

He said, no, no, no, I'm not going to serve for life. They wanted his relatives. He didn't have a son, but a nephew or someone to be taking the office after him. He said, no, we're going to have elections.

And as we know, there was an election where John Adams became the second president, and George Washington stepped down after two four-year terms, setting a model of limited authority. But in addition to all of those good examples, what George Washington did, he says, I want a Bible brought, because I am not going to be able to properly govern under this constitution, this nation, without the word of God.

And the Bible was brought, and he actually then set the example that has been continued from every president since then up to the current president, where the word of God is brought, and they swear in under the Bible.

Interestingly, Congress historically always swore in on Bibles. We have now shifted, and I think it's a bad shift, but where congressmen can select a text or religious book of their choosing or nothing.

And so we do have congressmen that have not been sworn in on the Bible, but the historic tradition was to be sworn in on the Bible. The Supreme Court, interestingly, actually has a Bible. They call it the Supreme Court Bible, and they lost one originally in a fire, and they went and got another one.

Justice Harlan got them kind of a big family Bible, big King James-type, lay-it-on-the-table-type Bible in 1911 or so, that time period, to replace the one they lost. But what the justices do is the final act before they actually become a Supreme Court justice.

So you will see the public ceremony on TV, and others will be there, family members, and those will come. But the final act is a private ceremony that they hold in chambers where the new justice sits and the others stand.

And what occurs then is the chief justice, and that's to note, if you will, looking up to those that have gone on before, the chief justice will push the Supreme Court Bible in front of the new justice, who will sign his or her name in the front of that Bible, promising to uphold the truth of the Word of God and the United States Constitution.

And with the signature, they actually then become a sitting United States Supreme Court justice. That's also why at the Supreme Court, if you visit the building, if you look up in what they call the frieze, which is the stone across the top where they sit and hear cases, you will actually see Moses and the Ten Commandments etched in the stone.

And somebody may say, now, wait a minute, why would a distinctively religious symbol of the Ten Commandments be in the United States Supreme Court building? Well, the answer is pretty simple. The common law was based on the Word of God.

The Ten Commandments were one of God's first compilations of legal principle. And so the entire American legal system can literally look back to the Ten Commandments and find the authority upon which it sits.

And so I firmly believe that by putting God and His Word in its rightful place, that we were indeed blessed as the United States of America. As many of you know, America has prospered in business and industry and freedom.

We have a nation that many will look on and say it's the greatest in the history of the world. But it's certainly been an incredibly blessed nation because of putting God and His Word in its rightful place.

The Shift Away from Biblical Authority in Law and Culture

But you may say, well, Mr. Gibbs, today, you know, I watch about all these different agendas. I watch where people are shifting away from the authority of the Word of God. I don't hear judges quoting the Bible.

I hear where the Ten Commandments are controversial. You know, one state has passed a law to put them up in public school buildings just for children to be aware of what they say, and it's being challenged.

And it just seems like at this point, we've moved away from what our founders intended. And I would challenge you that what has occurred, and there's no magic date. You can't go to just a moment in time and say this is when it happened.

But you can go back to the 50s and 60s. And I know for young viewers, that's, you know, eons ago. But you go back to that time period, and there was a moment in American history where people began to grow tired of the authority of the Word of God.

They began to say things like, you know, the Bible, it says some things are always right, and some things are always wrong. And by the way, how many understand the Bible does do that? God is able to give the Ten Commandments.

He doesn't have to give the Ten Suggestions or the Ten Recommendations. He's God. He has that authority, and He can set the guidelines by which we live. But the people of America began to rebel against the authority of the Word of God.

And they began to say, you know, I don't really want the Bible telling me what to do. I'd rather kind of do what I think. I want to do what's in my own opinion. And we began to watch whereas the people of America moved away from the authority of the Word of God, that the courts and the legislatures and the government began to move in a different direction.

And I will tell you what occurred. We flipped. We undid. We reversed. We went back on the decision of our founding fathers. Our founding fathers chose to be a nation under God and wanted biblical authority to undergird the government.

What we began to do as a nation is we began to say, you know what? We're going to go back to that civil law system where we're going to have smart, educated people and we're going to give them these really tough problems and they're going to come up with creative solutions.

But the problem is we removed the controlling moral authority to the legal system. I'll never forget my first day at Duke Law School. This is now 30 plus years ago. So I'm dating myself. But it was, you know, kind of a scary moment.

It was graduate school. And I proceeded to find the right classroom and I sat down and a gentleman was teaching and he was truly a genius. He had clerked for not just one but two United States Supreme Court justices.

He had been involved in helping write the model rules for procedure and was truly what you might call a legal scholar genius. He fully understood these issues and he stood up and he gave what became known in Duke Law School as kind of his opening day speech.

And he said, I'm going to tell you something that is incredibly important and will impact your lives, your careers, everything that you do as an attorney. And it's the biggest change in American law that's ever happened.

And again, as a scared young student, I thought, boy, this is going to be important. It's going to be on the test. So I started to write it down. And with great drama and impact, he says the common law is dead in America.

And as I wrote that down, I thought, well, I don't even know what the common law is. Now, you know, we've all heard of things like common law marriage. You know, people live together for a while and in some places they end up married, didn't really have a ceremony.

So I thought, well, maybe they're just doing away with some of that. And he proceeded to go on and he said the common law is dead in America and we've become a nation of what he called statutory law. So I wrote that down, too.

And he explained how the foundation, the biblical principles of law had been removed from our legal system and that law no longer had a standard in America. But what he called statutory was 51 percent.

Whatever a simple majority will vote for for year to year is what will happen in America. And he proceeded to explain that as attorneys, the law will never have a standard. It will be constantly moving and we will have to stay up on what the trends are, what the culture is doing, and that we will have to then constantly be shifting and never have certainty when we ask what is a legal standard or position in America.

Now, I'll be real honest. As a young law student, day one, a lot of what he said just kind of went over my head. I was like, I guess I wrote it all down. I'll think about it. But as I now look back on what I've done over these last 30 years and I think about what I've watched in our legal system and our culture, he was completely spot on.

Removing the biblical foundation and honestly, removing any foundation from American law has allowed it to shift with whatever changing times or people. And you can see it in a quick timeline. I mean, you go to the early 60s.

What did they do? They removed prayer and Bible reading from America's public schools. Now, think about this for just a moment. A nation that was founded under God, the Bible is the cornerstone of our legal system, but now we're not going to tell children what it is.

So, you began to watch where in the legal system, they said, no, we're not going to look to that standard anymore. Then go to the early 70s and probably the seminal case was Roe versus Wade. And Roe versus Wade, until it was overturned, was the case that legalized, mandated abortion in all 50 states.

But they invented in Roe versus Wade, a brand new right. They called it the right to privacy. Now, you know, you hear the word privacy and you think, oh, that's probably a good thing. You know, we don't want people looking at our stuff.

We want to be able to maintain some privacy, but that's not what it means. The word privacy in the Supreme Court connotation is you can do something that might be deemed unpleasant. You can do something that might even be deemed as distasteful, but you won't suffer any negative legal consequences for it.

And so, that concept created almost kind of this protection. And so, whether it was abortion or then ultimately things like same-sex marriage or other issues, this right to privacy was an invented right.

So, in the early 60s, they said the Bible's out. In the early 70s, they said, well, even the words of the Constitution, we can mush around a little bit. And then in some later Supreme Court cases, they began to even look overseas and look at international law.

We used to always say that in the United States of America, you know, we'll look at our law, our standards, our situation. But all of a sudden, the Supreme Court says, you know, we're going to look at whether we fit within the community of nations.

And they began to examine international law. And so, you can see where when you move away from a standard, you move away from the Bible and the basis of the common law to we can invent things. We can even look overseas and select things.

And what you have is smart people who are addressing what they believe to be tough problems, but they're doing it with solutions that have no controlling moral authority. And that is the dynamic that we're living in in the United States right now.

Original Intent, Constitutional Limits, and the Meaning of Government Power

And when you look at constitutional perspective, you know, there are people that say, well, we need to go back to original intent. And by the way, original intent is not just the words of the Constitution, where we could overturn a Roe versus Wade.

But original intent would actually then, if you went back a little further, would require that the Bible be read alongside the Constitution and that biblical principles could additionally be upheld. And so, even in today's world, when we talk about a living Constitution where people want to expand it or manipulate it or reinterpret it in light of current cultural ideas, when you look at the different spectrums, the only way to move back to truly original intent would be to put the truth of the Word of God alongside the Constitution and say these were the guiding principles.

Now, you say, well, there's certain things that might be in the Constitution that are out of date or we feel should be changed. Well, there was a process where the Constitution could be amended, and that process was to be followed through votes and through state ratification, not through one court case here and one court case there.

And we're beginning to watch, even in discussions with the current presidential race and other things, is if we could get a hold of the Supreme Court, could we change the law again in this country? So, instead of having the current number of justices, we're going to move away from nine, we're going to go to 15.

We're going to expand it and try to put people in that have a different perspective. But the reality is, if you're going to remain true to the Constitution, you have to take with what it says in the historical context, read upside the Word of God, because that was the English common law standard that it was based upon.

And so, you say, well, some of the results may not be what society today wants. Well, if you're going to truly uphold the Constitution, what you have to then say is if you want a different result, then you have to amend or change the supreme law of the land.

Because the founders viewed the Constitution as a contract. And basically, the contract was this. The government is limited in its authority. And by the way, they'd come from both the Articles of Confederation, where they're battling, as well as British rule, and they were concerned about the government overreaching.

And so, they said, we are going to very much limit what the government can or cannot do. So, we're going to spell out, you know, Article 1, Article 2, Article 3. We're going to list what the president should do, the legislature.

The Supreme Court was to be the least powerful, and in some measures has become the most powerful. But we're going to limit the authority. And then all other liberty would be given to the people, but they would have then the authority.

And then there was also a sense that states could have more stringent or tighter laws, but that that would be done on a state-by-state basis. And so, that was really the model that they had in mind for how the Constitution would operate.

And I think even in today's world, sometimes people get confused. You know, they'll be sitting at work, and their boss will say, you know, sit at your desk and be quiet. And the person will go, you're violating my free speech.

Well, you know, not to break their heart, but they're absolutely wrong. Only the government can violate your constitutional rights. So, it has to be a governmental action. Now, if you work for the government, then you have a little different dynamic.

Anything that happens is actually government. That's why government workers oftentimes have more freedom in the workplace, because the Constitution protects them. But in private, whether it's, let's say, a private school or workplace, that there is no constitutional right that you have.

It has to be government action. So, if you go to church on Sunday, and the minister says to everybody, sit down, that isn't violating anybody's rights. That's a private gathering operating under its own rules and decorum, and they obviously don't want to do things disorderly.

Whereas if the government were to say, you know, you're only allowed to sit in church, you're not allowed to stand, that would be a violation of your rights. And so, remembering that the Constitution itself was designed to be a contract between the government and the people to limit its authority.

Now, sadly, these principles are being lost in our modern day. And we as a nation are getting more and more where we are almost beginning to depend on the government, as opposed to looking at the government as a threat to our freedoms.

So, whether it's natural disasters, and there's storms and things and people are like, well, what's the government going to do? Or whether it's economic issue, what's the government gonna do? Or whether it's my kid is not well, what's the government gonna do?

I need to educate my kid, what's the government gonna do? I'm older, what's the government gonna do? These concepts that would be way more socialistic type dependence on government support, was never in the minds of the founding fathers.

They had a much more limited concept. The government was there to very limitedly do its functions, punish evildoers, provide for some common defense, help do some things to facilitate freedom among the people.

But it was never designed to become the dependency that so many in America, rather than looking to themselves or looking to others or looking to God, they look to the government as the source of their dependence.

So that shift in thinking runs contrary to how the Constitution was drafted and intended. You say, well, Mr. Gibbs, how do we move back or how do we think back? Well, first of all, in videos like this and opportunities to discuss these issues, it's important to understand that we have an ability as individuals to know what the Constitution says.

If you say, well, I don't know, that's a big, long, big legal document. Well, let me challenge you. The average person could read the Constitution in about 20 minutes. You may not understand everything, but you'll get most of it.

So maybe just even a few challenges, maybe just read the Constitution once, just go through it, get it online, get it in a book, just take a look at it. Then as you look at it, think about, okay, what were they trying to do?

They were trying to limit the authority of the government to provide additional protection and freedom for the people. So with that, I would encourage you to become aware of what it says. Then as you look at whether you're going to elect someone or vote for someone or support someone in the public sphere, be careful that it's not always what will this politician or what will this person in power be able to do for me, but actually be thinking, will this person limit themselves and limit the government to allow individuals to have greater freedom?

I do think we're at a tipping point right now in America where if we're not careful, the principles of individual responsibility and people being able to succeed on their own versus being propped up and supported by the government could quickly shift.

Back a few elections ago, Mitt Romney got in some trouble when he said, we're reaching the point where very quickly more voters will be getting money from the government than will be paying taxes into the government.

At that point, when people are voting for benefits versus voting for what's best for the nation, that will be dangerous. He was attacked for that, but it is a very compelling point. We look to the concept in our country of what did the founding fathers think?

Sometimes they get criticized because they limited greatly who was able to vote. We know that there were certain races that couldn't vote, ladies weren't allowed to vote, and before we look at them and say, well, they were just dinosaurs or pro men, I would suggest one concept has been lost.

That concept is the people who voted paid taxes. They were criticized for the poll tax. They were criticized for requiring people to pay taxes and then vote. Well, I might suggest that was their model, that basically you put money in, it's a common kitty, the government.

You then vote for your elected leaders who are going to go spend your money. People who didn't pay taxes didn't have any say so. They weren't allowed to vote. We have expanded and we have many people who do vote today that don't pay any taxes.

But I might suggest that the model of the founding fathers was that as you pay money in, you then elect leaders who are going to manage and oversee the finances that you have given to them in a limited responsible manner.

I will add one more point and then we'll take some questions. But the concept that is being lost in our society is ultimately what happens when the government runs out of money. We are running staggering debts.

We're running an unsustainable amount of long-term debt. Right now, statistics are showing that for the first time, the United States of America will spend more on debt service, just basically interest on our credit cards, if you will, than we spent on our national defense in a year.

That is staggering. If you were to think about the fact that if we had kept our budget somewhat level, we could actually double the defense or we can have a surplus. But the rate at which we are going through money will at some point create probably the ultimate constitutional crisis.

Because we will be out of money, the government will not be able to fix this problem. We are going to see challenges like, do we take away freedoms from the people? Do we not allow people to live so long?

Things that we have never had to wrestle with as a nation. The financial pressures could well push us to that point. I'm encouraging voters, I'm encouraging citizens to recognize that it's always good and fun to get things out of the government.

But when you don't have money, what does that ultimately do for future generations? Kicking the can down the road is ultimately going to create the biggest crisis we have. Remember our founding fathers.

They didn't talk about liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You say, why not? Well, they talked about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Because they understood that if you don't protect innocent life, and they came from a government that held life and death in his hands, the king could say off with your head, that there was no liberty and ultimately no pursuit of happiness.

But if we reach a point where we cannot afford people and we create this crisis, there will be a moment where people will have to say, what kind of America are we going to live in? Are we going to follow the Constitution and the Bible principles that every person has worth in the eyes of God?

Or are we going to move in a whole different direction? I'm encouraging people to be aware that the Constitution was very biblical in its understanding and that we're at a tipping point that if we're not careful, we'll never get back to what it was truly intended to be.

Government Power, the Budget, and the Coming Constitutional Crisis

I'm going to, at this point, bounce over to my question collector. If you've been watching or listening, or if we have had any questions that have come in, I guess Terri will be the one to raise anything that she would like to ask.

But Terri, any questions from the folks that have been watching?

Yes. To start off with, by the way, thank you for that. That was a great presentation. Robin is asking if there is something in the president's power that would allow him to disband a court. I thought I had heard that.

Well, I'll give a concept that's interesting. The only court in the Constitution is the Supreme Court. The only one that is actually established. Then under the authority of the Congress, it says other courts that are deemed, I forget, necessary is the language, and I'm not exactly quoting it, but it was the Congress had the ability.

If the Congress were to say, we're not going to fund any federal courts, and I'm not recommending this, but I'm just saying if they were to say that, they would have that authority. Then the Supreme Court would have to move into more of its role that was anticipated under the Constitution, which is to handle disputes between state Supreme Courts.

For example, if Louisiana said, anybody that drives over from Texas commits a crime, and the Texas Supreme Court says, no, we can do that, it's not a crime. Well, now you have conflicting state Supreme Courts, and it would go up to the US Supreme Court to provide an opinion to resolve that conflict.

That was really what the founding fathers imagined. A president does not have that authority under the Constitution to just disband courts, but the Congress would in not funding it, and the Supreme Court is actually constitutionally mandated.

Now, we've watched, and by the way, there is a lot of authority to the president. Probably the two biggest powers, if you look at what the president can do. I mean, when I say can do, I'm not talking about the bully pulpit and budgets and that they have influence, but let's just talk what can they actually do.

Number 1, they nominate people to the Supreme Court. That's an important authority because these people are very powerful, they're appointed for life, they have a lot of authority. The second thing the president can do is run the military, and they are the commander-in-chief, and so they do have a lot of authority in military policy, principles, engagements.

Those are two things to always think about when you're voting for a future president. Who would be best for the military? Who would actually be a good commander-in-chief, and who would be able to select good justices for the Supreme Court?

Now, obviously, a lot of other issues and things, but when the president says, I'm going to fix gas prices, well, he can't really, or she can't really, or the president says, I'm going to do this or that.

I mean, sometimes they're talking about things they're going to encourage, they're going to try to do, but the reality is without cooperation from the Congress, the president does not have any of that authority.

Thank you. Yeah, I thought I had heard something where one of the presidents, or maybe it was Congress that disbanded a whole entire court.

Congress could. Congress could do that. Congress could say, we're going to eliminate this court or not fund it. That was really what, Congress was actually intended to be the most powerful. The Supreme Court was the least powerful, the president was the figurehead leader, military overseer, but the Congress, because they controlled the budget, I mean, if they said we're going to pay for this, and by the way, as I've talked a little bit about the deficit and what's going on, and by the way, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, they've all been irresponsible when it comes to the budget.

Everybody likes to give their friends money and have influence that way, but the reality is the people that sit down and say, we're going to actually figure this out. Politically, they can't survive. That's why the voters are going to have to start holding the elected officials more accountable.