A few days back, Drudge had a link to some pictures of the Clintons' estate in Chappaqua, New York to show the 10-foot-high wall they had built around it (ironic, since Democrats know that walls don't work).

The pictures of the impressive estate opened up a question.  Where did the money for it come from?  We know that both Hillary and Bill have not been gainfully employed in the private sector.  It is not an oil estate, or an automobile estate, or a software estate, or a finance estate.  So what is it?  A government estate!  Government is what the Clintons had to sell, and they have sold it.

This is a new phenomenon for America.  We have heretofore been characterized by the probity of our government institutions.  It is a subject of note when officials are caught selling their office, and they end up in prison for doing so.  The Clintons have found a way around the law by having Hillary on the inside and Bill as bag man on the outside, hauling in the loot under the guise of fees for speeches.

While the numbers are not hard, the press seems comfortable with the Clinton personal fortune being $200 million, so let's use that figure.  If it is off, Hillary can give us the precise number.  We are talking personal money here.  No confusion with the foundation(s).  These are Hillary's and Bill's personal funds.  Hillary and Bill have made a personal fortune of $200 million since leaving the White House, or, to put it differently, during Hillary's tenure first as senator and then as secretary of state.

If the Clintons' customers are not buying oil, or automobiles, or software, what are they buying?  Influence.  Influence over the policies, the actions, of the United States.  Foreign oligarchs have paid Hillary as secretary of state to have the United States do things it would not otherwise do.

That is the point of paying her as secretary of state through her husband.  And that is the point of paying her in anticipation of her becoming president and, later, upon the actuality of her being president.  If the Clintons were able to sell Hillary's Senate seat and her office as secretary of state for $200 million, what is the presidency worth?  One billion dollars sounds about right, at least as a start.  We have to see how things go.

What is Hillary selling?  She is selling you, dear reader – your family, your children, your countrymen, the country itself.

Lincoln tried to capture what it means to be an American in his First Inaugural:

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Hillary sees the country in a different way. Rather than "the mystic chords of memory" as the spirit of the country, Hillary sees the mystic chords of money – for herself.  One manifestation of this is the estate at Chappaqua, bought with money gathered from selling out the country.  Enriching herself from high government office is her spiritual foundation.

How will the hearings for the next secretary of state go? "Mr./Ms. Nominee, Secretary Clinton cleared about $100 million (the other $100 million came at other times) during her tenure as secretary of state. How much loot do you expect to get from your tenure?  And from whom do you expect to get paid?  Just so we know."

Treating the country as a private fief is third-worldism.  It is why third-world countries never advance.  Their wealth is drained off by their political leadership.  If Hillaryism should become the custom of our government, the country as we know it will be destroyed.

Selling out her office is not going to be seen as the privilege of Hillary alone.  What about the secretary of defense?  What about the attorney general?  What about the rest of the cabinet?  And what about under-secretaries, deputy secretaries, and so on down the line?  What about, at the local level, the police and the fire departments?  What about having to pay them personally to do their jobs?

Want to see the future if government officials join Hillaryism?  Brazil.  They can't even keep the swimming pools clean.  Nothing works.

What about the military, which carries out our foreign policy?

As we ponder the profaning of the nation and of the mission of the nation, one question we must consider is this: are our soldiers going to be willing to die for Chappaqua?

To die for Chappaqua.  That is the value proposition Hillary is offering the soldiers at the sharp end of the spear.  To die so that she can own her Chappaqua estate.

What about military leadership?  Will they go the Chappaqua route?  A theater commander or a ground commander has an enormous amount of responsibility.  Shouldn't he be rewarded for the burdens he bears?

Suppose the Army is making an assault up-country.  There is Route A, which the general has chosen, using his best judgment, to get to the objective.  But now he has a visitor.  It turns out that Route A runs right through the operations of Mr. Oligarch.  Route B is almost as good, and Mr. Oligarch has always wanted one of the potholders made by the general's wife.  In fact, he is so enthralled by the potholder that $12 million is not too high a price to pay for it!

The general thinks about it, Route B is likely to lead to, say, only 500 more casualties in a force of 40,000 – say, 100 deaths and 400 woundings and maimings.  Acceptable losses (except to the soldiers and their families experiencing them).  The potholder is on the way!

This isn't today, thank goodness.  But it is the Hillary future for America.  That estate in Chappaqua.  What are our military leaders – chopped liver?  Don't they deserve estates?

For soldiers, belief in the mission is critical.  If it should become standard practice for the leadership in Washington to sell our policy for payoffs, then belief in the mission will collapse.  A soldier commanded to take the hill will wonder whether that mission is for the nation or for Chappaqua.  This is why third-world militaries are so weak.

Should belief in the mission ever be lost, it will be virtually impossible to get it back.  This danger – wiping out the Republic – is what Hillary's actions mean.  It is why the future of the country is at stake in this election.

Nobody in Washington seems upset by the Clintons' selling out the country to foreigners to create their personal fortune.  Nobody of either party has spoken out about it.  But let's not leave it only on them.  What about us, the public?  If we let ourselves be sold out, we are going to get more of it.  It is going to become chronic, ubiquitous.  The United States is a great nation.  There is much here to sell.

What is each piece, each policy worth?  Markets are so complex these days that one cannot be precise.  But each amount, each transaction ultimately turns out to be equal to thirty pieces of silver.