UPDATE September 29, 2019: can impeachment protect freedom of choice?
Democrats are pushing forward to deny us the right to elect a Republican president. They think abolishing the Electoral College will help with that, but in the likely event they won’t be able to change the Constitution they have another strategy. Impeachment is now a lot more real after Nancy Pelosi just gave the appearance of kicking her party’s oust Trump movement into high gear.
Throwing Trump to the sidewalk is probably not going to succeed, but in the meantime the House impeachment inquiry circus may accomplish one important thing: it will help preserve our freedom of choice by shoring up Trump’s base of support.
Socialist economies don’t provide that freedom. They level. They don’t promote, encourage, or foster development. Government takes and doles out as it sees fit so it can promote itself and preserve the freedoms of the politicians who control it.
Obama’s famous “keep your doctor” remark defines what we’re hearing on the early Democratic campaign trail. The only way to level the field is to limit the freedom of choice whether that means your medical care, the income you get to keep, the vehicle you drive, or the retirement investments you make and save thanks to a Wall Street that has a big, red, liberal target all over its back.
American socialism will make the individual irrelevant.This is just a leftist numbers game. Your personal freedom and the choices that freedom gives you will fall to what Democrats decide you should have. If this concerns you, don’t worry. Their government will be happy to trade your freedom for something more appropriate.
UPDATE October 12, 2019: Warren campaign denies freedom to make an honest choice
Last week Elizabeth Warren’s alleged pregnancy dismissal gaffe was all over the news. The right cried liar. The left cried foul. Either way, this new attack on Warren’s honesty can’t compete with her Native American heritage claim. Not even close.
The senator is a big proponent of anti-corruption legislation including her own Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act. Among other sweeping changes, S. 3357 creates an ethics agency for federal employees and mandates ethics plans for presidential transition teams.
S. 3357 goes after lobbyists, but her bill doesn’t demand transparency and accountability from presidential candidates like Warren before they win an election. The senator’s campaign website lists 50 items under “What Elizabeth Will Do.”18 Few, if any of her plans are achievable without a cooperative House and Senate unless Warren plans to assume presidential powers unprecedented in American history, including changing the Constitution to get rid of the Electoral College.
There is nothing ethical about handing trusting voters a laundry list you can’t deliver. Some are savvy enough to know that this is just a game and a joke played on the nation, but not all. Manipulating those who don’t know better to get yourself elected is unethical and dishonest, especially from a presidential candidate who stakes her claim to saving our democracy.
UPDATE November 10, 2019: freedom to refuse to repeat the mistakes of the past
Europe just commemorated the 30th anniversary of the end of the Berlin Wall. At the same time, we the people of a nation whose history opposes everything that barrier between east and west represented is determined to put up a Berlin Wall of our own.
Trump said it best in a November 9, 2019 commemoration of the fall of the wall:
The Cold War has long since passed, but tyrannical regimes around the world continue to employ the oppressive tactics of Soviet-style totalitarianism, which have cast a long, dark shadow over history.19
These words will be forgotten as the Democratic Party divides Americans with self-serving demands for a socialist economy and a totalitarian society where only the party’s values and beliefs will be tolerated.
America is quickly erecting a wall between left and right that may never come down because beliefs and convictions are so much harder to tear apart than brick and mortar.
We should be smart enough not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Socialist economies don’t work. Totalitarian mindsets only serve those in power. Nothing proves this point like what happened in Germany after the war.
America was built and has persevered on the promise of freedom and free enterprise. Socialism and totalitarianism were something we rejected until now. Worst of all, the seeds of our destruction are coming from our own people because they have the freedom to enforce their beliefs through our political system.
UPDATE December 18, 2019: today we lose freedom from election interference
Today the Democratic Party will pat itself on the back for taking a historic step. Why members think this trendsetting, partisan nuclear option is smart is quite the conundrum. Is it because when you’ve gone this far with a very bad idea it’s difficult to turn back, even when common sense dictates that you are making a huge mistake that will inevitably end in failure and retribution?
Russian election interference is now a relic that won’t rear its head again until the Senate gives a thumbs up to Trump and Democrats need something to fall back on for 2020. Look for emergency, election-protecting legislation to make its way through the House next year and then die there. Like the rest of their very partisan bills it will go nowhere.
Meanwhile Trump will campaign on his big impeachment win.
Democrats will look like fools.
The American people will lose one of the freedoms we thought was inalienable.
American people are the big losers
Americans are the big losers today. We will lose the right to freedom from interference in our elections not because Russia is tinkering with our democracy or because Trump pushed a few buttons in Ukraine. We will lose our freedom to free, democratic elections because one of our political parties set a precedent that we can’t roll back.
Angry, take no prisoners partisanship is at a fever pitch. It shows no signs of abating, so expect the same thing to happen after the 2024 election and even after 2020 if Democrats think they can dig up new dirt after Trump wins his next four years. Looking forward we should expect impeachment threats to begin early in every one of our election cycles, especially if the numbers in Congress are agreeable. Capitol Hill, not the ballot box will be where our elections are held.
Thank Democrats for this. In the name of protecting our democracy they just took it away forever.
UPDATE January 4, 2020: freedom to benefit from free enterprise
Not all businesses that provide jobs are the big, bad corporations Democrats hate because they haven’t yet figured out how to take away the lion’s share of their profits. The opposite is true. Even Barack Obama recognized the importance of small employers and the jobs they struggle to create and maintain.
Cook County, Illinois must have missed the meeting where Democrats agreed to spare small employers from the same punishing agenda they promise will descend on corporate America as soon as they have the power to get away with it.
As the Chicago Tribune reported, Cook County just whacked businesses with new property tax valuations on top of the fees, fines, penalties, and overall oppressive regulations that make doing business in the county a foolish proposition. The company I work for was whacked with a nearly 90% increase that makes it the height of foolishness to even consider doing business from Cook County.
From a political, save your ass perspective whacking businesses harder than families makes sense for county politicians. Angry voters vote against you and your party. Even Cook County Democrats can figure that one out.
Except those business create jobs and when they leave they take their jobs with them.
Small businesses already pay lots of taxes and fees at every level of government. Employers just got hit with a $9.25 state minimum wage increase that portends fewer hours and jobs for low wage workers as the cost of doing business continues to rise. That’s what happens when Democrats decide to pass around the wealth. Businesses push back because they don’t have a choice.
No freedom in Cook County Democratic Party dictated free enterprise
Free enterprise works best when we leave businesses to their own devices as much as possible. That’s why we call it “free enterprise” and not “Democratic Party enterprise.”
While most of us can agree that some regulations make sense, driving businesses from the county is a stupid plan, especially when we’re bordered by states that would love to have our taxes and jobs and provide an overall economic climate that’s a lot friendlier than the wreck some of us will be forced to leave behind.
There is a bottom to the pot of gold Democrats see in each and every taxpayer whether it’s a working family, a small business, or a mega corporation. My company is at the bottom right now and we have lots of company in a state that lost more residents than any other in the nation over the past decade.
That’s the problem with not understanding how freedom works. Cook County and the state of Illinois are going to learn too late that when Democrats take it away the taxpayers with the means to keep the state afloat will take their money and their jobs somewhere else.
UPDATE January 25, 2020: freedom to exercise our consent
Democrats are trying to take away our freedom by circumventing the electoral process that gives our government legitimacy.
That electoral process is one of our fundamental freedoms. Democrats are setting a precedent here and now to take it away after each and every election that a Republican wins our highest office. Remember, the current Ukraine excuse for impeaching Trump came long after the party’s insistence that the results of a valid election be overturned. Five Articles of Impeachment were drawn up in November 2017 because:
President Trump’s actions have become “dangerous for democracy.”20
What’s so egregious about impeachment is that it is such a rabidly partisan process. We saw that with Bill Clinton. How well would his escapades have gone over in today’s climate when simply bumping into someone at a supermarket risks an assault charge?
If Democrats made the decision, he would be exonerated again.
House and Senate Democrats have amnesia about Obama’s actions in 2013 when he suspended military aid to Egypt. They didn’t mention his 2011 military actions in Libya, either, while they attacked Trump for taking out Qasem Soleimani without asking permission that would most certainly have been denied.
None of this matters now. This is a different time and place. There is unprecedented hatred for our president. Impeachment persecutor Adam Schiff (D-CA) claims:
President Trump illegally withheld U.S. taxpayer dollars as leverage to get the Ukrainian president to help him win reelection, another indication of the extreme lengths to which the President would go to coerce a foreign power into helping him cheat to win.21
That’s a pretty naïve statement. There is no length too extreme in our politics and that includes the ridiculous extremity Schiff and his party have indulged in their effort to override the consent of the governed and eliminate this president. Their every action during the impeachment process has had one goal in mind: make way for a Democratic presidency in 2021.
No fair shake for Republican voters or our democratic electrical process
A president only wins if the people give their consent. We did that. Democrats have been furious ever since and have abused their power to overturn the 2016 election. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) makes the point:
Given that over 100 Democrats voted to impeach President Trump before the July phone call took place, it’s no surprise they’re not giving him a fair shake.22
Republican voters aren’t getting a fair shake, either. Democrats are taking away our consent as part of their campaign to deny us one of our most fundamental freedoms and replace it with one of their own in November 2020.
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People do not understand how the Democrats and the Obama administration are slowly strangling the very freedoms that the Revolution was fought for. The facts are clear when you see the Constitution being trampled on by Obama, and then realize that he could not pass a gun owner background check, which is why he has sealed “ALL” of his records.
If congress were to pass any new legislation on background checking it must include the requirement that “ALL” politicians running for public office must “PASS” those requirements or be disqualified.
As it stands right now, Obama could not ” PASS” a standard FBI check from the details that were written in his book, which is why his certification was challenged. The judges that had cases before them refused to hear the arguments and thusly dismissed those cases. What gutless wonders we have in the justice system including the Supreme Court.
Obama is tearing our nation apart. and he is banking on the ignorant that don’t pay attention. obama has a shady past and i am not convinced that he is a true citizen of the united states. If you vote democrat you are voting to end america as a freedom country. Obama is taking it all away and people are not paying attention. when it’s gone and you are under the control of a dictator you will wish you had paid attention. but this country has been under attack before obama but now it’s speeded up so much it will be a miracle if we can keep it
We’ll find out next week how well people are paying attention, won’t we, Sandy? I agree, it’s pretty amazing that no matter how bad things are or how misguided the actions of public officials, they still manage to convince people to support what they do. Watch what happens in the Illinois governor’s race next week. If Pat Quinn wins, it’s a pretty good sign that we are truly lost.
freedom from harm is not a reasonable freedom. Freedom from unjust aggression is reasonable, and the primary reason for government.
Thanks for your remarks, Ed. Interesting how some of what’s happening now at the hands of government could be considered unjust aggression, like the searches they conducted in Rhode Island looking for New Yorkers. It’s difficult to know where to draw the line between government overreach and the public interest, but that was quite a line to cross.
Obama signed a bill to allow the media to profess false narratives for the peoples ow good HR4310
Joseph Goebbels would be so proud.
I don’t know if the intention was to turn lies into the sole means of communicating with the people to the complete exclusion of the truth, but it has certainly paid off for Democrats and the White House.
Wow, the RWNJ is strong with this one.
I’m listening, John.