UPDATE October 16, 2020: freedom of thought
Can Democrats force us to agree? It turns out they can.
Freedom of thought is pretty basic to being American. It’s true that no one can change how we think or what we believe, but we can be forced to adopt values and ideology we don’t agree with by legislation or a simple court decision. Fortunately, we are all Americans. That means we’re all in this together. Despite the usual political back and forth our freedom of thought has never been at tremendous risk.
Until now.
Democrats have a tyrannical streak. We see it now more than ever. Biden’s refusal to answer the all-important court packing question because his own voters don’t deserve to know is a phenomenal slap in the face to American democracy and a warning about what lies ahead. So is the insistence on the hegemony of liberal party ideology that infests the Barrett confirmation hearings as Democrats tell us what values they expect America to hold high.
Bill Clinton warned us about this over two decades ago. We should have paid better attention.
We should have listened to Clinton
In 1998 President Bill Clinton laid out his vision for Democrats in a speech to the now defunct Democratic Leadership Council:
The American people need to understand even more clearly than they do now what the connection is between these [Clinton policy] ideas and the early actions that were taken and the consequences that have happened. But the most important thing to remember is this: elections are always about the future. If all you have done is a good job, you’re entitled to a gold watch. (Laughter.) Elections are always about the future.48
Clinton’s gold watch is still the most important part of his party’s vision. Democratic elites prosper from their successful sale of leftist economic policies that keep too many of their dependent flock waiting for the next round of handouts.
This year that determination to change our hearts and minds veered to the extreme left as socialism became the foundation of the party’s plans for our economy.
Harris: this is what you must understand
Kamala Harris has her own vision for how Americans should think. During the ACB hearings she didn’t hide the fact that the unspoken battle is about accepting what Democrats need us to believe so they can rule for years to come:
Every American must understand that with this nomination, equal justice under law is at stake. Our voting rights are at stake. Workers’ rights are at stake. Consumer rights are at stake. The right to a safe and legal abortion is at stake. And holding corporations accountable is at stake. And again there is so much more.49
So we need to understand that Amy Coney Barrett puts the Harris-Biden platform at risk. Conservative Americans won’t believe these things, of course. Harris isn’t being honest about what stands behind words that sound reasonable but are anything but that. She is completely honest in that her goal is for every American to agree to what Democrats want whether by submission, force of law, force of packed SCOTUS decision-making, or threat of violence from leftist insurgents that Harris and sidekick Joe Biden pretend do not exist.
With demands that we adopt extreme liberal thinking coming from all sides it’s easy to submit and agree that Harris and Biden are right and the Democratic Party is the arbiter of what every American should believe. Many voters have already done this. We see it in the polls. Sadly, we will also see it on November 3.
No one said being an American was easy, but for many of us the Democratic Party makes it much too simple.
UPDATE October 29, 2020: freedom to live in a just society
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has a lot to say about what a just society means. She proposed a slate of “Just Society” bills to deliver her vision for justice:
The purchasing power of the federal government should be used to improve the quality of life for workers rather than accelerate a race to the bottom.50
Not everyone at Ocasio-Cortez’s bottom have the same view of a society where the Federal Government provides for all. For instance, the people looting in new protest hotspot Philadelphia obviously have a different take on what justice in a just society means. Those who stand behind them justify their actions and take law enforcement off the table by threatening police officers with the consequences of doing their jobs. Is this justice for business owners who employ people in these communities? Of course not, but if a just society means the government pacifies the people by paying for everything then that no longer matters.
Efforts to create a more just America assumes that our society covertly endorses bias and systemic racism. That means we can have no faith in the system designed to deliver a just society. According to Democrats that failure goes all the way to our highest court:
If this [Barrett confirmation] process has revealed anything, it’s that the supposed Republican “principle” was a farce: no principle at all, and never was. Only naked opportunism. A transparent, cynical, last-ditch grab for power. And of course, the continuation of their shameful, lock-step subservience to President Trump, the most unprincipled president in American history.51
This will go down as the most partisan, most hypocritical, and least legitimate Supreme Court confirmation in our nation’s history.
That bit of damnation from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) typifies what Americans listened to as soon as “ACB” became a household acronym. Throughout the confirmation process Democrats threatened to create a Supreme Court by any means necessary so they can enforce liberal democratic policy first and the Constitution second.
I don’t know how much attention looters pay to what’s going on in Washington, though I suspect they don’t care very much. They are too far removed from society. Democrats only reinforce their belief that lawlessness is appropriate redress for what they are repeatedly told is a hopelessly racist nation where the highest arbiter of justice is no longer just and only will be if it is controlled by Democrats.
The Congressional Black Caucus made this statement after Monday’s shooting in Philadelphia:
Yesterday, 27 year old Walter Wallace, Jr. was killed by a Philadelphia police officer in front of his home and in front of his mother. His young children are now without a father.52
There was no mention of the circumstances, only a pitch for the George Floyd Justice in Policing bill that would set a standard for reasonable use of force. This benchmark is set by Democrats and lobbyists who have much to gain and unlike officers on the street, little of consequence to lose.
That’s the problem when politicians are charged with ensuring that our society is just. They turn justice into a battle over what best suits their needs. In this tumultuous election year those needs are dictated by whatever keeps them ensconced in their comfortable places of power, so there is no limit to how far they will go even if injustice is the result.
UPDATE November 2, 2020: freedom to feel safe about voting
The big night is one day away. Businesses in some cities are boarding up. We’ve heard that the National Guard may be deployed to hot spots. Police are on alert and mobilized for trouble. A temporary barrier fence will be erected around the White House.
These are the kinds of precautions we took after 9/11.
Never before have “fear” and “election” become synonymous for American voters. How did we become the kind of country we usually associate with third world elections and the United Nations?
Democrats did this. They blame Trump for undermining American democracy, but their party’s out of control base is responsible for turning violence into a valid form of political expression that was quickly dismissed by two words: peaceful protest. As much as they try to pin violent unrest on the president for the same kind of hateful, divisive rhetoric they use to manipulate the people, we haven’t seen any footage of alleged white supremacists looting and burning. This is the province of the left.
We may never again feel safe on Election Day. The political stakes tend to get higher year after year and that means the ante goes up. Democrats took this freedom away from us. It won’t be coming back.
UPDATE November 8, 2020: freedom to be who we are
I’m tired of hearing about “Trump supporters” as if we’re some sort of disease that infected the nation and can now be cured because Joe Biden took the White House. Democrats spent four years turning conservatives into something vile, something reprehensible, or in Hillary Clinton’s historic words, deplorable. We’re not ready to forgive or forget or join hands with the party that hates us and everything we believe. Not by a long shot.
Our presumed president-elect thinks otherwise. Biden says it’s a time to heal, as if the Trump years were just a terrible dream we can wake up from now that Democrats are in charge. The people have spoken, Biden intones, even while he ignores the obvious: nearly 71 million Americans didn’t vote for him. We said no to a Biden presidency and put even more Republicans in the House of Representatives.
Americans are not all the same. We don’t share the same beliefs. We have the freedom to be who we are and believe what we want. That means we don’t all support Kamala Harris’ Green New Deal or her plan for socialized health care. Every American doesn’t agree that unchecked illegal immigration is good for country or that a punishing tax increase will make our economy better.
Instead of healing, we’re holding our breath over the Senate. In my mind and the minds of many like-minded Republicans the Senate is the difference between saving America and kissing our country goodbye. There has been too much extremism and too much violence inspired by liberal activism to start mending the fence.
Democratic Party vitriol won’t be forgotten just because hate won an election. We won’t change our beliefs so we can all get along, either. Extending an olive branch after we were damned by the Democratic Party and its tireless, hate-obsessed media for four years changes nothing. We have the freedom to be Trump supporters and that has nothing to do with supporting a Joe Biden presidency.
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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.