Everything Is an Emergency – Except Freedom and Equality

Someone noted that the buzzwords of this administration are “crisis, decisive action, urgency, equity.” These are the words that are used to justify almost everything that Biden has done since his inauguration.  This crisis, this emergency mode allows this administration to impose its dictates without time for thought or proper legislative action; those dictates are always in accord with the socialist drive for equity (not to be confused with equality).  

It seemed President Biden was in a race against time to sign as many executive orders as he could before putting what he called a “lid” on the day and going home.  There was an urgency to reverse every action President Trump had taken, without any thought or real consideration of whether or not it had been good for the country.  The urgency was to revoke a policy that was not Leftist. 

Monday Sen. Schumer suggested that Biden declare a “climate emergency.”  "He can do many, many things under the emergency powers ... that he could do without legislation," Schumer asserted; that is, he can bypass legislative debate and use executive power to ignore the voice of the people.  Biden has already used his executive power for a number of environmental measures including rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement which many argue does little for the climate and is harmful to US interests, and has rescinded the Keystone XL pipeline permit without consideration of the tens of thousands of jobs that will be lost as a result and the fact, again, that this will do little if anything to reduce the use of non-renewable energy.

Democrats have also indicated their intent to use Reconciliation to pass Left programs.  Reconciliation provides a process to prevent the use of the filibuster and thereby allow the passage of a bill with simple majority support in the Senate.  This denies an effective voice to the minority.  

Equity is a part of the flurry of administrative dictates.  These dictates further a Left agenda, but not an American sense of equality of all.  Allowing biological males to compete as women effectively denies women a fair and equal venue for competition.  Immediately ordering a lifting of the military ban on transgenders without a real study of the reasonable arguments both for and against, serves the Left buzzword of equity, but may not serve our military and hence our national security.  Biden has embraced the not only debunked but actually harmful Critical Race Theory and has chosen to allow its previously prohibited training for federal workers and contractors.  ICE agents have been ordered to free all illegal aliens in custody – no consideration or study of whether some should perhaps not be freed.

Actually, there are some real crises that Biden seems able to ignore.  Not only does he violate his own Covid mandates, but he now admits that he never had a plan (as he asserted from his campaign basement) to end the pandemic, but rather now tells us the disease will just run its course.  Meanwhile, he installs health advisors (paid by taxpayers) who will I guess give him cover as he uses the crisis of Covid to implement other Left agenda items without input from Congress or the people.

And the big crisis, the one that he now supports impeachment over, the Capitol “insurrection,” allows this administration to not only go after Trump and his supporters, but to justify their attempts to completely silence not only Trump, but all conservatives and Republicans, and virtually all who do not support this new Left regime.   

Meanwhile, Biden ignores a real crisis on the West Coast in cities like Tacoma, Seattle, and Portland, where real and violent anti-America riots occur daily.  The press tries to ignore this, but the people in those cities cannot.  But apparently that is not a crisis because there is no way to make executive action against it serve the Left agenda.   Instead, Biden will keep DC militarized with razor wire around our symbols of freedom, implying there is a crisis in DC and hence he must urgently issue orders which we should blindly follow.

These are all examples of what we have:  an administration making decisions not based on real urgency or crisis but on its desire to quickly implement its Leftist regime.  These dictates come from the Oval Office without listening to the voice of the people.  They bypass the Legislature, which is intended to serve as a check on Presidential power.  The people are not only left out of this administration’s government but are also silenced when they dissent; as such, Biden’s presidency becomes far more a totalitarian government than a democracy.  That is an urgent crisis that we all should be concerned about.

An Impeachment of Arrogance and Cover

The article of impeachment will be delivered to the Senate Monday.  Sen. Schumer states the impeachment trial will begin the week of Feb. 8 – just in time to distract the country from the hellish effects of Biden’s executive orders and other actions that will start being felt by everyday Americans around then (e.g. pausing the lowered prescription drug pricing put into effect by President Trump;  or the tens of thousands of American jobs lost by canceling Keystone and resulting from many of his other early day actions;  or releasing all illegally present immigrants into our populace, whether or not charged with crimes, and untested during a pandemic while requiring Americans to follow even more restrictive guidelines). 

But, aside from its service as cover (assuming the mainstream media would even report any negative effects of Biden acts), the impeachment itself is a ridiculous and divisive act that can do nothing but damage this country. 

First, the Constitution (Art. II, section 4) provides the following regarding Impeachment:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. 

Note that the punishment for an impeachment conviction is removal from office.  The fact that President Trump is no longer in office, having been removed by the vote of the people, makes the entire impeachment process moot.

But wait, many Democrats now state that the whole reason for this impeachment is to prevent Donald Trump from ever running for or holding office again.  I understand that many who have spent the last 4 years hating Donald Trump think that is a good idea.  But keep thinking.  In this country we are not told by the state or others in power whom we can vote for.  In America, the people make that decision.  As suggested by Marco Rubio, for those in political power to think they have the right to make that decision for us is the epitome of arrogance.

The other alleged justification for impeachment is “to hold the President accountable.”  This sham excuse has more holes than Swiss cheese.  First, as noted above, the “accountability” of impeachment is removal from office.  That is done.  If it is the alleged “incitement” for which accountability is sought, there are other legal avenues that are far better suited (as opposed to this political revenge of impeachment).  The actual rioters are being arrested, charged, and will face legal accountability for their crimes if proven.  If Donald Trump performed some illegal act, he too can be held legally accountable (and don’t assume that the Democrats won’t try every legal avenue to do so).

Of course, there is the ridiculous nature of the accusation itself.  As explained more thoroughly in an earlier post (HERE), Trump’s actions and words on January 6 come nowhere close to inciteful or violent language as defined by our laws; they instead demonstrate nothing more that a man exercising (however unwisely) a First Amendment right to free speech to which everyone, even the President of the United States, is entitled.

This also sets a horrible example and precedent for our nation.  This becomes a way to essentially overturn the results of future elections by allowing politicians, not the people, to determine who will and who will not be allowed to run for office.  This becomes too close to other forms of government, especially dictatorships, where predecessors are routinely attacked or otherwise punished for holding views contrary to the current power regime.  We should note that such punishments in one party regimes include imprisonment and death, things that many on the Left have actually and often called for against Donald Trump.

Think where this could lead.  Rand Paul asked if we would now impeach Bernie Sanders for using the “inciteful language” that prompted his supporter to shoot and almost kill Republican Congressman Steve Scalise.  There are many other “inciteful” speeches we could turn to given by Democrats prior to the assaults on our police officers, police and other government building during the many Leftist protests over the past year.  Should we impeach all of them?   What about our US Embassy in Russia that yesterday was tweeting and otherwise publicizing where and when to meet in a number of cities for protests and marches in support of  Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalny?  Were these inciteful attempts to incite insurrection against the current Russian leader and government?  And if so, what does that mean for our foreign relationships?

Beyond its objective ridiculosity and its long term potential to deeply wound our Constitution and our Republic, this impeachment will deepen the current divisions in our country that our President has claimed he will heal.  But, then, we are regularly learning that while we may have seen his call for “unity” to mean some sort of unification that included tolerance of diverse views, what it really means is a uniformity of thought that banishes any and all who speak in opposition to the current Administration’s approved views. 

This impeachment is an act of revenge and fear of the sort one expects to see in totalitarian regimes, but not in America.  The Democrats and the Left have hated Trump for 4 years and have attacked him 24/7 during that time.  This is one of their final opportunities for revenge, and they do not intend to let it go to waste.

It reveals the fear that complements the Left and Democrats’ lust for total (and totalitarian) power.  They fear the will of the people.  They fear one man because he was elected by the people and because he spoke out in everyday language about what he saw.  He was not one of their kind – the two-faced, back-stabbing politicians who use the people to gain power, but care nothing for those they use. 

Donald Trump spoke for the people, and half the country voted for him.  And that makes the Left afraid.  Because if the people are not subdued into complacency, they are a threat to a power structure that is not really for the people.  And the Democrats fear Donald Trump because he might keep the people awake.

This impeachment is really about arrogance and cover.  The arrogance of the Left that they can ignore our Republic, its Constitution, and its people, in order to silence what or whomever they see as a possible threat to their power.  And cover, because its timing will serve as a perfect distraction to the havoc that the Biden policies will be almost immediately effecting upon us. 

The Silence is Deafening

 Actually, the silence has been deafening for the last 4 years, and perhaps the 8 before that.  So to what silence am I referring?  The silence of truth and the failure to acknowledge hypocrisy.  And the silence of those who have been intimidated and are afraid to speak. 

Let’s start with today and work backwards.  Actually, let’s start with Biden’s call for Unity.

When Biden called for Unity, nearly every MSM publication had an identical headline:  Time to Heal.  (That the headlines were so identical suggests that the press is not as independent as it may claim). 

Just days after that headline, a large group of Trump supporters marched peacefully in DC for honest and fair elections. 

There is no question that the march was peaceful.  But, as the march ended and evening descended, Leftist groups including Antifa and BLM (both supporters of Biden and Democrats) began violent attacks on those peaceful supporters, including elderly, families, and children.  Their stated purpose was to silence and cancel those holding views that are pro-Trump, pro-honest elections, pro-fact.

Did the MSM report this?  No.  Or when they did it was just something like: “Left and Right engaged in some conflict” or simply “The march was marred by conflict.”  Certainly no coordinated headlines as in Biden’s call for unity (or perhaps the coordination was simply not to report).  There was silence.

Did Biden condemn the violence propounded by his supporters?  No.  He ignored it completely.  Silence.   [Update: Late today a Biden spokesperson stated that "President-elect Biden continues to denounce all acts of violence" but did not name Antifa or BLM, the perpetrators of the violence against the marchers this past weekend. I do not see this as any sort of real condemnation of the divisive acts by the Left, but rather it continues the silence that is inconsistent with the call for unity.]

Did Biden’s voters who had told us they voted for him because he would bring civility and unite us say that this was not what they voted for?  No.  Silence.

This is not only the height of hypocrisy.  It tells me that in the minds of Biden and the Left that “Unity” means we all must hold our tongues and not speak if we disagree with them.  That is not America or the democracy or free speech that is our American Right.  This is an America without tolerance and where unapproved voices are silenced.

And it is not just the “unity” lie.  The hypocrisy is everywhere.  Before the election there was silence on Biden’s likely use of his office as VP to further his son’s financial benefits with Ukraine.  There was the ignoring of the charges of sexual harassment (quite a contrast to the way the Left treated the false charges against Justice Kavanaugh!).  There is the fact that Biden’s cancer foundation does virtually nothing with the money it raises except pay salaries to its employees.  All met with media silence.  Anyone who brought forth the actual evidence of these things was ostracized as some sort of nut.  Inconvenient facts – silenced.

But let’s look at the days post-election.  Besides the false unity appeal, we have seen several lies pass Joe Biden’s mouth, with no acknowledgement of that from his supporters who have been eager not only to point out every actual misstatement by the President, but even to make up many more.

Joe Biden told us during the debates that he would not declare victory until the election results were certified.  He lied.  He promised a middle of the road, not far left-wing administration, but look at his appointments thus far and projected ones – many far left, proponents of socialism, etc.  He lied.  Those who try to raise these and other lies are silenced; the press does not report them.  Silence.

But Biden is not alone in his lies.  He has the media at his back.  How many times has the media, in reporting that Donald Trump has failed to concede, told us there is no evidence of fraud.  Yet there are hundreds of pages of affidavits from poll workers, along with piles of credible evidence suggesting there are also piles of illegal votes that were counted.  That is not reported.  Silence.

No, the result of this election, declared by the media (who now seems to be running the country), is unlikely to change.  But that does not mean we should turn a blind eye to fraud, silence even the suggestion that it occurred, and silence any attempt to investigate so that it does not again occur.

In an essay, the whole of which is well worth reading, Caroline Glick states:

“If we learned nothing else from the election campaign and its aftermath, we learned American democracy is in crisis.

The media is the first force responsible for this crisis. For the past four years, all major U.S. television networks and national newspapers have dedicated themselves not to reporting news, but to defining the boundaries of acceptable public discourse. Big Tech firms—Facebook, Google and Twitter, in particular, having amassed powers the KGB could only have dreamed of—serve as the enforcers of those boundaries.”             

Entire article can be found here LINK 

I come back to my previous blog about the Nice vote.  The media convinced many that Biden would bring us nice – civil discourse in which we would all get along.  They believed the media propaganda that they could trust Joe and he would simply wave his magic wand and we would all get along.  They voted for that in their naïve belief that the job of a president is creating national civility rather than the actual domestic and foreign duties of a president.  No one corrected their misperceptions.  Silence.

But, regardless of what those nice voters thought, what this weekend march and Leftest violence shows us is that in the minds of the left and its handmaiden media, getting along simply means allowing only one voice. That is the worst kind of silence.

The nice voters and the naïve voters failed by blindly trusting the media.  Ms. Glick also writes:

“Nearly all the stories about Trump and his supporters have been negative for the past four years. Consequently, while most Americans never heard that Trump conceived and implemented an entirely new foreign policy doctrine that has met more success than any adopted since the end of the Cold War, all Americans know that the media expect them to believe Trump is a racist. They know that the media expect right-thinking Americans to hate Trump and his supporters, and admire his opponents, from Nancy Pelosi to Black Lives Matter (BLM).”

I would add to this that nearly all the stories about President Obama were positive and we see the same approach being taken toward Biden.  The press does not report the negative, and actually, most of the positive is not hard-hitting journalism, but fluff – for example, what pets Joe will bring to the White House – fluff about fluff.  Silence on real facts of real substance.

Yet too many have been silenced into thinking that if they do not hold the voice that the media instructs there is something wrong with them.  They are afraid to speak out, to even think or question what the media, the voice of the Left, tells them.  They are silenced, and the silence is indeed deafening. 

But more than deafening, is the sad truth that without critical thought and questioning, without voicing or hearing opposing viewpoints, eventually those viewpoints cease to exist.  With the silencing if different voices comes the destruction of the individual mind.  Tolerance of opposing views, what used to be referred to as the Loyal Opposition, is an essential piece of democracy.  Yet the Left is doing its best to silence that, and Biden seems inclined to just stand by and let them.

I turn again to Caroline Glick (and again I encourage everyone to read her entire article):

“The consequences of this media and Big Tech tyranny are disastrous for the health of American democracy. Americans know they are expected to act like the citizens of the totalitarian regime in the Soviet Union. The media will tell them what they can say, and social media will enforce the media's dictates.  And like the denizens of the USSR, Americans haven't stopped thinking as a result of this tyranny. They have just stopped telling people what they think. 

“The media's abandonment of journalism and their hatred of half of American society, as well as the Democrats' embrace of a totalitarian theory of race and American secular sin as an organizing principle, are unmooring America from its democratic, pluralistic anchors. American society is moving into a post-democratic reality. And if action isn't taken to restore those anchors, American society as a whole will suffer.”

I actually fear it may be worse – I fear that too many Americans have indeed just stopped thinking.  They seem to find it easier to just accept.  Do as told, think as told, say as told.  Just shuffle along without any brain and ultimately without any soul. 

Americans, all Americans, need to think if this is where they really want to go.  If not, they need to once again not only start thinking, but start questioning.  And most importantly, they need to start speaking. 

The fear of speaking may be great – you may lose friends, you may be outcast, you may be laughed at, you may even be attacked.  But anyone who wishes to enjoy the many benefits of such traditional American things as freedom of thought and speech and assembly and religion, who believes that tolerance of alternate views, even those with which one strongly disagrees, is a good thing and a healthy thing for democracy, those people need to speak out.

The silence needs to end – that is the action that is necessary to restore the anchors of our American democracy.  From Joe Biden who promised us something different and who refuses to speak out for tolerance and truth, and from the voters who voted for civility but are now being betrayed not only by breaches of campaign promises, but by acceptance of violence against opposition speech.  

But the silence from those who are still thinking and questioning but are not speaking, that is the most dangerous silence of all.  No one should tolerate their voice being silenced.  Rather than silence, we need to hear the cacophony of the many individual and diverse views that exist in America.