Common sense and a republic... if you can keep it!

As we're all busy with work, family, life, the ebbs have certainly overshadowed the flow around here lately. However, as we enter this year's midterm election cycle, a few thoughts occurred that should be mentioned beforehand. First, our current state:

Inflation in September 2018 was 2.3 percent. Four years later, in September 2022, it was 8.2 percent, a more than 3-fold increase.

GDP, picking time points four years apart, provides a similar view. Second quarter GDP in 2018 was 2.8 percent. In second quarter 2022, GDP was -0.6 percent, a 3.4 percentage-point difference.

Consumer confidence was hovering near 100 in 2018, and is now at 60 in 2022, according to the University of Michigan.

Average gasoline price is another metric, $2.25 per gallon in 2018 versus at $3.82 per gallon today.

Alien apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol increased from 311,000 in 2017 to 1.66 million in 2021, a more than five-fold increase. The latest 2022 data from the Associated Press is even worse.

Secondly, sense in general doesn't seem to be in high demand nor as common anymore, but we're definitely in desperate need of reclaiming it. And so, some timeless wisdom to ponder as we enter the polling booth in the coming days...

PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. ~ Thomas Paine, introduction to Common Sense

It would behoove us all to review the text of Thomas Paine’s 48-page pamphlet, which he published anonymously (fearing reprisal) in February 1776. Paine’s wisdom applies as well today as it did back then, not because of his argument against the monarchy, but as a reminder that the self-government we championed then—and are losing now—carries responsibilities. ...

Paine aptly describes how a government must be formed, to have an orderly society

…because as the elected might by that means return and mix again with the general body of the electors in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this (not on the unmeaning name of king) depends the strength of government, and the happiness of the governed.

Clearly, we’ve grown away from that simplicity. A small populace governed by elected representatives people has become 340 million people governed by a nameless bureaucracy, plus a few elected officials who rarely aspire to represent most of their constituents. That part of Paine’s writing devoted to arguing against the concept of hereditary, kingly rule resonates now that we have what was then unimaginable: an ingrained, bureaucratic inflexibility of rule.

Do we have a president in the sense our Founders conceived? On the face of it, the president today can, by fiat, change any rule. The executive order that put a halt to the Keystone pipeline, and started our descent into energy helplessness is an example. He (or, in Biden’s case, his minions) can direct a corrupt bureaucracy to trample on the rights of the people he so inadroitly governs—a stark example is Biden’s continued imprisonment, without trial, in horrific conditions, of people who walked into the Capitol building nearly two years ago.

Paine’s writing reminds us that

Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by important; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any thoughout the dominions.

While that last was again written as an argument against the throne, it holds true now, perfectly describing Biden. Paine further asks this question:

Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us?

Such a simple question. It is demonstrably true that those now in power work against our prosperity. We see this in our wealth’s diminution through predictable inflation caused by blatantly bad fiscal and social policy. We, and our government, forget that, as Paine quotes Dragonetti, on Virtue and Rewards,

The science of the politician consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom. Those men would deserve the gratitude of ages, who should discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national expense. (Emphasis mine.)

Paine further says that

The more men have to lose, the less willing they are to venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a spaniel.

It is time, I think, to stop trembling and watching our freedom slip away. In much of the country, this election matters more than any before it, and we must consider it a start toward reversing America’s downward spiral. Keeping the feet of those whom we elect to the fire is step two. Complacency is no longer an option.

And finally, as we inch closer towards these midterm decisions, the necessary course correction should become more in focus by the hour. One could think about the culmination of Democratic disasters over the last few years, but just thinking about the failures of the last few months alone is overwhelming! The stark differences between the two parties and what they stand for today could not be more obvious, so that poses the question: do we want a democracy or a republic?

One of the Democrat sound bites is that Republicans want to destroy our democracy. Someone should submit a few questions to them.

1. What is their definition of democracy?

2. Where is that definition in our Constitution?

3. Specify the actions Republicans propose that would destroy democracy as they define it.

4. Specify the actions Republicans propose that would destroy our Republic as defined in the Constitution.

The Democrats want mob rule. Sheer numbers. As for those in the minority, the Democrat elite will decide what is best for them. In reality, though, the Democrats will decide what is best for themselves and those who support them. That is not what our Constitution provides. Our Framers were meticulous in assuring that we were never to become a democracy. The Constitutional Republic they designed protected and preserved the views and opinions of all Americans, not just those who live in large cities.

The unfairness of the Democrats' view of democracy can easily be shown visually by electoral maps by county. Even the 2020 map shows that Trump won approximately five times as many counties as Biden, yet Biden sits in the White House (when not in Delaware). A few blue islands, consisting of some of our large cities, scattered amidst a sea of red. Maps of previous elections are similar. It is the concept of a republic that provides representation to that sea of red.

This is becoming more and more important as the Democrats continue to divide Americans. There is little credible argument left that the political views of the large Democrat-run cities have much if anything in common with the sea of red, or at least with the "ruling elite" of those cities. The Democrats act as if those who choose to live in the sea of red are beneath them in intelligence, that the Democrats know better what is best for those unfortunate sea of red dwellers. Their arrogance is finally becoming their undoing, even within parts of the blue islands.

Horrible inflation hurts everybody, especially those in lower income brackets, yet the blue guys keep on spending. A major cause of inflation is injecting new cash into the system. Rep. Clyburn (D) admitted that "we [Democrats] all knew" that their spending bills would increase inflation, yet they did it anyway.

Crime is out of control in many of our large cities, and especially in those run by Democrats. The Democrats in charge have hamstrung the police and elected prosecutors who won't prosecute criminals, generally adding to the chaos. The residents are starting to voice their recognition that guns are not the cause of the crime. The sea of red, on the other hand, prefers and provides law and order.

Immigration. That our border is wide open is seen live every day for those who care to see it. The blue guys see no problem with this, but the sea of red does.

Do the blue islanders actually believe they could survive on their own? Who would grow their kale and other vegetables? Who would grow their chickens, cattle, and pigs? Who would grow the wheat for their cooking and feeding whatever livestock they could manage to raise? Who would provide the fossil fuels still needed in a realistic world? Where would the massive factories for the beloved E.V.s and their batteries be built? Where do they think our military traditionally has come from? Where do they think our nuclear deterrent hardware is based?

The truth before us is that the Democrats want to destroy our Constitutional Republic and make America a mob-rule democracy, while Republicans want to preserve our longstanding Constitutional Republic. Republicans do not want to destroy our democracy, because we do not and never have had one. How does one destroy what doesn't exist?

The little blue islands may wish they hadn't started a tsunami in the overwhelming sea of red. It is ironic that the climate created by such unwise policies may actually result in a rising sea of red levels encroaching on the small blue islands. True man-made climate change.

This isn't to say that anything is certain, that our side isn't fully capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Nor is it to say there isn't some serious ditching that needs to occur for the sake of the party. What it is to say is that if you like your once thriving republic, there's only one way to keep it. Let's show up to make it happen.