"I don't want more freedom, I want more government control!"
Posted on 02/03/2018 9:46:36 AM PST by Liberty7732
There is an ongoing narrative in the media and by Democrats that President Trump is a threat to everything American, that he is fascistic and that our most basic freedoms are under assault. Therefor, all must #resist!
But the opposite is true when set in juxtaposition to the Obama Administration.
The actual facts on the ground do not support what appears to be only a caricature created to scare the Democrat base and the American people in pursuit of the ongoing agenda to undermine the duly elected president.
When looking at Trump’s actions, compared to Obama’s actions, several things become clear. Not every individual action is pro-liberty, but in the aggregate, there is a substantial net lurch toward freedoms that moves the needle in the opposite direction from the Obama administration’s eight years of restraining American freedoms on several fronts.
The basics make the point.
Press freedoms Ironically, Trump’s expansion of freedoms holds true even for the media that despises Trump and disingenuously considers him fascistic or trending toward Nazism.
Under Obama, we had actual federal government surveillance of Associated Press reporters and an FBI investigations of Fox News reporter James Rosen. Those are the ones we know of. Further, Obama and the Eric Holder Department of Justice aggressively pursued government whistleblowers — the journalists’ sources.
According to the decidedly non-conservative Freedom of the Press Foundation, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder used the Espionage Act of 1917 to put a record number of reporters and sources in jail. The foundation said “Obama strongly supported Holder’s war against journalists’ sources, despite once promising to protect whistleblowers when in office…”
Yes, Obama persecuted more leakers and journalists than any president ever. Isn’t it interesting how the media had no heart for really covering these stories?
But under Trump so far, there is no known Obama-era surveillance of reporters, no investigations of reporters. In fact, Trump is perhaps the most accessible and open president in history.
Empirically, there can be no doubt that, so far, journalists are freer under President Trump than they were under President Obama.
Religious freedoms The Obama Administration used federal funds to pay for abortions, meaning individual taxpayers were required to participate in an activity that many find abhorrent and in violation of religious beliefs.
Further, Obamacare (again) allowed Obama to require businesses to pay for abortion and birth control devices for their employees through the insurance they offered, violating the religious convictions of many business owners.
This policy was a major hit to First Amendment freedoms and landed companies such as Hobby Lobby in court, creating a religious freedom firestorm — for those who care about religious freedom.
But last October, the Trump administration changed the Obama policy to allow employers to claim a religious or moral objection to Obamacare’s birth control coverage mandate, sweeping away the onerous, freedom-stealing policy. Naturally, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit to block the Trump action, because the ACLU is very selective of which civil liberties they defend — and the obvious bedrock Jeffersonian principle of a right to condoms and abortion are clearly more important than religious freedom.
You can argue for or against the policy as right or wrong, but you cannot argue that the Obama policy was pro-religious freedom when it denied religious freedom to some for the convenience of others.
This alone is a major gain for religious freedom. But Trump has also appointed federal judges, up to and including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who are originalist and will almost assuredly protect religious liberty when it collides with modern conveniences.
Individual freedoms President Obama’s signature action was Obamacare. And there can be no argument from any side that Affordable Care Act was a pro-freedom bill or expanded individual liberties.
The basic premise of Obamacare was to specifically limit individuals’ choices and freedoms by requiring all Americans to buy a product (health insurance) and penalizing them if they did not to create a large enough marketplace to cover the uninsured. This was the infamous individual mandate. You can argue for the cause of ACA, but you cannot argue it was pro-freedom. By definition and mandate, it was not.
Trump and Congressional Republicans essentially eliminated the individual mandate in the tax reform package that has been so successful on the economic front. That was a net step back from the government control of the previous administration and toward individual freedom.
The same can be said of the rest of the tax reform package. Any cut in personal income taxes is at least a tiny step toward more freedom as Americans are allowed to spend more of their money how they choose, not how some distant bureaucrat chooses.
And deregulation allows more freedom from businesses to homeowners, not only helping the economy and general quality of life, but expanding liberties for Americans by removing at least a small part of the yoke of government.
A couple of exceptions to watch There are a couple of small exceptions to this general rule.
Trump’s proposal, at the urging of his daughter Ivanka Trump, for family and medical leave reduces individual freedoms by forcing companies to provide this — meaning the companies have less freedom as do the company employees who must pick up the slack while people are on lengthy leaves via government mandate.
Also, to a very tiny degree, Trump’s $1.5 trillion government infrastructure spending bill is the wrong direction because it ultimately requires taxes to pay for. More government spending equals less individual freedom. It’s just a basic equation.
But these two exceptions pale when compared to the broader expansions of liberties for all Americans.
Trump will get little to no credit for this expansion of liberties because the media’s shared ideology with Obama and Democrats means they either don’t value these freedoms or don’t even recognize their loss.
But there are still enough Americans that prize liberty to appreciate this new atmosphere.
As freedoms expand, the FBI must contract.
To the media and the Democrats the definition of freedom is unlimited sex, abortions, and blasphemy.
“As freedoms expand, the FBI must contract.”
And, as freedoms expand, the Democrat Party must contract.
Not only that, this administration is more deferential to the rule of law. Obama would routinely ignore court rulings against it. Of course it’s easier to do when the press is carrying your water.
We need a government that does not go for our necks every chance they get.
"I don't want more freedom, I want more government control!"
Now that’s funny right there! LOL
By whatever semantic maneuver those power holders chose to identify themselves, no matter how benevolent they purported to be, the end was the same: some individuals in the society or group were denied their Creator-endowed rights to be free.
In America, in the Year 1776, a genius group of freedom loving individuals declared a set of principles by which, if accepted, a society of like-minded individuals could enjoy "the pursuit of happiness."
Eleven years later, they "constituted" a form of self-government to assure that the goals of their Constitution's Preamble were to become reality for the nation.
The Preamble began with the words,
The goal, of course, was the expansion, or enlargement, of liberty for individuals in the society--not the enlargement of government!
Perhaps Donald Trump's greatest achievement to this point can be described as one man's effort to "expand liberty" for individuals and to "contract government power," thereby allowing just a little individual freedom to flourish as it did in America both prior to 1776 and thereafter.
By the way, has anyone here read Burke's Speech on Conciliation. . . . lately? If not, please read his description of how the "spirit of liberty" among the colonists, even before 1776, had resulted in the American colonies literally "feeding" the Old World!
The word, "liberty," should, once again become the watchword for American citizens.
Conservatives look at Government as a necessary Evil, which is why we respect our Constitution as the Foundation of our Republic that protects our God given Rights as a Free People.
Liberals look to Government as an Entity to shape Society into a Socialist Utopia based on their evolving norms, which is why they treat the Constitution as a Living Document that limits our individual Freedoms for the good of the State.
Of course Liberals would never admit that their actions limit Freedom, but that’s to be expected.
Thanks Liberty7732. Had a convo about "hate speech" with my college-age coworker, basically, told him the hate speech exception to the 1st Amendment meant he didn't have a 1st Amendment. Saw the programming start to kick on in every recess of his brain.
...”The word, “liberty,” should, once again become the watchword for American citizens.”...
YES!
Perhaps the following quotation might remind some of the older Democrats whose minds have not been completely captivated by Progressive ideology that once upon a time, Democrats, too, spoke of defending liberty (freedom), with all that such belief embraces--such as, "expanding liberty"! "The world is different now. . . and yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forefathers fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God." - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address
I want the freedom to see Zero and Hill’s mugshots on the top of Drudge.
“We need a government that does not go for our necks every chance they get.”
Yes, and we need media that do not go for our necks every chance they get.
“told him the hate speech exception to the 1st Amendment”
You meant a hypothetical hate speech exception to the 1st Amendment such as he would like to see, right?
We need concealed carry reciprocity. I write to President Trump about this all the time. It will save lives nationwide.
Yes, and we need media that do not go for our necks every chance they get.“We need a government that does not go for our necks every chance they get.” - Slyfox
Talk radio - and FR &c - are "media that do not go for our necks every chance they get."“Objective” journalists - ain’t. Journalists know that “If it bleeds, it leads” - and knowing that, they know that journalism is negative. They may think that negativity is objectivity, of course - but if so, they convict themselves of cynicism. So the fact that Talk radio hosts do not claim objectivity is not legitimately a criticism. It is in fact consistent with being a philosopher:Especially since claiming objectivity is not clearly distinct from claiming wisdom.
- sophist
- 1542, earlier sophister (c.1380), from L. sophista, sophistes, from Gk. sophistes, from sophizesthai "to become wise or learned," from sophos "wise, clever," of unknown origin. Gk. sophistes came to mean "one who gives intellectual instruction for pay," and, contrasted with "philosopher," it became a term of contempt. Ancient sophists were famous for their clever, specious arguments.
- philosopher
- O.E. philosophe, from L. philosophus, from Gk. philosophos "philosopher," lit. "lover of wisdom," from philos "loving" + sophos "wise, a sage."
"Pythagoras was the first who called himself philosophos, instead of sophos, 'wise man,' since this latter term was suggestive of immodesty." [Klein]
And they wonder why we don't buy their bird cage liners anymore.
“Talk radio - and FR &c - are “media that do not go for our necks every chance they get.”
I don’t want to understate what talk radio has done for us, but we need honest media *instead* of CBSNBCCNNABCETC.
I met this woman the other day who thinks that Obunghole did great things, that all accusations against the Xlintons are lies, etc. etc.
It is frightening to contemplate her total disconnect with reality, for which the evilstream misleadia is largely to blame.
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