Posted on 03/25/2017 6:22:09 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Free Republic stands for God, family, country. We generally look to Judeo-Christian* guidance on issues of law, morality, justice, freedom, life, family and civil society. And we have a Christian self-governing, self-reliant, individual accountability & responsibility, you gotta work if able-bodied and want to eat attitude on cultural and societal issues. And a Christian pro-Constitution, original intent, pro-liberty, pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, restricted government, small government, states rights, individual rights, free enterprise position on political and civil matters.
*Note: I say Judeo-Christian because Jesus was a Jew and referred to the Ten Commandments, Jewish law, beliefs and customs and the scripture he quoted was from the Torah, ie, the Hebrew Bible and basically today's Old Testament. If you believe in the Bible (Old and New Testaments) and the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, etc, then you believe in our one true Judeo-Christian God.
We take the Bible, the Declaration, the Constitution and our Christian founding and heritage seriously, though we are sometimes backsliders. We the people formed our original Christian states (and they were indeed Christian as the original constitutions of all 13 states openly declared it so), and after the revolution we the people of the original Christian states established and ratified the Constitution and formed the new national government.
We the people of the original states through our ratifying representatives agreed to delegate certain enumerated powers to the new national government and limit it to just those delegated and enumerated powers, reserving all others to our existing Christian state and local governments and to we the people.
We the people of the original Christian states also included a Bill of Rights that prohibited our newly established limited national government from interfering into our God-given (per the Declaration and common understanding) inalienable rights to free speech, freedom of religion, right to keep and bear arms, right to speedy trial before our peers, etc, etc. We had just rebelled against a tyrannical king and there was no way we were going to sign on to or allow a newly formed central government to rule over us or interfere into our currently long established Christian governments and communities, or deny us our God-given rights or take our guns or lock us up on some trumped up federal charge, etc.
The God-given right to our individual freedoms (including the right to freely exercise our Christian religion) and to self-government was of paramount concern to the founders and to we the people and to our original states. We had no intent of signing away our rights to community and even state level Christian governments. The Constitution and Bill of Rights was intended to keep the newly established federal government OUT of our state and local and individual matters! It restricted the federal government not the states, ie, a community or even a state recognizing God as our Creator and source of all rights, and or communities celebrating Christmas or Easter is NOT a violation of the first amendment, nor is prayer offered from a public space.
The above is my understanding and is critical to the positions I take today. If I am proved wrong about any of the above then I may need to rethink my personal philosophy in regards to God, Christianity and the Constitution.
The primary and then the first dodged bullet.
I supported Cruz before and at the start of the primaries due to his obvious Christian constitutional conservative positions and track record of defending the Constitution. IMHO, he stood head and shoulders over Bush, Rubio, Kascich, Paul and other assorted GOPe RINOs, globalists, amnesty pushers, establishment hangers on and unknown newbies, etc. I didn't care much at all for Trump. Thought he was an untrustworthy chameleon and charlatan. Wrote him off completely.
And then I began watching his rallies and listening to him explain his positions. Build the wall, enforce the law, deport them all, end sanctuary cities, end anchor babies, slap a moratorium on Muslim immigration, cut taxes, cut spending, cut regulations, cut the government, make better trade deals, bring back manufacturing and jobs, dump the EPA and global warming, bring back coal, gas & oil, rebuild the military AND (as all the other Republican hopefuls pledged: REPEAL OBAMACARE!
Ok, so I'm impressed. The guy sounds like a Reagan conservative. But I'm still a Cruz guy. As I continue watching and listening to both and then start reading Trump's plans as he fleshes them out on his website, I get even more interested. His initial tax plan even out Reagan'd Reagan. He proposed cutting all taxes, but especially cutting the corporate tax to ZERO! Now that piqued my interest way up! What a boost to the economy and jobs that would be (unfortunately, cutting the corp tax rate to zero was later in the primary modified to 15%, I suspect after GOP bean counters got involved).
So now I have two favorites in the race. Cruz was my guy but I could be happy with Trump. If either of these guys won the primary, I'd back him to the hilt. Even thought it'd be great if they partnered up on the ticket.
And as the race progressed, it was impossible not to see that Trump was not only a great campaigner, and a great communicator, but he was also a great fighter and wasn't going to rollover for the establishment or the media. He takes his message straight to the people and does not apologize or back down.
One by one he knocks off anyone who attacks him, whether they be an opponent, a pundit, the GOP, the DEMs, the establishment or the media. We can't spare this man, he fights.
So it eventually gets down to Trump vs Cruz, but Trump is way ahead. Cruz has been holding off to this point, but now he has no choice. If he wants to win, Cruz has to take Trump head-on and the nasty battle begins. Again, Trump is the more aggressive campaigner and fighter and he pulls it out.
And the most aggressive campaigner and fighter is exactly what we needed to defeat Hillary and the democrats and the media AND the entire establishment ruling class of both major political parties.
His own party stood against him! Even FOX News and most of the so-called "conservative" media!
It was a miracle that Trump won. "He had no path to 270!" No one thought he could possibly make it. Coming down to the wire I think even Trump thought he'd lost. And then as the last handful of states were coming in, the network vote counters all agreed Trump had no path to a win. Then boom. Don't remember if it was Michigan or Wisconsin, but after Trump won whichever came in first, there was a long pregnant pause as the Network vote counters tried and tried, but couldn't calculate any clear path to 270 from the remaining states... for Hillary!
Trump won the presidency and America dodged a bullet!
And now at the risk of offending many of our dear readers and participants, I say yesterday we dodged another bullet.
We already know that the Democrat party absolutely hates our Christian founding & heritage and our Constitution and our constitutionally guaranteed God-given individual and states rights. And that they prefer a "living constitution" and an all powerful centralized Godless Marxist government with a globalized bent and a Godless Marxist judiciary unconstitutionally implementing their Godless Marxist agenda. This is a given and we also know this philosophy is infiltrating and making strong headway into our Republican party and establishment.
We all know that Obamacare is an unconstitutional, unsustainable socialist program rammed through our congress via questionable and unscrupulous processes without a single Republican vote and upheld by the opinion of an errant court doing the bidding of the aforementioned Godless Marxist government.
Why do we say Obamacare is unconstitutional?
Primarily because the power to legislate health care matters and or mandates on insurance matters to our states and or on we the people is NOT a power enumerated and delegated to the congress or the federal government by the Constitution and is therefore reserved to the states and the people.
Am I right or wrong about that?
If I am right then a health care or insurance law enacted by a Republican congress or government would be equally unconstitutional, regardless of whether it is better or worse than Obamacare.
Am I right or wrong about that?
If I am right in both cases then we dodged a second huge bullet.
If we God-fearing defenders of Constitution and Liberty join in with those who would knowingly pass unconstitutional laws for political expedience, ie, helping Trump move his agenda which is otherwise very good, then we've unwittingly shot ourselves in the foot and opened the doors to both political parties to destroy whatever is left of our Constitution and our Liberty. And they will do it if given the opportunity.
So we shot our toe off and delivered a defeat of his first legislative agenda item.
A lost toe to preserve foot and limb (or life and liberty, in this case) is much preferable to the alternative (don't ask me how I know).
If I'm confused or all wet on these matters I'm sure you will straighten me out.
(And yes, I know Trump's position evolved from repeal to repeal and replace during the primary. I supported him anyway because of the rest of his platform. I assumed cooler heads and the constitution would win out on the replace bit.)
Now we need to move on to REPEAL (along with the rest of his agenda)! Rules changes or whatever it takes, we must repeal Obamacare.
Jim,
I read all of this and I do not understand what it is that you are confessing to,
nor do I understand what it is that you think you ‘need’ to confess to.
There are many reasons why we have Donald Trump as our president,
and in my humble opinion, the main reason is that he is an
‘outsider’, not part of the ‘GOPe”, and not beholden to anyone,
and a lot of people were just tired of all of that bullshit.
(gee, what do you think, should we elect another Clinton or another Bush?)
Donald Trump is a ‘citizen’ president, and it is something
that no one in our generation (or generations prior) have ever seen.
I do not think we should loose hope in our president,
just because the congress can’t get their act together.
May GOD bless you and your family.
May GOD bless the Republic.
R17
I’m a little late to the thread, but great summary of the story so far, Jim, and YES, we did dodge (at least) two bullets. There probably are more— there’s more to the Flynn story than is being told, the CIA/Deep State attacks, etc. Stay strong; Trump is not defeated, and neither are we.
Politics was always “as usual” and now it’s never been so interesting.
Oh how I love Donald Trump!!!!!
Being a primary-Cruz / general-Trump guy as well, I too thought a Trump/Cruz ticket would have been a unifying and very practical combo.
For a timely example: If Cruz were VP right now, we would not today all be rationalizing why our 3d chess playing savior just got whipped first round at the checkers tournament.
Because Cruz himself would then be the guy his latest idea relies upon. As VP, he himself would be the Senate rule 'decider' and could implement his latest plan to get the effect of nukes without using actual rule changes.
Which means we'd be able to do this thing right. Go Big and Go Bold in defense of Freedom - for a real refreshing change.
This Ryan/Trump-care bill was always a bad idea and the way they used the same old secrecy, then fast-track and strong-arm crap was very lame. But revealing. Freedom now knows who is trustworthy.
And FreeRepublic now knows certain folks here, though not necessarily bad folks in general, are less than worthy voices for Freedom. Yes, I mean those who quite ridiculously claim the House Freedom Caucus are the bad guys.
“If I am right then a health care or insurance law enacted by a Republican congress or government would be equally unconstitutional, regardless of whether it is better or worse than Obamacare.”
The Ryan bill cut 1.2 trillion from Obamacare according to the CBO.
Did Ryan repeal it all? No. You need 60 votes for that. Obamacare was enacted with 60 votes. Ryan “only” cut 1.2 trillion from it.
Ryan also defunded planned parenthood, etc. Ryan added nothing to Obamacare. He only subtracted. His bill was 100% constitutional.
The Ryan bill was the moral, Christian choice. Unfortunately, Obama bought many republicans with his government subsidies. In exchange for a few bucks of government money, many decided to oppose the Ryan bill and save Obamacare along with planned parenthood funding, etc.
I agree 100%. If Rynocare passed, the House and Senate would have been lost in the mid-terms. Ryan was exposed as the sleazy, low-life that he is during this process. He wanted to pass this piece of crap to undermine Trump so that he would be a one term President. Trump saw what was going on and he did the right thing, he walked.
Well said, Jim!
And your journey to becoming pro-Trump sounds very much like my own.
God bless you, sir.
Some folks find it easy to confuse spiritual Christianity with social Christianization of a country that is a mixture of believer and unbeliever. They are two different things.
Cruz might have put on a great display, however he didn’t get the inspiration that Donald Trump did. Dominionism might have been a problem — the doctrine that Christians aren’t just light and salt to a mixed world, but that they just plain take it over in the name of Christ. This is highly dubious to me from a biblical standpoint — short of the parousia (2nd coming). By claiming too much, Cruz might have gotten nothing. Cruz’s father was dominionist, and it never was clear to me how far the acorn fell from the tree.
“Ryan added nothing to Obamacare.”
When people lie to supports their positions, it’s because they don’t have a case. One of things that Paul Ryan added was a 30% penalty, to be paid to the insurance companies, for not buying health insurance in a particular year.
If planned parenthood is not funded in the budget, it isn’t funded. That can be put or removed regardless of what happened to Ryancare.
And let me guess... it had to be just the right kind of insurance too, i.e. some of the plans that were being offered by exempt employers didn’t even qualify. So you’d get dinged for not buying Ryancare.
I think it would be cheaper just to issue mini-med plans to the American citizen welfare set (especially after the illegales have been deported in serious numbers).
I think the problem is simply there are not enough votes for a straight-line repeal with no replace. My guess it simply can’t happen. Maybe that’s wrong, but all indications are there has to be a “replace” with any repeal. And that replace could, in theory, acknowledge the market place for insurance has changed since Obama and will take some time to come back, thus preserving a few things like pre-existing conditions. As for constitutionality, all of the taxes would have been repealed here, so I think that was the main argument against it on Commerce Clause grounds. So, my gut is voting this down was a mistake.
We Didn’t break it...
Perhaps we can help fix it.
But Keep it in Perspective.
You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!!! I too supported CRUZ vs TRUMP and was most unsure of Trump. Voted for him though and have watched him closely.
As for yesterday’s vote, I couldn’t agree more!!
I have said often , “ There is NEVER a RIGHT REASON to do something WRONG”...RYANCARE is OBAMACARE with a Republican casing...
NO NO NO....
My hope is that President Trump will realize that 99% of his supporters at the rallies wanted a FULL REPEAL.. not partial.
Well, based on his teachings in the NT, Jesus would tell us to make sure the least of our brothers have healthcare coverage.
Christians make a lot of mistakes. Don’t go wallowing in gloom about it. The eraser for all of them is on the cross of Calvary.
It’s my opinion that it was Ryan’s plan to preserve as much of Obamacre as possible and hang it around Trump’s neck to make him a one term President so they could get back to business as usual, importing cheap labor and selling out America.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Well there’s no doubt whatever in my mind that Ryan’s primary objective is to damage Trump in every way he can. He’s an absolutely untrustworthy snake, and why Trump seems blind to something so obvious is disheartening to say the least.
Well, we can disagree on these points, but I think we have to consider legislative intent. The GOP intent here was to strip some of the worst parts of Obama’s unconstitutional law, but either keep or improve the so-called better points (which would also be unconstitutional). For example, they wanted the new and improved law to “take care of everyone” including mandating coverage for adult children and preexisting conditions and partially subsidizing the poor or those who can’t afford it with a dubious refundable tax credit scheme.
The intent and end effect is the same as Obama’s. The federal government unconstitutionally sticking its big powerful tyrannical nose into not only what should be decided by free enterprise, but in any case, what is explicitly reserved by the constitution to the states and the people.
The only constitutional option is to repeal it.
And if repeal is against the rules, then who controls the rules and who can change those rules so that our duly elected Republican congressional majorities can do whatever it takes to repeal Obamacare ASAP as we the people intended? No excuses.
And that would be the responsible moral Christian conservative thing to do, by the way.
AMEN!!!
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