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.
Well, the choice was easy for me too. The resulting law was unconstitutional so I opposed it.
I suspect RyanCare was a necessary bowel movement that was flushed as expected.
God bless +Hugs+
My experience, feelings, and views line up pretty much exactly.
I think the threat of civil war is very real because the nation is so polarized, and there does not seem to be much of a middle ground. This could be many years away, but just as inevitable.
That being said, if there is a way to avoid a literal war, we need to win over a large segment of the current Democrat voter base. To me, black voters are the ones who have been exploited the most by the Democrats and received the least in return for their loyalty.
Our priorities need to be...
1. drain the swamp / go after government corruption & organized crime (including voter fraud) full force / get rid of politically correct social experiments in the military and destructive policies that lead to defeat
2. immigration enforcement / build the wall (and if the wall does not get funded then put the military at our borders to protect them until it does get built. In fact, use the military budget to build it if necessary.)
3. tax reform / defund abortion (shut down non-essential government services if necessary)
4. reform existing federal programs to protect children, strengthen families, and reduce crime, especially in inner cities where the problems are the biggest
5. fix the economy with better trade deals, tax regulations, market and banking reforms, interstate commerce (medical insurance, patent and copyright reform), infrastructure repairs
To make any meaningful progress we MUST find some way to get to 60 conservatives in the Senate in 2018. And that may be as tough or even tougher than 2016. Unfortunately, we are stuck with less than 25% of REPUBLICAN senators who are anything resembling a true conservative.
Now is the time to take a serious look at which of the moderate and liberal Republicans could be primaried out.
Yes, if only Cruz were VP right now, everything would be different. Gimme a break!
In any event, Cruz obviously had no interest in being VP, as evidenced by his profoundly "unifying" speech at the RNC.
Your assertion is questionable, to be kind. If this bill had passed, then "our 3D chess-playing savior" (snark much?) would have been "whipped first round at the checkers tournament".
I sense lingering butthurt.
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.
"Trump-care"? "The way they used the same old secrecy?"
Did Paul Ryan have a frog in his pocket?
You just can't resist trying to equate President Trump with this bill, can you? Obviously, the President didn't feel the same way, as evidenced by the fact that he was willing to move on from it.
Just to get the facts straight, it was Paul Ryan who was responsible for the production of this bill, not President Trump, and it was Paul Ryan who used secrecy behind closed doors and let the insurance companies author this garbage, and it was Paul Ryan who arrogantly said "take it or leave it" and didn't even want to allow changes.
Conversely, it was President Trump who indicated his willingness to talk to all parties interested in improving the bill, but who rightly issued the ultimatum and indicated his willingness to walk away from a bad deal.
Think about it: if this bill had passed, President Trump would have been totally dependent on a GOPe titan (Ryan) for "phase 3", which never would have happened. I can't think of a worse scenario.
It's perfectly reasonable to believe that Paul Ryan wanted to produce a garbage "Obamacare lite" bill which wouldn't have reduced a single American's insurance premium—a bad piece of legislation that would have been dubbed "Trump-care" and would ensure that Donald Trump was only a one-term President.
Instead, we now have a severely damaged Paul Ryan, who might even be deposed as Speaker, which would be an ideal outcome for President Trump.
3D chess, my friend...
Start with those who voted for the Gang of Amnesty.
Corker, Flake, Hatch and Heller in 2018
Graham and Alexander in 2020
McCain, Murkowsky, Hoeven and Rubio in 2022
When I started reading I was scared I was going to disagree with you somehow. I didn’t know where you were headed. But I agree wholeheartedly. We dodged a bullet. I think we saw a bit of the art of the deal. If you can’t get a good one, let the damn thing die. There is no way Obamacare or Trumpcare or Ryancare is constitutional.
“Rubio in 2022”
Rubio is among the 25% of Republican senators who votes mostly conservatively.
While I too feel betrayed by his gang of 8 participation, we need to direct our efforts toward the larger portion who are reliably liberal.
IMO
bump
A few thoughts:
Mr. Trump is not a conservative or a constitutionalist. Note that he never talks about the Constitution. It is just not a big deal to him. I have been pleasantly surprised at his conservative appointments and his budget, but I am afraid that they are more tactical than principled. He sees that conservatism is what the country needs now.
Mr. Trump has always supported universal government healthcare, of an undefined nature. Even Obama and Hillary did not claim universal coverage for their plans.
To say now that government healthcare is unconstitutional may be 50 years too late. Medicare and Medicaid began small but have grown huge. Government already controlled half of US healthcare before Obama.
We must find a way to re-introduce free market forces into healthcare.
Absolutely agree on free markets. But we must also continue fighting against further unconstitutional intrusion into health care and insurance matters. The dems are up to their eyeballs in socialism and we must resist the GOP from following.
Bttt
“I sense lingering butthurt.”
I’m not sure how you knew I ate too much habanero last night, but I’ll assume you have a friend in the NSA.
No need for the emotional defense of Trump or extraordinary lengths to image he was not pushing this disaster-lite bill as being great and needed.
Just because I favored Cruz does not mean I wish ill to Trump. We whipped Trump’s ass here in WI during the primaries. Fortunately, with Paul Ryan out of state most of the time, the average of WI’s collective political maturity and wisdom is way up. So after the primary whipping, we still did the mature thing and voted for Trump over Hillary.
I was quite critical of Cruz’s behavior at the convention and quite critical of things Trump has done. I trust them both in a general sense, but I don’t put my faith in men.
If the 3d chess stuff means denying responsibility for things your guy promoted which failed, then our new prez has some followers which are real Jedi masters.
I actually think Trump was very humble and practical in his remarks after the failure, there is no need to pretend it did not happen.
Awesome post. Totally agree!
That’s why I’m here.
Now all Trump has to do is remove all the waivers for Obama’s friends and donors. Then watch the fur fly!
“First, Obamacare was enacted with 51 votes”
Nope.
“On December 23, the Senate voted 60–39 to end debate on the bill: a cloture vote to end the filibuster. The bill then passed, also 60–39, on December 24, 2009, with all Democrats and two independents voting for it, and all Republicans against”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act
Only an amendment was passed through reconciliation.
I stand corrected. I forgot that they had to rush it through before Scott Brown could come in and replace Senator Kirk and eliminate the 60th ‘RAT vote. They passed it without being able to correct any of its many problems.
I suspect RyanCare was a necessary bowel movement that was flushed as expected.
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Very accurately put, IMHO. Now if we could just get rid of the biggest Turd of all (Ryan) who is stinking up the place with his obstruction and misdirection.
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