Friday, January 14, 2022

Voting-- "A Solemn Trust"

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Former President Barack Obama published his first op-ed since leaving the presidency this week.

What issue was that important to him?

Voting.

"The world and future generations will be watching," Obama writes as he calls on the Senate to "do the right thing" and pass legislation to, what the left calls, "protect voting rights." 

Thomas Jefferson, also a former president, said: "The elective franchise, if guarded as the ark of our safety, will peacefully dissipate all combinations to subvert  a Constitution, dictated by the wisdom, and the resting on the will of the people."

Samuel Adams, a Founding Father, said: "Voting is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and country."

That "solemn trust" is under attack by those on the left who seek power---without accountability to either God or country.

Let's take a closer look at Biden's voting bill.

Be informed, not misled.

Obama came out this week in USA Today with an all-out call for the Senate to pass legislation to abolish the Senate filibuster. That desperate attempt is necessary because the Biden administration is so dysfunctional they can't get enough support to move their political agenda forward.

The American public is onto them. Even some of the Democrats in the Senate are saying "enough."

Writing that the filibuster has "no basis in the Constitution," noting that it was "mainly southern senators who used it to obstruct the passage of civil rights legislation," Obama forgets that those "mainly southern senators" were mainly Democrats.

Obama laid out what he called the "unraveling of basic democratic principles"---citing the storming of the Capitol by "pro-Trump supporters" and the "continued spread of falsehoods about the 2020 election" as the chief among the unravellings. 

"America's long-standing grand experiment in democracy is being sorely tested," he said. "Future generations are counting on us to meet that test."

A tale of two tests.

But what is the true test? 

Is it to see if so-called progressives can federalize all national elections going forward, thus ensconcing themselves in perpetual political power--- or is to see if state election laws can make it easier to vote and harder to cheat? 

Obama gave a glimpse of the future he sees when he extolled his party's voter scheme legislation: "It's how we can stop climate change, and reform our broken immigration system, and help ensure that our children enjoy an economy that works for everyone and not just a few."

Translated: If we can push through our voter legislation by doing whatever it takes, we can create the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world under the guise of "climate change" and lead America further into socialism with a new economy that is "equitable"---everybody gets the same size paycheck---except the rulers. Of course.

The problem.

Biden, whose strings are likely being pulled by Obama (and a few others), should be able to blow up the filibuster, which would give him a majority with the tie-breaking vote of the Vice President.

Thus it should be a done deal. But it isn't. Here's why.

Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) said yesterday that she will not vote to weaken the Senate's 60-vote filibuster threshold. 

This will kill the deal for Biden and all the rest of the so-called progressives.

Sinema said:

"There's no need for me to restate my longstanding support for the 60-vote threshold to pass legislation. There is no need for me to restate its role in protecting our country from wild reversals of federal policy. This week's harried discussions  about Senate rules are but a poor substitute for what I believe could have and should have been a thoughtful public debate at any time over the past year."

She added: 

"But what is the legislative filibuster, other than a tool that requires new federal policy to be broadly supported by senators, representing the broader cross-section of Americans...Demands to eliminate this threshold from whichever party holds the fleeting majority amount to a group of people separated on two sides of a canyon, shouting that solution to their colleagues."

Any changes to the filibuster would need all 50 Senate Democrats on board. With Sinema taking such a strong stance, it isn't likely her colleagues can force her to change her mind---because her stance is apparently what she actually believes.

Yesterday she also said, "These bills help to treat the symptoms of the disease, but they do not fully address the disease itself. And while I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division affecting our country."

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va.---and a few others--are said to share her sentiments.

Takeaway.

A generation following that of our Founding Fathers, Daniel Webster---said to be the greatest and most effective senator ever to serve this nation---speaking to the ladies of Richmond, VA. on Oct 5, 1840, said this:

"Impress upon your children the truth that the exercise of the elective franchise is a social duty of as solemn a nature as a man can be called to perform; that a man may not innocently trifle with his vote; that every elector is a trustee as well for others as himself and that every measure he supports has an important bearing on the interests of others as well as his own."

Be Informed. Be Vigilant. Be Discerning. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.