This campaign cycle has been incredibly easy for some people- those who are anti-establishment. For the anti-establishment folk, there is Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Socialist realm and Donald Trump of the Authoritarian Populist realm. However, if your vote isn’t dictated by being ‘other’ but rather by your Conservative values of limited government this campaign cycle has been a meltdown of the Presidency and America as you know it. It has created a fracture in the Republican Party so baffling that one is reminded how after the 1960’s the Democratic Party abandoned classical Liberals and became more left.
By June 7th one of the candidates will have secured the nomination for their party and let’s face it, it will be Clinton and Trump so let’s examine what we do now.
A Rock and a Hard Place
Both Clinton and Trump, to the limited-government voter, are unsavory candidates. Hillary Clinton is a woman who rose to power with the advantage of her husband Bill, “two-for-the-price-of-one” as Bill said during his Presidential campaign in 1992 and now her time has come to step out as the first in command of the Clinton machine, a machine that has dominated Democratic politics for a quarter of a Century. In her corner she has feminism, her years in the White House as First Lady, years of experience in the Senate and years of experience as Secretary of State.
Her feminism has historically been revealed as opportunistic. On November 22nd 2015 she tweeted that “Every survivor of sexual assault has a right to be heard, believed, and supported.” However, she consistently protected and stood with the oppressors, not the victims, during Bill Clinton’s sexual assault scandal. According to Carl Bernstein, an investigative journalist for such publications as The Washington Post, Time Magazine, Vanity Fair and the network ABC, in his biography of Hillary Clinton: A Woman In Charge, Hillary pushed to get sworn statements from women Bill had been rumored to have been involved with, statements in which they were supposed to say they’d had no relationship with him. She even interviewed one of these women herself, at her law firm. She also led efforts to undermine Gennifer Flowers, whom she referred to as “trailer trash.”
Her record and values as First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State has overwhelmingly been an exercise in government intervention into private life and enterprise. Of children’s rights she was quoted saying “Even among persons in the children’s rights movement, there is a concern that extending rights to children against their parents is too difficult to control, and in all but the most extreme cases such questions should be resolved by the families, not the courts. I prefer that [government] intervention into an ongoing family dispute be limited to decisions that could have long-term and possibly irreparable effects if they were not resolved. Decisions [children could make] about motherhood and abortion, schooling, cosmetic surgery, treatment of venereal disease or employment, and others where the decision or lack of one will significantly affect the child’s future should not be made unilaterally by the parents. Children should have a right to be permitted to decide their own future if they are competent.” State intervention, via the courts, into the family is a position Clinton takes which leads to my final point about the courts I’ll get to later. Such views and policies ignore the broad cultural debate over government assuming the roles of parents. This ideology also has creepy connections to other Leftist regimes in which, written in the protocol, there was the deliberate intent of driving a wedge between parents and children, breaking up the family and cultivating ‘regime youth’ for ‘their own good.’
In business and the economy Hillary Clinton has proposed “raising the median income.” Never mind that government does not produce income but rather redistributes wealth. She called for new “public investments,” and establishing an “infrastructure bank” to “ channel public and private funds.” Those were her words; government to channel funds. The government steers and the market only rows, in her view. Does government have a better record handling finances? Current US debt is $19 Trillion.
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton embraced intervention as her foreign policy, pressing for intervention in Libya against Barack Obama’s initial wariness of intervention, leaving Libya a failed State and a terrorist haven, not to mention the tragic September 11th, 2012 Benghazi attack that left 4 US diplomats dead including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens who was the first Ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979. In Iraq, the United States had intervened and occupied — and things had gone to hell. In Libya, the United States had intervened but not occupied — and things had gone to hell. And in Syria, the United States had neither intervened nor occupied — and things had still gone to hell. Obviously there is a broad debate about whether intervention is appropriate and how to strategize intervention in a tribal region that has trouble maintaining democracy. However, now in the embarrassing aftermath she has taken a position of categorical unaccountability stating “At the end of the day, this was the President’s decision.”
So if Hillary Clinton is a champion of government intervention and you believe in limited government what about Donald Trump?
Donald Trump passionately defends eminent domain, which is the right of the government to confiscate private property for government use. In an interview with Bret Baier on October 6th, 2015 he insisted that the compensated, involuntary transfer of private property by the government was in the public’s best interests. He first used the example of a government seizing land for a road or highway — generally the least controversial and most broadly supported use of eminent domain. But he quickly broadened his argument, insisting that government should always be allowed to take private land for development projects if the promised public benefits are big enough. “If you have a factory, where you have thousands of jobs, you need eminent domain, it’s called economic development,” Trump said. “Now you’re employing thousands of people and you’re able to build a factory, you’re able to build an Apple computer center, where thousands of people can work. You can do that, or you can say, ‘Let the man have his house.’”
Donald Trump has an affinity for using the courts. Donald Trump is named in at least 169 Federal lawsuits. In the bulk of them he is a defendant but in more than 50 lawsuits he is a plaintiff and these lawsuits were waged because things haven’t gone his way, he didn’t get what he wanted, or brand and image were compromised. Trump threatened to sue Ted Cruz over a TV ad. He also promises, “One of the things I’m going to do if I win… I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” No Federal law currently exists that handles libel suits because they’re handled at the state level. Donald Trump has a deep-seated problem with free speech and his policies could seriously undermine our first constitutional right. Most limited-government supporters want to reform our legal system to cut down on frivolous lawsuits but Donald Trump wants to expand them and put in place Federal controls on free speech.
In regard to healthcare Donald Trump is quoted saying in an interview on 60 Minutes “I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes. Everybody is going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.” A mantra that perpetuates the paternalism and expansiveness of the government. He goes on to say, “…the government’s gonna pay for it. But we’re going to save so much money on the other side. But for the most it’s going to be a private plan and people are going to be able to go out and negotiate great plans with lots of different competition with lots of competitors with great companies and they can have their doctors, they can have plans, they can have everything.” We can have everything with the governments help. That is Donald Trump’s message. He is also quoted in the 2016 CNN GOP debate saying, “I like the mandate,” meaning the government mandate to purchase a product (health insurance). Another quote from 2000 in The America We Deserve by Donald Trump he is quoted saying, “I’m a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one. We should not hear so many stories of families ruined by health care expenses. We must not allow citizens with medical problems to go untreated because of financial problems or red tape. The Canadian plan also helps Canadians live longer and healthier than America. We need, as a nation, to reexamine the single-payer plan, as many individual states are doing.”
It is increasingly clear that Donald Trump is paternalistic in his view of the role of government. Much like his opponent he has the view that because we cannot help ourselves we need help from the government.
These are just a few examples of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s paternalistic philosophies and their big government approach. So, limited-government voter where does that leave you?
You will have four options for the General Election in November. A) vote for Donald Trump, B) vote for Hillary Clinton, C) write in a candidate/vote 3rd party, or D) don’t vote.
I am personally as disappointed as any voter who values limited government and individual liberty. I am forced to vote for a rock or a hard place and it’s unfortunate, it’s maddening. The culture of this country is changing and therefore the politics of this country are changing and let’s be honest it’s going more Left. Rather than pursuing a life for themselves more and more people want their living validated and provided for them. I fear that now, just as after the 60’s the Democratic Party left Liberalism and went to Leftism, the Republican Party is leaving Conservatism and embracing Populism. Sure, Donald Trump is a loyalist. He wants to secure the borders and protect the country, he supports your 2nd amendment right, he has business experience but our country isn’t only capitalist with a CEO dictating the dealings, it is also a Republic that is confined to its constitution. A constitution that has been revolutionary in its fundamental re-scripting of assumptions about government. Chief among them was the invention of popular sovereignty, a conception of the people as both rulers and ruled, who had none to govern but themselves. This concept was necessary to accommodate another innovation, federalism- the separation of the powers of government into national, state, county, city. Over two centuries, these solutions, radical for their time (and for ours), have been instrumental in the development of a more democratic and egalitarian nation. The Constitution also established a new but untested and controversial theory about the relationship between power and liberty.
So, this is my final argument to give credence and perhaps comfort to your vote this fall. The outcome of this election will be critical in determining the court’s future composition and the Supreme Court is paramount to interpreting our hallowed constitution. The current Supreme Court consists of these members with the ones in bold nearing old age:
Liberal Appointees
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 83, a Bill Clinton appointee
Stephen Breyer, 78, a Bill Clinton appointee
Sonja Sotomeyer, 61, Barack Obama appointee
Elena Kagan, 56, Barack Obama appointee
Swing vote
Anthony Kennedy, 80, a Ronald Reagan appointee (he has been a notable swing vote, conceding to the left on several cases)
Conservative Appointees
Clarence Thomas, 67, George H.W. Bush appointee
Samuel Alito, 66, George W Bush appointee
John Roberts, 61, George W Bush appointee.
As you can see, 3 seats on the Supreme Court will be vacated in the next few years and one is currently available because Conservative Justice Scalia died this year. Four of the current SC Justices have a liberal voting record and three have a conservative voting record with one swing vote that tends to go more liberal. In essence, the court is currently 5-3 a liberal court.
With the addition of 4 Justices under a Clinton Presidency (with either she or Obama appointing the Scalia replacement) it would be 6-3 in favor of a national power view of the Constitution. Under a Trump Presidency it would either be 6-3 (if Obama appoints the Scalia successor) or 7-2 in favor of a local power view of the Constitution. Now, this assumes that Trump would appoint true Conservatives to the bench and not faux Conservatives like himself but he would feel the pressure from Republicans in Congress. Supreme Court Justices, depending on their age, can serve for 30 or 40 years on the bench. Think of how a one term President can influence the decades to come (hello FDR). How much more a 30-year Justice with a nationalist bent will undermine the revolutionary aspects of our constitution? It sounds relaxing to have a Leftist culture, country and court but at what cost? $19 Trillion plus and your sovereign life.
Witnessing Why 