The Classic Liberal Blog

We know politicians in general, especially "progressive" politicians, aren't too keen on free speech.  Today, they even have the audacity to label anyone who disagrees with Big Government - a terrorist! These Big Government advocates now openly support their extremist positions, aimed directly at controling our lives!

This is a serious problem for "we the people" too, because these "progressives" of all political stripes have grown into a direct threat to our very lives!  There's no hyperbole here either.

One can only imagine what people like Sen. John McCain and President Barack Obama would think of our Founder's if alive today.  Seriously ... can you imagine the rhetoric and propaganda that would spew from their mouths as Alexander Hamilton declared:

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.

Or hearing Thomas Jefferson proclaim:

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

I'll tell you how they'd respond ... They would quickly send SWAT teams to their homes, arrest them, and get to work writing yet more speech-suppressing legislation as fast as they could! Of course, not bothering to read the bills either.

David Boaz addressed these wild opinions of our rulers Obama and McCain, on Independence Day in The Politicians and the Founders (emphasis added):

Both President Obama and Sen. John McCain cited the Founders in their weekly radio addresses today, as they made the case for government actions that would have appalled those Founders. Obama invoked “the indomitable spirit of the first American citizens who made [independence] day possible” in arguing for a federal takeover of education, energy, and health care.

He might have trouble explaining how his policies reflect the spirit of the men who left us such words as these:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

Meanwhile, McCain called for the American government to more vigorously support the protesters in Iran. What would the Founders say to him?

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible….Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.

[America] has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. …Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

But wait, there's more ... Just last Thursday, Judicial Watch reported Florida’s Republican Governor Charlie Crist is unabashedly violating the State Constitution! (emphasis added):

Florida’s Republican governor violated the sate [sic] Constitution when he refused to fill an appeals court vacancy because all the candidates recommended by the Judicial Nominating Commission were white.

The state’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled this week that Governor Charlie Crist must appoint one of the commission’s six nominees to fill an opening in central Florida, which he has refused to do because none of the candidates are minorities.

In its 11-page ruling the Supreme Court says that the governor lacks the authority under the Constitution to seek a new list of nominees from the JNC and has a mandatory duty to fill the vacancy. It goes on to "applaud the governor's interest in achieving diversity in the judiciary" but says the Constitution does not grant him the discretion to refuse or postpone making an appointment.

Sure, we expect this type of stuff from progressives like Obama, but I ask:

As Conservatives and/or Libertarians ... how much longer do we continue buying into the myth that we must vote for a Republican 'to beat the Democrats', considering a majority of Republican politicians disdain our rule of law as much as they do?

David Boaz offers a terrific solution to the problem:

Maybe each week there should be three national radio broadcasts: one from the incumbent president, one from the other big-government party, and one reflecting the views of the Founders.

It's a start ... But I'm sure McCain would just claim it's another "loophole" in his beloved McCain-Feingold anti-free speech law.