Our Divided Country

I understand that the divide in this country is getting wider. It has almost gotten to the point of no return. Why, is the big question. Why are we so divided? Why can we not repair the damage done? Why can we not discuss our differences instead of trying to silence the opposite view? Why is one side ignoring the Constitution, or interpreting it to mean what they want? Why are our morals and values being destroyed? Why? Why? Why?

It is painful for me to watch this great country devolve into a quagmire of deceit, deception, intolerance, and violence. Not since the Civil War has the country been so divided as to have brother against brother, father against son, mother against daughter, and friend against friend. Our Congress is against the President in everything he does or tries to do. They will not give him credit for any of his accomplishments such as: the lowest unemployment rate in recent history, highest employment rate for women and minorities in history, the largest tax cut in history, trade deals that are great for America, getting rid of the ISIS leader and giving the credit to the military that did the work, putting America first in all things, exposing the corruption and the greed of politicians and the Deep State, etc.

If you read the Federalist Papers, the Federalist Farmer letters, and the Constitution you will see that what we have for a government now is not what the Founding Fathers envisioned. Point in fact, it is exactly what they feared the most. We have a Congress that is so partisan that the impeachment proceedings are one-sided against the President. The Democrats have all the power; the Intelligence Committee is leading the inquiry instead of the Judiciary Committee; the Chairman of the Committee has final say in who is interviewed, what the witnesses can be asked, who can be present, and what can be brought forth as evidence; the accuser is being kept secret and not allowed to be interviewed in person; only selective information is being leaked to the press; worst of all, the American people are being kept in the dark. The Founders did not want to include impeachment into the Constitution for this very reason.

We have Congressmen/women that have served for thirty, forty, even fifty years. This is, again, not what the Founders envisioned. They envisioned a Congress that would serve for a term or two then return to the real world, their real life, their real job. Why? Because our representatives needed to keep in touch with their constituents. To realize the ramifications of their legislation; to keep Congress from becoming too powerful. We, the People, and Congress determined that a President could serve only two terms so as not to become too powerful, to become a monarch. Isn’t it time that the real power in Washington, in our government, be subjected to the same limitation? The President can do nothing permanent without the consent of Congress. Congress can overrule the President, even if he vetoes legislation, simply by casting another vote. As has been proven in the last three years, Congress can overrule the President by using a Circuit Court that is sympathetic to their cause. This is too much power for any group of people.

The Founders did not want a large government that could rule over the country. They wanted a limited centralized government that had limited power over the people. The States had the power over their citizens, not the Federal Government. Today, we have hundreds of thousands of federal employees in hundreds of agencies, offices, and committees that can ‘legislate’ without being elected. This is the Deep State; those that have not been elected yet have the power to control the citizen’s actions. Who are these people? They are employees of the EPA, DHS, DNR, Commerce Commission, FMCSA, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, etc. These people are not elected to any office but have the authority and power to enact laws that we, the People, are subject to regardless of whether we agree or not.

What are some of these laws? We now must ask permission to hunt or fish and pay for that right. We must ask permission to build a house and pay a fee to do so. We are required to secure our children in car seats up to a certain age. We are limited in our speed on the roads. We must watch what we say (political correctness is of utmost importance – we cannot, under any circumstances, offend anyone). It doesn’t matter what action it is; it is either 1) regulated, 2) taxed, or 3) illegal. This is 95% due to the Deep State and its ability to enact law without debate, consent, or vote by elected representatives.

What does all this have to do with the country being so divided? There are two ideologies at work in the United States; one being Constitutional originalists that believe the Constitution is set in stone and the law of the land. These conservatives also believe in a free market, capitalist economy and limiting government control. The other side believes that the Constitution is a living document meant to be interpreted with every passing fancy, a large, controlling government that the people depend upon, and a Socialist economy that redistributes wealth from those that have, to those that have-not.

The United States grew to be the world’s wealthiest nation by people that were innovators, believers, doers. If Edison hadn’t believed he could make money with his inventions, we probably wouldn’t have the electric light bulb. If Bell hadn’t seen that there would be profit made, we wouldn’t have had the telephone. Ford wouldn’t have created the assembly line for automobile manufacturing. We wouldn’t have gone to the moon. Capitalism and the free market are what encourages innovation. In a little over a hundred and twenty-five years, this country grew to the nation that the world looked to for everything. We had the strongest military, the strongest economy, the greatest inventors, and in a lot of ways, the greatest thinkers. All this is due to our freedoms, our rights as citizens, our values of compensation for effort and work. In short, because we were a capitalist society with little government regulation or control over the people.

There has never been a successful, strong nation that was socialist or communist. Socialism does not encourage innovation or even participation. When the government gets its hands into anything bureaucracy strangles creativity to the point of creativity, innovation, and invention being almost non-existent. Almost. There will always be government-sponsored innovation, but it is shadowed, by far, by the innovations of a free society. Yes, the Russians were the first to put a ship into space, but it was the Americans that were first to put a man into space and to land on the moon. True, the Chinese have developed some pretty good tech, but it doesn’t match the quality of that produced by the United States.

The far-left would have us become a socialist state with the government controlling our healthcare, all our schools, how our homes are built, how much money we can make and where that money would go, what kind of energy we use, car we drive, what we eat, etc. The far-left wants to regulate what companies can charge for their products, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. True, healthcare is expensive and needs to be more consumer-friendly. How do you do that? Less regulation and more free market. Competition is what brings about lower costs and better service. I don’t mean that drug companies, hospitals, clinics, doctors and nurses shouldn’t be licensed and certified as competent. I’m saying that if they weren’t so regulated by policy that there would be more competition in the field and that would lower costs. It isn’t like the FDA doesn’t allow harmful drugs to be distributed to the public. There are hundreds of drugs that have side effects worse than the disease they treat.

The radical left would like to do away with fossil fuels. Oil and gas are what drives the world. Without using petroleum products how would consumer goods be shipped? I really don’t think a solar-powered semi-truck would get the job done as efficiently as a diesel-powered one. With the world being as mobile as it is, how would people travel? Do we go back to sailing across the oceans in ships such as the Mayflower? Do we return to the days of the steam engine train to travel across the nation? Do we go back to the horse and buggy and stagecoach? If the radical left gets their way we will have to; they want to do away with cars, planes, trucks, cruise liners, cargo ships, and trucks.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would like to retrofit all existing buildings, including homes, in the nation to make them totally green with no carbon footprint. Not only would that be fiscally impossible, what is she planning on heating and cooling those buildings with? I don’t think those high rises in New York City have enough roof space for solar panels to run the light, heat, and air conditioning, as well as all the electronics that today’s society depends upon. As for wind generators, well, it takes more energy to construct them than what they would save in their useful lifetime. Ms. Cortez has not come up with any viable solution as of yet. The Green New Deal is nothing more than a way to change the economic structure of our nation to one of government control over private ownership.

The division of the country gets even wider as each day goes by just by actions of the far-left Democrats and the liberal media propagandists. As Democrats commit crime after crime and get away with them without even a slap on the wrist, President Trump is being impeached on nothing more than doing his job. What Rep. Adam Schiff is doing in the way of investigating a supposed quid pro quo is actually a way for the Democrats to get as much dirt on the President as they can on the taxpayer’s dollar for the election. They are doing everything they can to find a crime that he has committed while actual crimes committed by Democrats are going totally ignored.

With the 24/7/365 propaganda against the President by mainstream media and our elected Democrat representatives in Congress, the people of the nation are being torn apart. The liberal voters are taking whatever is fed to them as truth no matter what it is (as long as it is against the President) while conservatives are questioning everything. If a conservative tries to inform a liberal with facts on a subject, that liberal ignores those facts and continues on with their emotional rant. It doesn’t seem to matter that Hillary Clinton obviously engaged in obstruction of justice by smashing phones with hammers, destroying emails, and removing SIM cards that were subpoenaed by Congress. It doesn’t seem to matter that the Clinton campaign and the Obama DOJ engaged in spying on the Trump campaign and using foreign operatives to get negative information on an opposition party. It doesn’t seem to matter that the DOJ lied to the FISA court to obtain warrants against Americans. It doesn’t matter that Joe Biden bragged, on tape, that he engaged in a quid pro quo with the Ukrainians to protect his son. All that matters is that Trump be deposed and destroyed in any way possible with accusations of exactly what the Democrats have done. Trump is guilty and the facts against the Democrats are just conspiracy theories. The country divides more.

Over the last forty years, the liberal left has slowly been indoctrinating our young into the socialist way of thinking. The Millennial generation has become almost 100% socialist. GenZ is up for grabs at this point. The problem is this: with liberal indoctrination from kindergarten through college, the people have not been taught what this country was built on. They have been taught that America is the bad guy; that capitalism is unfair; that the feelings of the few outweigh the rights of the many. Kids don’t know what it means to lose, to have their opinions debased, to not get what they want through throwing tantrums. They have been taught that everyone deserves a trophy, that their feelings are more important than the next person’s, that freedom of speech is only for those that agree with them, etc. With this way of thinking contradicting the Constitution and the ideology of the Founding Fathers, the country has become more divided now than during the Civil War. With conservatives on one side fighting for the God-given rights that the Constitution guarantees and the liberals on the other trying to take down everything that America is.

The Republican Party has never had a backbone. The elected representatives have never stood up and faced down the Democrats in Congress no matter what went on. They have always believed in fighting fairly and openly. The Democrats, on the other hand, have fought dirty, low and with no mercy. They would do anything to win. Anything. That is being proven right now, today, with all that is going on in Washington, DC. And as the left fights tooth-and-nail against the right, the country is being torn apart. The sad part about it is that the Democrats, and the left-leaning Republicans, don’t care. They would see our nation totally destroyed just to gain power. What they don’t understand is that if they destroy the country, they will have no one, and nothing, to rule over.

It doesn’t matter which side you are on. You can be a Democrat or a Republican, a conservative or a liberal, a socialist or a capitalist. If you don’t start believing in the United States as a sovereign nation, with immigration laws, Constitutional rights for citizens, equal justice under the law, an unbiased media, and fair elections, then you are part of the problem. You are part of the division of this great nation. If you can’t question what is being shoved down your throat by the media and politicians, and believe all that you read and hear, then you are part of the problem. If you are one of the millions that believe that only the government can fix the problems in the country, then you are part of the problem. We don’t need a huge, unchecked central government. That is not what the Founders wanted. We don’t need to be regulated so tightly that it will get to the point where we have to ask permission to use the restroom, and then worry about who is in there.

The Constitution enumerates the powers of Congress. That is all the power they have; no more, no less. We, the people, have allowed the federal government to grow to such a monstrosity that it will never be the way it was intended. As long as there are those that like the government doing for them, providing for them, thinking for them, we will never truly be the free nation that we started as. We have been divided so much that it has become another Civil War. Not with shot and powder, but with regulation, propaganda, and ideology.

Maybe we can fix the problem without going to a physical war. If we can only return to the founding principles of the nation; if we can go back to the Constitution, as written. Maybe we can heal the nation of the wounds inflicted by dividing ideology. Maybe.