On the Eve of the Eve of the 2020 Election

Or, Sunday before the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in a presidential election year.

For a month now or more, I’ve wanted to write an article about the upcoming election, about the future of the country being at stake, about how we must be at an(other) inflection point in history. I’ve daydreamed of this aricle going viral due to the logic of its internal reasoning and the overwhelming force of the arguments contained within it. I’ve imagined future generations of educators pointing to my article in their high school history classes, their political science classes, presented beside the ideas of Churchill, Madison, Locke, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, and other great thinkers and influential prognosticators throughout human history or in contrast to those of Marx, Mao and others.

It’s about at this point that the alarm goes off and the time-to-start-the-day aroma from the coffee pot caresses my nostrils and coaxes me the rest of the way awake and I realize that I am not the guy to write that article. So, here I sit on the Sunday morning before election day 2020, the day’s second cup of coffee about empty and no closer to having this article written than an inane introduction and a jumble of who’s, how’s, why’s and what ifs. Nothing earth shattering here, just snippets of thought and observations on topics that require some continued dicussion and development.

An Election For The Future Of The Country
The Cynic, that disembodied voice that usually, often, infrequently anymore resides only in the dark corners and illumination-deficient recesses of my mind says sarcastically ‘Aren’t they all?’ True, the logical portion of my brain answers. There does appear to be some version of that phrase — “Hope and Change”, “Take our country back”, “Make America Great Again” to name a few — that have been used in the last 50 years of presidential elections that I am old enough to remember. The fog of memory indicates that every 4 years presidential campaigns insist we should vote like our lives and the future of the Republic (or mistakenly from the Democrats, our democracy) depend on it.

A Republic If You Can Keep It
We have a system of government established to prevent the tyranny of mob rule, or “democracy” in the vernacular. Pure democracy — the voice of the majority — is dangerous and unstable. Crowds and their whims can be easily manipulated, incited to violence, convinced of their rightness regardless of what the law says.

The United States of America, from the moment of inception, is a republic. The US Constitution is the ultimate law of the land. It is a contract between the people and their government. The people granted certain privileges and responsibilities to the federal government and anything outside of those explicitly designated powers and authority is reserved for the states and the people. As a people, we have forgotten this. We have allowed our schools to undermine this principle by not insisting that they teach the underlying building blocks of the country’s founding: individualism; the sovereignty of each citizen; the right to choose in our pursuit of life, liberty and happines.

We have allowed our politicians to circumvent this standard by passing laws that continuously errode the essence of freedom. We have allowed unelected bureaucrats to insist that we follow their instructions without question.

The Science Is Settled / Trust The Experts
The British are invincible. The Earth is flat. The Sun revolves around the Earth. Hitler is not a threat to the world. China is not in competition with the United States. The Moon is devoid of water. The world is entering a new ice age. We will have flying cars within 10 years. The polar ice caps will be completely melted by 2000. We have just 12 years (now 9) to live.

Experts in any field, by the very nature of their expertise, have a narrative to convey; or worse, an agenda. We seem to have collectively lost the ability to question, to maintain a healthy level of skepticism, to ask “what evidence do you have?” or “by what authority” or “cui bono?” — “Who benefits?”

Rule Of Law
The rule of law in this country is supposed to be the ultimate arbiter — the quintessential meaning of “All men are created equal”. Unfortunately, given recent revelations of rampant law-breaking under the prevous administration, we appear to have embraced the supra-legal philosophy of “it’s not what you know or did that counts but who you know”. (Or perhaps did.)

For the perpetrators of the Russia Hoax, the blatant disregard of laws and norms and safeguards to “get Trump by any means necessary” have redounded to the benefit of the protected in the form of book deals, TV appearances, accolades and adulation. Unless your name is Kevin Clinesmith, if you were involved in the attempted coup against the 45th President of the United States and the subversion of the will of the People, you have yet to be tried and judged under the rule of law. [2020-11-01, edits to this paragraph for clarity]

Even more recent revelations of the Democratic nominee for president being involved in influence peddling to other nations, some of them directly hostile to the interests of the United States, are ignored by the institutions who should be conducting a criminal investigation, or actively squelched by the used-to-be free press.

Freedom Of The Press
Newsrooms across the political spectrum and around the country have abidicated the responsibilty and/or the opportunity to report the news and have instead given themselves wholly to diseminating propaganda to further a narrative, to coerce a preordained outcome for this election. Social media platforms have engaged in blatant censorship, actively suppressing information contrary to their preferred world view or limiting and silencing the voices of dissent against political correctness and conformity, intent on canceling the free discussion of ideas.

Cancel This!
(Insert your favorite obscene gesture or deepest snide, sarcastic comment or your best Clint Eastwood “Get off my lawn” here.)

Give Me Liberty
This election — and every election — is crucial. Freedom once again is on the ballot as it is every ballot. Vote Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020. Vote for freedom. Vote for the opportunity for all for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Vote to oppose the tyranny of mob rule, the stifling of thought and expression with political correctness, the continued government take-overs of various aspects of our lives or infringement on freedoms. Vote to support the rule of law. Vote for the US Constitution. Vote to keep America the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

In the opinion of the Unofficial View, President Donald Trump is the only candidate for president that is dedicated to not only the idea of America as founded with liberty and justice for all, but to the benefit and continued success of America as well.