January 5, 2023

Thomas Jefferson said, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground,” and that has been borne out by history with the few bright exceptions in which a society demanded the freedom to live as they ought. The founding of the United States of America was one of those bright moments. Often described as an experiment, it was one of the most improbable series of events in history in which a people threw off the shackles of their government and sought out to see if they could rule themselves.

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As we saw, the experiment was difficult to replicate. France immediately tried to do it and ended up burning their country down in a reign of terror. Russia tried it and not only killed off 30 million of her own people but nearly brought the world to nuclear oblivion. As we have seen with the “democracy-building” projects in the Middle East, it’s not as easy as it may seem.

Furthermore, in a dark turn for social science, the American experiment itself appears to have ended in utter failure as well.

It was forewarned by the Founding Fathers. Jefferson said that, “even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” And after the Framers had hammered out the U.S. Constitution in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin told an inquiring woman that the congress had produced, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

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Following a series of shocking revelations in 2022, it is clear that we have decidedly not kept it. The Founders established a government that Lincoln later described as “Of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We don’t have that. There is very little representation by our representatives and we have an executive branch that is actively against the people.

Taxation without Representation

In 2018, Joe Biden bragged about a quid-pro-quo deal in 2014 in which he threatened to pull aid from Ukraine if a certain anti-corruption prosecutor wasn’t fired. At the time, the prosecutor was investigating the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, which was paying upwards of $50,000 a month to Biden’s crack-addict son, Hunter, who had no previous experience in the energy sector.

Fast forward to December, 2022, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unfurled a Ukrainian flag in a joint session of Congress and Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi raised it up, obscuring the American flag behind it. Shortly after that, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans.”

At a time when the United States is heading into a recession with decades-high inflation and crippling debt, a lame-duck Congress with a near record low approval rating decided to put the country $46 billion further in debt to prop up the Ukrainian money laundromat government and threaten a hot war with nuclear superpower Russia.

But, while sending billions to one of the most corrupt countries in Europe may be the “number one priority,” according to Mitch McConnell, it’s certainly not the only priority for Congress. The 4,155-page pork-laden $1.7 trillion omnibus bill, which passed before any member of Congress had time to read it, also set aside $410 million for “for enhanced border security” in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman.

According to a Pew poll leading up to the midterm elections, Americans don’t prioritize the border security of Ukraine or Jordan. They do care about the U.S. border, however, as immigration is one of their highest priorities. But not only did Congress reject an amendment of the omnibus bill to keep Title 42 in place to continue some measure of U.S. border protection, they expressly prohibited increased border funding from being used to secure the border and instead incentivized illegal immigration.