Tag: Constitution

Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste

Mike Coté3 Comments

The narrative of constant crisis promulgated by the Democratic party and progressive activists is merely a fig leaf for authoritarian, anti-democratic power grabs.

Emergencies have been recognized as unique and special events for most of human history, something the dictionary definition confirms. On the societal or civilizational scale, these crises can take many forms and relate to myriad causes – natural disaster, war, famine, pandemic, economic collapse, revolution, and more. These unforeseen, dramatic events are generally time-sensitive and limited in nature; floodwaters recede, harvests improve, viruses weaken and immunity spreads, and the business cycle rises once more. As the centuries have gone by, human societies have found useful ways of dealing with these emergency events, often tasking government institutions or leaders with crisis response. From the ancient past to the modern day, those temporary powers granted to government during periods of extreme tumult have been used to greatly relieve suffering and shorten the duration and scope of the disaster. But just as often, they have been used for ill; to agglomerate power in non-emergency situations, superficially extend real crises to retain deeper control, or permanently alter the political status quo. We are not yet at those destructive levels, but our politics have been slowly inching along that path for decades now. Under the current Democratic administration and Congress, however, this slow burn has rapidly accelerated. History can help us understand the perils that come along when one stokes the flames of permanent emergency.

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A Liberty Yet Undiminished

Mike Coté2 Comments

Reports of the death of American Democracy have been greatly exaggerated.

A constant refrain for the past few years has been the so-called decline of American democracy. It is most prevalent on the political left, but it has been embraced by sections of the Trumpian right as well. In this telling, America either is no longer a legitimately democratic state due to non-existent election shenanigans, or it has lost that status due to political and legal decisions which run counter to the prevailing progressive narrative. None of that is true. American democracy has been alive and kicking, in one form or another, for nearly 250 years now. Our history is the story of an evolving republic gradually and incrementally progressing to a further embrace of our founding values. But those values – freedom of speech and of belief, participatory politics, and the innate and God-given equality of man – have remained unchanged and unchangeable since they were put down in ink 246 years ago. Don’t take my word for it, look at what one of our greatest foreign allies has to say:

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In Defense of American Exceptionalism

Mike Coté6 Comments

ex-cep-tion-al (adjective): unusual; not typical; extraordinary; unique; special

American exceptionalism is an oft-used phrase that is generally taken as a bit of patriotic pablum that few people actually earnestly believe in the modern day. The concept’s critics suggest that it is inaccurate and jingoistic, and claim that ‘American exceptionalism’ ignores all of the country’s many flaws, past and present. Some who embrace it are naive in their understanding of America as purely good and entirely perfect, and use ‘American exceptionalism’ as a club with which to beat political opponents. Both are completely wrong. American exceptionalism is real, it matters, and it’s why I could never see myself living anywhere else.

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Pandemic Restrictions & Religious Freedom

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Why the Supreme Court got it right in overruling California’s draconian lockdown rules.

The United States has been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic for over a year now. Some states — including my own, New Jersey — have been in varying stages of lockdown or otherwise heavily restricted for many of those past 365 days. California is a perhaps the exemplar of this lockdown approach, having drastically curtailed civil rights for millions of its citizens under the guise of Governor Gavin Newsom’s “emergency powers”. Just a week and a half ago, those restrictions — in California and by proxy elsewhere — were dealt a crushing blow by a majority of the Supreme Court. Much of the coverage of this important decision has been framed negatively, focusing on the religiosity of the petitioners, the fact that the decision was a split one, or decrying the Court’s ‘new direction’ after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Some pundits have even gone as far as claiming that the Court’s decision “Doubles Down On Religious Rights Amid Pandemic,” or that the majority had ulterior motives for its decision, as they are all “ultraconservatives” whose decision “may kill people”. This is all utter nonsense. The Supreme Court absolutely made the right decision in this case when it comes to religious rights under the First Amendment and the government’s power to curtail them in times of crisis.

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The Blessings of Liberty

Mike Coté1 Comment

Two-hundred and forty-four years ago today, fifty-six brave men took their lives in their own hands and signed their names to a document almost unprecedented in human history. The Declaration of Independence is a profound statement of Enlightenment principles and has guided the progress and development of human rights and liberal constitutionalism in this nation and across the world. Our nation, and the men who founded it, did not always live up to the lofty principles espoused in our founding documents; chattel slavery, forcible relocation of Native American tribes, Jim Crow, and Japanese internment all are examples of horrendous episodes in which we fell short of those ideals. But to abrogate them entirely because of past hypocrisy or failure is a fool’s errand. In 2020 America (despite all of its flaws), we can say what we wish without fear of government action, worship (or not worship) however we please, advocate for our favored policies without concern for our liberty, and defend ourselves to the fullest extent possible. No matter who resides in the White House, who controls the Congress, or who sits on the Supreme Court, our natural rights remain protected from the avarice or evil of those who would wish to deny us them. In no other society on earth does the individual have more control over his own choices in life, personally, politically, and professionally. We live in the most prosperous, liberal, diverse society that has ever existed in human history; it would do us well to remember that and to see ourselves as lottery winners in a broader world full of tyranny, slavery, and oppression. The United States of America has been a shining city on a hill not only because we have grand ideals of freedom and liberty, but because we have worked incredibly hard over myriad generations to fully embrace and fulfill the promises of the founding. Let us as Americans continue that worthy mission and move our great nation even closer to the full flowering of liberty. Happy Independence Day.