I consider Citizen’s United the Trojan Horse that released democracy’s enemies into the Body Politic. ~ Citizen for Freedom
July 3, 2024
As a young child I loved this week which contains both the 4th of July celebration and my birthday. It was a time of great celebration of our country’s role protecting freedom at home and abroad. 1950. I was five years old and IKE was Predident. American and Europe were free from the Nazi menace and rebuilding Europe and its allies, forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a guardrail for democratic nations, pledging to come to each other’s aid when enemies of freedom attacked unprovoked.
Is that world I knew as a child and grew up in – the family, the nation, and a free world – passing?
This present day America which has grown rich and powerful, is in a world of hurt. Gnawing at its foundational principles and structure is a cancer fed by disinformation and superwealth of individuals and corporations empowered by the Citizen’s United ruling – the agent of its dissolution. Corporations do what they do not by consent of their employees but by the inclinations of its leadership: superrich CEO’s and Board members. Whose freedom of speech did Citizen’s United protect?
This abberation of the law is what gnaws at the heartwood of American Democracy. It empowers wealth to choose for us. We can see clearly today that it matters who we put on the Supreme Court. The justices who made the ruling on July 1, 2024 extending Presidential Immunity from the law, struck deep into our essential freedoms, making it not only easier but likely that Presidential power will be abused. It circumscribes citizen’s freedoms making it easier for men to become despots and citizens no more than serfs.
The current Supreme Court has made one ruling after another in which we witness the slow but sure weakening of the Body Politic: 1) Circumscribing the Voter’s Rights laws; 2) Eliminating guardrails on discrimination; 3) Striking down Women’s Rights; 4) weakening the administrative state which has long stabilized the democracy from one adminstrtion to the next; and 5) re-balancing the Balance of Power in our democractic structure and function by giving unlimited power to the Presidency though immunity from the law.
They struck at our basic tenet: no one is above the law in America.
While in theory, a President with character and true loyalty to the basic laws and tenets of a free people would not abuse this power, the fact is that we are now left with the elimination of the legislature’s role as a check on Presidential power (i.e. the people’s consent). Or, the burden of proof just got harder.
Freedom-loving Americns must rise to this singular moment in the country’s history. While we are not perfect by any means, we are still a democracy where voters determine its future.
No matter one’s opinions on political philosophy, you cannot deny that Joe Biden is a man of character and his Cabinet has worked tirelessly to help average Americans. The Blue Ticket has always been for the average citizen but this year the Blue Ticket is about preserving the Republic.
We are at the precipice of freedom.
A Free People is the final refuge of Liberty. Today I call upon everyone I know to stand against the Supreme Court’s decision, to flood the election precincts on November 5 and vote the Blue Ticket to turn the tide away from authoritarianism and flowing back toward freedom of individuals to govern by consent only.
See it for what it truly is: the Vote of Our Lives.
Susan Feathers 