Contributed by Wes Keller
“My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” JFK, January 20, 1961, this is history I remember as a freshman in high school. Kennedy was elected by a narrow margin in an allegedly tainted election. In that election, the new State of Alaska cast its first three electoral votes for Nixon, Kennedy’s opponent. Consider his message in this inaugural speech. This is a bold alignment of a famous Democrat with a prominent, radical, constitutional value, “the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.” (JFK – from the same speech). This constitutional value is the cornerstone of the Declaration of Independence and was the consensus for supporting the American Revolution. Kennedy’s words confirm it was still standing tall in 1961. Do today’s “far left” issues violate the value? We do seem to be in some kind of “relapse”, but our Constitution still stands supreme and “we the people” still have the option of exercising the sovereignty it grants us. We can reaffirm original intent, if we will. The alternative is unthinkable.
Forget the “red state -v- blue state” labels for a moment and consider whether popular “far left” issues are viable. This consideration is impossible, of course, if you refuse to read the text of the Declaration, Federalist papers, Bill of Rights, and the Constitution to reconfirm what the founding values are. This is more than an academic/educational exercise – it is our American civic duty. You can only declare issues “right” or “wrong” after you have a mature world view with measurement scale ranging from “far right” (constitutional conservative) to “far left” (no official national standard). As I have pointed out before, this is not even possible without getting “religious”. Political party platforms are intended to give you choices on the spectrum of possible conclusions, but they are worthless if you deny the use of a measuring stick.
“What can government do for ME?”, has become THE question driving government! Strengthening the case for a series of unconstitutional “far left” “solutions”! When someone gets hungry, food stamps for all! When jobs are lost, government paycheck protection for everyone! If someone doesn’t earn enough, higher minimum wages for all, while disdaining free enterprise, capitalism, and profits— even defying the right to own property! When someone gets sick, universal government health care, even insisting on free, unlimited, government education and day care systems! Demanding Americans pay to provide for anyone on the globe (open borders) regardless of citizenship and tax contributions. This “far left” bubble of imagination holds the government responsible for natural causes – earthquake, a hurricane, or a COVID 19 plague – as though it were “god” and could prevent or fix anything! This is clearly delusional, at some point, this will be revealed as the nonsense it is; preferably before more undue pain and suffering is caused.
After 10+ years of experience in the Alaska legislative branch, I view Alaska to be in a bad spot. Virtually all legislative energy is spent trying to pay for this “what can government do for me?” mentality. Not just Alaska, the federal government openly and brashly incentivizes far left values and jumping in to be the ultimate “nanny” government liberally bribing with “federal matching funds”, extorting more and more control in exchange for the misplaced trust of citizens. In my opinion, Alaska may be one of the worst, as demonstrated by the Alaska Legislature’s expectation to use Permanent Fund earnings as if they were surplus tax revenue. This action rejects the approved legal system to convert it to private property under a trust model. Alaska’s founding values prevent any legislature from allocating any funds for spending beyond the current budget year, so perennial diligence is required to keep the permanent fund earnings for PFD’s as a trust-model payment. “Emergency government need“ can always be generated (ex: COVID 19 response). Legitimate government revenue is to be generated using only the constitutional use of the power to tax! If the Permanent Fund earnings are merely more government revenue to be fought over in budget politics, we are simply an unconstitutional welfare state. I don’t believe Alaska’s citizens should have to fund the Government’s poor budget emergency. Unless we turn this around, the entire earnings reserve (lots and lots of money) will be pursued with every ounce of lobbying energy to fund too many “far left” programs.
Wes Keller | WesKeller.com
