I’m closing out this terrible year of 2020 with a couple of unrelated observations. Hopefully we can at least have a conversation about these things. They’re important.
Tyranny
Merriam-Webster defines “tyranny” as: “oppressive power, especially oppressive power exerted by government”. [Emphasis mine]
The second definition of tyranny is “a government in which absolute power is vested in a single ruler”. While our state government in Colorado does not have absolute power vested in a single person (though it’s close, with Governor Polis ruling by executive order and making up the rules as he goes), our state is governed by a single political party – the Democrats.
Due to demographic changes, the progressive infrastructure I’ve described elsewhere and other factors, the Democrats have succeeded in flipping Colorado to blue, and we get bluer every two years. After the 2020 election fiasco, the Democrats increased their death grip on Colorado’s government at all levels, cementing a 41-24 majority in the state House and a comfortable 20-15 majority in the state Senate. The Governor is a Democrat, and every single justice on the state Supreme Court has been appointed by a Democratic governor. The Democrats control all the statewide offices of Secretary of State, Treasurer, Attorney General and four of seven U.S Representative seats. After Cory Gardner (who served us well) lost his re-election, the Democrats now control both U.S. Senate seats as well. They flipped the University of Colorado Board of Regents which will now be Democrat-controlled for the first time in 41 years.
The only bright spot was that they didn’t flip Douglas County blue, though it wasn’t through a lack of effort, with Emerge Colorado running some formidable candidates, one of whom almost won her race.
While numerically Republicans may control more counties, the Democrats are fully in control of most of the big, populous counties where most of Colorado’s population lives, meaning they have near total control of state and local governments.
While the voters placed some limits on government via the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) in 1992 and more recently with the passage of Proposition 116 lowering the income tax rate and Proposition 117 requiring statewide voter approval of new state enterprises, these guardrails are not nearly enough.
The ultimate guardrail, of course, is the United States Constitution, which every elected official pledges a sacred oath to uphold. Most, however, can’t seem to wait to violate that oath which they do routinely, and it is members of both parties who are guilty of this.
Every session, the General Assembly passes laws that are in clear contravention of the Constitution. Of course, they say that the proposed law does not violate the Constitution, but in a world where words mean things, they clearly are lying. The best example of this is the Red Flag bill passed in 2019.
This means that the Constitution isn’t the safeguard we all thought and hoped it was. No, the best safeguard is to not elect the little tyrants in the first place.
Buckle up, Colorado. If the 3-day special session recently concluded is any indication, this next legislative session (postponed until February thanks to COVID), will be a disaster for constitutional government, the rule of law, businesses and other struggling individuals. Look for more mandates, regulations, rules and power grabs. Thanks to TABOR they can’t raise taxes, but don’t think they won’t try other means of getting at your money and your property. If they can’t take it directly, you can bet they will make it harder to acquire.
Individuals and businesses are fleeing the state Colorado Democrats seem to want to emulate: California. It’s only a matter of time before our state becomes an economic wasteland as well.
I’m sorry to say this, but if you voted Democrat, you are getting the government you deserve. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to suffer too. (Or move, which more and more people are doing.)
Bankruptcy
The United States Congress recently passed a $900 billion coronavirus relief bill. Note that this bill wouldn’t be necessary if the government hadn’t shut down the economy in the first place, but leave that aside for now.
This bill includes direct checks to some people (income under $75,000 single, $150,000 married) of $600 or $2,000, depending on how President Trump’s last minute demands play out. Also leaving aside the question of whether or not this is a proper function of government, the other question is: how is the federal government going to pay for this?
Just to be clear: the federal government creates no wealth. It is individual, productive people who create wealth. The government takes this wealth (through force) to fund its programs. The government has only two ways to raise money: via taxation, mentioned above, or by borrowing.
This most recent $900,000,000,000 (almost a trillion) handout (which includes a lot of wasteful spending unrelated to COVID) is only going to add to the government’s current deficit, which ultimately goes to increase the national debt. As of this writing, the national debt is $27,526,157,000,000 (it literally grows by the second). That is more than the value of the entire U.S. economy in 2019, which was about $21,400,000,000,000. On a very simple level, this means that the United States government owes more than the value of the entire economy, which it does NOT own, and cannot possibly liquidate to repay these debts. This, in turn, means that the government will ultimately have to raise taxes, devalue the currency or divest assets in order to raise the cash to pay the interest on the debt, and ultimately the debt itself.
This means, finally, that the country is heading toward sovereign default – or “bankruptcy”. People may think that “this could never happen to the United States”, but let’s be very clear: The U.S. is not exempt from the laws of economics and human nature. If not checked, this problem will grow until it becomes untenable. As an older person I may not live to see it. But young people and those with children and grandchildren should be very concerned.
As much as I would like to blame the Democrats for this problem, it truly is a product of bi-partisan failure. The failure lies in understanding the proper role of government and of viewing the government as the means of solving every human problem imaginable.
We don’t have a revenue problem in the United States, we have a spending problem, and it grows exponentially worse every year.
Thankfully Colorado and most states required balanced budgets. The federal government should too.
It’s time to recognize the looming fiscal disaster is real and is more of a true threat to our way of life than anything else. It’s time to elect representatives who will ratchet down the spending, trim the fat, and return our governments at every level to their proper scope, function and size.
Our future depends on it.
Responses
My Freedom is Not For Sale…
Keep the flippin “stimulus” checks and open the freaking STATE!
Why should taxpayers in states run by smart leadership (REPUBLICANS) that never shutdown and now have fewer Covid cases, in-tact economies and no tyrannical government overreach, be forced to use THEIR tax dollars to bail-out democrat run states?
Open the economy and let Trump’s tax plan thrive, like it was doing before the shutdown, and exactly why they shutdown in Democrat states.
Or does anyone think the virus is smart enough to only affect democrat run states?
joel wey says
Tim is right,our freedom is,”NOT FOR SALE”.
I have written multiple emails to guv polis, sec of state griswold,attorney gen weiser, and crow(district 6 rep)with not one response. NOT ONE RESPONSE! These are the people who represent us? Useless taxation without representation,and our illustrious,useless gubnor polis dictating wear masks and shutting down our economy for the sake of,”if it will save just one life”.
Our state has a full congress of losers,not to mention the current secretary,attorney general,guvnor and district 6 rep crow, and now we have 2 useless senators that can’t comprehend what our state of coloradans’ want.
Let us work again,useless state reps and govnors.
Face it, Colorado is done.
As Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute has written, we are becoming “East California.” For leftist Democrats, politics is their religion, and they are as zealous as jihadists. Yes, the only thing holding the leftists back is TABOR. But they will continue to attack it until is either gone or full of holes. The state Supreme Court will now be a rubber stamp for anything the legislature does – they don’t care about the law, or the state or federal constitutions, just giving the Democrats what they want. Their rulings already twist and turn to get any leftist outcome.
What we having coming is this:
-More energy restrictions and solar/wind mandates (resulting in higher utility rates)
-Electric car mandates, and restrictions/confiscation of older gasoline-powered cars
-Higher gasoline taxes
-Land use restrictions
-Devastation of agriculture, with more regulation and purchase of water rights by Front Range cities
-Further depopulation of the eastern plains
-Bad roads (since taxpayer money will be given instead to leftist causes)
-Mandating of racial preferences in hiring and renting
-Mandating that landlords rent to people with felony criminal records and that employers hire them (already the law in some leftist cities, likely soon to be state law in Illinois)
-Ignoring BLM & Antifa violence (as Polis and Hancock already did, wrecking areas of downtown Denver)
-Prosecuting those who oppose BLM & Antifa (as the McCloskeys in St. Louis). Anifa got smacked in Fort Collins, but that won’t last up there (Ft. Collins = Boulder in 15 years.)
-Promotion of homelessness and drug addiction through leftist stupidity
-Promotion of “Restorative Justice,” that is, letting criminals off with a slap on the wrist, while victims suffer
-Promotion of illegal immigration, resulting in poor citizens’ job loss, ID theft, car accidents, gang crime, etc.
-Promotion of voter fraud. Yes, you can vote in Colorado on the day of the election with no ID except for a (even fake) utility bill – seen it in person. And yes, we too use the easily hackable Dominion voting machines.
-More leftist school mandates (promotion of socialism, transgenderism, etc.) – you WILL have naked teenage “transgender” boys staring at your naked 13 year-old daughter a school locker room, and traumatizing her for life. Maybe she will be molested. The same nonsense in bathrooms, where little girls in leftist states are NOW terrified by older boys who say they are girls.
-The university regents will promote leftist crap at the colleges, including speech codes, indoctrination in classes, kangaroo courts for politically-incorrect “offenses” (resulting in expulsion for “wrong think”)
-Attacks on religious liberty. Their vile persecution of Masterpiece Cake Shop is just the start.
-Higher property taxes (mostly due to the influx driving up valuations)
-Water restrictions, since leftists oppose all water projects on environmental grounds
-More gun rights violations, and doing away with the “Make My Day” home defense law.
I could list many more, but just think of everything that “AOC” and her “Squad” want, and you’ll have a good idea.
As far as the rest of the Rocky Mountain West, the same thing will be happening soon in Montana, Idaho, and Utah as the flood of leftists into those states continues (see Bozeman, Missoula, Boise, Salt Lake.) New Mexico is already gone. The Mormons in Utah and Idaho won’t know what hit them. (Serves them right with their idiotic support of sleazy vulture capitalist Mitt Romney, and their kooky ideas about converting illegal immigrants.) Wyoming will hold out for a while, mostly because of the constant wind and winter cold in most of the state. (Casper is the real Windy City.) However, the few livable places there will eventually be overrun too. They actually have had some lefty Wyoming teachers recently forcing kids to celebrate “Pride Month” with rainbow banners outside the schools. Unfortunately, the roughnecks and cowboys are too busy working hard (and partying hard) to pay attention to politics. But before they know it, their kids will have “drag queen story hour” at their library.
Once the dope smoking amendment passed in Colorado, the writing was on the wall. Dan Caplis warned everyone, but the nutty Libertarians and many Republicans didn’t listen and voted for it. You can’t have state decriminalization of drugs without the same on a national level. So we were flooded with leftist kooks wanting to get high. Several of my new neighbors are young “techies” who have moved in failing states like California, Illinois, New York etc. They have decent jobs, put they regularly smoke dope, which is slowly cooking their brains (Geez, read the medical journal articles about marijuana on PubMed). And these techies brought their nutty leftist politics with them. I’m sure they all vote straight Democrat, which is why we now are in the situation described in the article. You had to be a MORON to vote for that inexperienced, partisan kook Jena Griswold over Wayne Williams, who was widely praised for his NON-partisan work in the office.
The problem is that the Republicans never pushed what they needed to to avoid this. And that is SCHOOL CHOICE. As President Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” And when you let evil leftists teach your children, freedom dies. Kids come out of high school rejecting their parents values and embracing all the leftist crap their NEA teachers taught them. The Democrat legislature, Polis and school boards will pass more mandates (like the recent sex-education idiocy) and make it impossible to start a charter school unless you agree to tow the lefty line (see what Boulder County is doing now to them).
When I speak to young people these days they know nothing about the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or the founding philosophy. And those who have been in the urban school districts don’t know mathematics, grammar, history, chemistry, physics, geography, biology, or anything else I learned in high school in the 1970s. That’s probably why many of them riot, because they don’t have the skills to achieve a decent life, and then they blame “the system” for their crappy, uneducated lives. When Bill Owens was governor, he could have passed school choice legislation. But you have to be ruthless to get the legislation through, or an amendment passed, just like the Democrats do. And Owens, like too many Republicans is too nice. Even Mike Rosen was too nice to the Democrats, often giving Democrat mayors and governors a pass when he regularly interviewed them. (They won’t go on Kaplis or Boyles.) Nice fails. Nice gets you the Colorado we have today.
So we are done. Escape while you can to somewhere more conservative. I hate to leave what was once a wonderful state, but I don’t have that much time left, and I don’t want to waste it arguing with evil idiots. If you are young you can stay and fight the good fight, but without the schools it is a losing battle. There are a few conservative places in the U.S. left if you want to research the politics, religious affiliation, etc. I am. However in twenty years or so things are going to “get western” in this country. No way around it. The Democrats will go to far, and anyone who values freedom at all has their limit. As Jefferson said “The Tree of Liberty ……”