Eliminating The Remains (UPDATED)

     A number of years ago – just after the first inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, in fact – I wrote:

     To say that some public policy must not be changed is to say that it is right and necessary: right meaning "not a violation of the rights of the unconsenting," and necessary meaning "the costs, however measured, of dismantling it would be unacceptable." But to shout down those who disagree, or to manipulate elections to deny conservatives their fairly earned victories, is by liberals' own standards a denial of others' rights. Not only is this hypocrisy -- "we'll respect your right to disagree as long as you refrain from using it" -- it's a revelation of liberals' deep convictions about both rightness and practicality:

Liberal Conviction #1: Only liberals have rights.
Liberal Conviction #2: What advances the liberal vision is good regardless of its practical effects.

     ...Over the next four years, the "desiccated remains" of Americans' traditional freedom will come under ever more intense assault. This is guaranteed by liberals' assumption of their moral superiority and the steadily accumulating evidence against the beneficence and benevolence of liberal policies. Conservatives and libertarians must expect harsher and harsher attempts, both within and without the law, to silence them and to defraud them of victories at the polls. Violence will be involved more and more often as liberals' failures mount.

     What I did not foresee was that the real, all-stops-out effort to suppress conservatives’ freedom of expression and their exercise of the franchise in a fair election would follow the Obama Interregnum. Indeed, it’s much more intense today than it has ever been. Moreover, it’s ceased to be a covert undertaking. It’s poised for a “battle of the bulge” magnitude offensive. Here’s a bit of evidence:

     Terry Smith, a visiting professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, offers a different response in his new book, "Whitelash: Unmasking White Grievance at the Ballot Box." Rather than excuse racist voters or try to figure out how to live with their choices, he argues that racist voting is not just immoral, but illegal. The government, Smith says, has the ability, and the responsibility, to address it....

     "When voters go to the booth, they're not expressing a mere personal preference," Smith told me. According to Smith, voters who pull the levers to harm black people are violating the Constitution. If the Constitution means that overt racist appeals undermine the legality of union elections, it stands to reason that they undermine the legality of other elections, as well.

     I submit that no deep analysis of this citation is required.

---

     I’ve cited the following passage more than once, but in light of the material in the previous segment it is massively relevant yet again:

     [W]e are told that there is no need to fear the concentration of power in government so long as that power is checked by the electoral process. We are urged to believe that so long as we can express our disagreement in words, we have our full rights to disagree. Now both freedom of speech and the electoral process are important to liberty, but alone they are only the desiccated remains of liberty. However vigorously we may argue against foreign aid, our substance is still drained away in never-to-be-repaid loans. Quite often, there is not even a candidate to vote for who holds views remotely like my own. To vent one's spleen against the graduated income tax may be healthy for the psyche, but one must still yield up his freedom of choice as to how his money will be spent when he pays it to the government. The voice of electors in government is not even proportioned to the tax contribution of individuals; thus, those who contribute more lose rather than gain by the "democratic process." A majority of voters may decide that property cannot be used in such and such ways, but the liberty of the individual is diminished just as much as in that regard as if a dictator had decreed it. Those who believe in the redistribution of wealth should be free to redistribute their own, but they are undoubtedly limiting the freedom of others when they vote to redistribute theirs.

     [Clarence Carson, The American Tradition]

     Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch will already be aware of the Left’s various sallies against free expression, especially as practiced on the World Wide Web. Those thrusts have succeeded to an ominous extent, so further pressure against the free expression of opinion from the Right may confidently be expected. The Left is unabashed about its aim to silence “hate speech,” by which it means any expression of opinion it dislikes. Couple that to the opinion of “Professor” Smith as expressed above that voting can and should be limited according to the Left’s assessment of the voters’ “racism.” Note that that opinion was provided to us by a major media corporation. What does all this tell us? What can it tell us, other than that the desiccated remains of Americans’ freedom are under an assault intended to be sweeping and permanent?

     Don’t wave it aside as harmless blather, unlikely ever to command any significant power. We once said that about the income tax, the welfare state, and the right to keep and bear arms. The danger is real and daily draws nearer. They who would rule over us in all things, absolutely and permanently, are measuring the remains of our freedom for its coffin.

     Spread the word.

     UPDATE: Here’s a bit more evidence of the Left’s intentions, in case you had any remaining doubts. I rest my case.