President Joe Biden makes no speech without mentioning the importance of democracy in our nation.
We would like to believe this comes from deep ideals about human liberty lodged within our president.
But more accurate is that Biden, a politician all his adult life, is defined by just that — politics. No word, no act emanates from our president that does not emerge from some political calculation.
In the case of the ongoing reminders about the importance of democracy, the subliminal message Biden wishes to convey is to always remind of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol and to brand Donald Trump as an anti-democratic autocrat.
But let’s go beyond this and examine Biden’s premise about democracy itself.
In Biden’s latest speech on Memorial Day, he said, “Our democracy is more than just a system of government. It is the very soul of America.”
Hanging on a wall in my offices in Washington, D.C., is a picture of Booker T. Washington, with his quote saying, “A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good just because it is accepted by the majority.”
An important reminder from Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee University, is that there is good and evil in this world, and they are transmitted to us through the Bible and our faith.
Democracy can only be the means through which a nation accepts or does not accept these eternal truths. But Democracy does not invent them.
We should recall, again, the words of President George Washington in his farewell speech in 1796.
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. … Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
In the 1850s, Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois proposed to use democracy to solve the problem of whether slavery would be permitted in new states entering the union.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act provided that new states would determine by the vote whether it would be a slave state.
Abraham Lincoln rejected this proposition.
Per Lincoln, “Judge Douglas interrupted me to say that the principle of the Nebraska bill was very old, that it originated when God made man and placed good and evil before him, allowing him to choose for himself, being responsible for the choice he should make.”
“The facts of this proposition are not true as stated,” said Lincoln. “God did not place good and evil before man, telling him to make his choice. On the contrary, he did tell him that there was one tree, of the fruit of which he should not eat, upon pain of certain death.”
What really interests Biden is growing government to advance his left-wing agenda, thereby diminishing individual freedom.
In 1950, shortly after World War II, federal government spending accounted for 14.1% of GDP.
Per the Congressional Budget Office, in 2024 federal government spending will consume 23.1% of GDP; in 2034, 24.1%; in 2044, 25.7%; and in 2054, 27.3%.
Social Security trustees now project bankruptcy of the system by 2033. Revenues will fall short by 21%. Why doesn’t Biden support letting every American choose to opt out and instead invest in their own private retirement account?
Why doesn’t Biden support the right of parents to send their child to whatever K-12 school they choose?
The only place where Biden wants more choice is to hide behind his religion and give women the right to destroy their unborn child until the final moments of her pregnancy.
The founders of our country conceived of a nation rooted in core truths, which, by limiting government, would enable individual liberty.
They would not recognize our politicized nation today under Joe Biden.
Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show “Cure America with Star Parker.” Her recent book, “What Is the CURE for America?” is available now. To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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