Celebrate American Independence and Liberty–Reject Trump and Clinton

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Happy Independence Day. It is a great day to reflect upon what this means, and reject the two candidates who violate the spirit of American independence and liberty.

Donald Trump’s disdain for the American traditions have been obvious throughout his campaign. This week there is the controversy over how he used the star of David in an attack on Hillary Clinton. In the remote chance that anyone has missed the previous examples, Matthew Rozsa presented a summary at Salon. Here is just one excerpt:

When Trump was told that the military would be obliged to disobey his orders if he told them to kill terrorists’ families (which violates international law), he ominously replied that “if I say do it, they’re gonna do it.” Like his comments about Judge Curiel, Trump’s response here belies a belief that upon being elected president, he would quite literally be the end-all of political power in this country. Bear in mind, this answer came from the same man who admitted that he might have supported interning Japanese-Americans during World War II. Although Trump’s supporters may be voting for an authoritarian, our government was formed in large part to prevent tyrants from using the armed forces to actively violate civil authority and civil rights.

Trump appears to think he is above the law, but in many ways so does Hillary Clinton. She has given the impression that the rules which apply to others do not apply to her throughout her career, with the email and Foundation scandals highlighting this. In a democracy we have rules to attempt to prevent corruption. In addition to other rules already in place, there were two new rules when Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State. Because of abuses of email in the Bush administration, which Clinton called an example of shredding the Constitution  in 2007, stricter rules were put into place in 2009. The State Department Inspector General report showed that Clinton knowingly and  intentionally violated the rules in effect, and acted to cover this up.

Because of concerns over conflicts of interest when Clinton was Secretary of State, an agreement was reached in which Clinton agreed to disclose the identities of all donors to the Foundation while she was in office. Clinton failed to abide by this agreement. Clinton unethically made decisions regarding parties which were making donations to the Foundation and making unprecedented payments for speeches to Bill Clinton, whose speaking fees jumped from 150,000 to typically 500,000, and as high as 750,000 when dealing with those with requests before Hillary.

Lawrence Lessig, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, discussed the ethics of the matter (with more here).

Even if no deals are made, the influence of special-interest super PACs is a corrupting influence on American democracy. Even without a quid pro quo, the incredible concentration of direct contributions from a tiny fraction of the wealthiest 1 percent of the population is a corrupting ­influence.

Corruption is not just a contract. Corruption is also a kind of economy — an economy of influence that leads any sane soul to the fair belief that private influence has affected public policy. It is for this reason that practically every Democrat has insisted that the court’s Citizens United decision (and its progeny) needs to be reversed. It is this idea that has motivated millions to petition Congress to propose an amendment for that reversal…

Besides failing to disclose the donors, Clinton has violated convention in destroying data regarding her meetings while Secretary of State. In June, AP reported that meetings with “longtime political donors, Clinton Foundation contributors and corporate and other outside interests” were not recorded on Clinton’s official calendar. Today there are reports that Huma Abedin  testified during her recent deposition to the FBI that Clinton (who also destroyed business-related email, falsely claiming they were personal) also destroyed her schedules.

The Clintons have tried to game the system and showed a lack of respect for the independent investigations by the Inspector General and the Justice Department. Besides failing to cooperate and trying to cover up information, the Clinton campaign has engaged in attacks on the Inspector General (after keeping the office vacant while she was Secretary of State, avoiding such oversight). More recently there is the scandal over Bill Clinton unethically speaking with Loretta Lynch while his wife, and his Foundation, are under investigation by the FBI.

There has been considerable, and justifiable, concern, over Donald Trump’s disregard for civil liberties. Hillary Clinton’s record and views on civil liberties are not much better. During the 2008 campaign Hillary Clinton was the only Democrat who refused to sign a pledge to restore Constitutional liberties. All the Republican candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, also refused to sign. Truth-Out had an article in December which looked at Hillary Clinton’s legacy of moving the Democratic Party to the right as she promoted the policies of the Democratic Leadership Council, and included her record on civil liberties while in the Senate:

More importantly, Clinton adopted the DLC strategy in the way she governed. She tried to portray herself as a crusader for family values when she introduced legislation to ban violent video games and flag burning in 2005.

Techdirt compared statements from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in which both showed their lack of respect for freedom of speech. Here is a quote from each, starting with Donald Trump:

We’re losing a lot of people because of the internet. We have to do something. We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. We have to talk to them, maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people. We have a lot foolish people.

The speaking style was a little different, but the views expressed by Hillary Clinton were no different:

You’re going to hear all of the usual complaints, you know, freedom of speech, et cetera. But if we truly are in a war against terrorism and we are truly looking for ways to shut off their funding, shut off the flow of foreign fighters, then we’ve got to shut off their means of communicating. It’s more complicated with some of what they do on encrypted apps, and I’m well aware of that, and that requires even more thinking about how to do it.

There are also considerable concerns about the increased risk of war should either Clinton or Trump be elected. Looking at their histories and statements, the election of Hillary Clinton places us at a far greater risk of war with Russia, or at least another extended Cold War. However, while perhaps a slight exaggeration, the election of Donald Trump risks getting us involved in wars with Mexico, England, China, and whichever other countries bruise his ego.

Both are the candidates of American oligarchy. Trump is the crude and direct voice coming from them directly, as opposed to their usual middlemen like the Clintons.

For the 4th of July, we should reject both Trump and Clinton.

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