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Give me Liberty
Rodger Williamson
As I write this, it is Tuesday, the sixteenth of January, 2024. As I figuratively put pen to paper this day, I am almost 1,000 miles away from my home in Alabama in northern Michigan.
I left early Monday morning from Prattville and didn’t see snow until I got up to Athens, Ala. From there, and all the way until I hit Kentucky, the roads of Tennessee were covered with snow. It was bad enough to slow the pace, but not bad enough to stop.
Kentucky and Ohio were clear, and then Michigan was still covered in snow from a previous storm. I only got stuck once, literally less than a mile from my father’s home. Thanks to my prior military service, I’ve learned a thing or two about getting stuck, and then unstuck, and that failure is never an option.
We arrived late in the night, weary, but well. The high temp today will be 10 degrees, and the low tonight will be 3 degrees. This is just one of the many reasons that I prefer to call Alabama my forever home. At least y’all are looking at temps that are up to about 20 degrees (plus or minus) warmer!
In the news, I see that Trump easily won the Iowa Republican Caucus, and that my personal favorite Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has dropped out. I’d really like to see who the Democrats really want for their pick, but they decided that they will not do a presidential primary this year, the same that the Republicans did in 2020. My guess is that Biden would not be the winner.
So we now find ourselves with both parties having geriatric candidates; Trump will be 78 years old before November, and Biden will be just shy of 82 on election day later this year. Just because Trump has not shown a decline in his cognitive capabilities yet, does not mean that he will not start to decline in the near future as he begins to match age with Biden as he took office just three years ago.
We find ourselves with two candidates that both rule by executive fiat, a power not enumerated within our Constitution. Trump with 220 executive orders, 136 presidential memoranda, 140 proclamations, and 117 notices; and Biden with 128 executive orders, 166 presidential memoranda, 552 proclamations, and 109 notices (so far).
We find ourselves with two candidates that both greatly increased the national debt, which devalued the dollar, which led to inflation of prices, as it takes more devalued dollars to purchase needed items. Donald Trump by $6.7 trillion, and Biden by $2.5 trillion. With our national debt currently at $34 trillion, the United States has the highest national debt in the world, and we need to see a president that is capable of tightening the fiscal belt, leading to a reduction of the debt with negative numbers that will lead to a reversal of inflation, with the increase of value of the U.S. dollar, and the correlating reduction in prices of commodities.
No matter how it is spun on the television news, we find ourselves with two leading candidates that I find unworthy of a second term as president of the United States. With that, I will have to await the 2024 Libertarian Party presidential primaries and caucuses to see what they have to offer among 38-year-old Chase Oliver of Georgia, 64-year-old Michael Rectenwald of Pennsylvania, 62-year-old Mike ter Maat of Florida, and 40-year-old Joshua Smith of Iowa.
No matter which of the four becomes the Libertarian presidential nominee, that person will far and away be preferential than either the current Republican or Democratic front runner.
Until next time, I hope that everyone is staying warm during the winter intrusion of our beloved State of Alabama.