The Patriot Post® · Liberty Trumps Leftist Congressman Jamie Raskin

By Howard Sachs

How worlds apart are two American Jews — me and Rep. Jamie Raskin from the heart of the Democrat Party — on key issues of American civic life? Mr. Raskin clearly disdains our president and the Republican Party. Unfortunately, he joins most of my fellow Jews in that deep lack of wisdom.

I strongly support Pesident Donald Trump and the admittedly flawed Republican Party. Mr. Raskin and the core leaders of the Democrat Party embrace leftism, which at its root is a regressive, liberty-destroying machine. Liberty is the primary value of this country. This difference between me and Raskin mirrors the terrible strains we are seeing among citizens across the nation. Millions of us are involved in a battle for two completely different Americas. The divide is essentially unbridgeable. One value system and one type of America will prevail. A constituent meeting with my congressman confirmed my views this week.

One of the primary tools that men of the Left use in their assault on liberty is a perverted reading of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution is brief and written in plain English. It was done so because our founders built a great, complex, metaphorical cathedral of liberty. They understood liberty would only flourish if the American people clearly understood the Constitution’s meaning and design. Traditionally, Americans would learn its basic words and meaning from childhood on. No more.

With the leftism/progressivism originating in Europe, and now, for well over a century, degrading America’s key institutions of the Democrat Party, our schools, and the media, it has left behind a citizenry profoundly ignorant — or utterly disdainful — about their liberal heritage. Men imbibing this illiberal and destructive ideology now often take the great words of liberty written on our founding document and use them against it.

At a constituent coffee hour this week, Rep. Raskin came in first to clarify his bone fides. He arrived carrying a box of pocket constitutions and then proudly stated how he was once a constitutional professor. It was all downhill from there. He harnessed a perverted reading of the Emoluments Clause. Regular Americans understand that clause tries to prevent a president from being bribed by a foreign government. But Mr. Raskin, who seeks to destroy the fundamental liberty of 62 million voters who elected Trump, claimed that he should be removed from office because I guess some foreigners may order, what, high-end room service or early premium tee times at Trump’s hotels?

Mr. Raskin then moved on to an egregious perversion of the Commerce Clause. That clause, as Americans with common sense understand, was thoughtfully and wisely placed in our law to ensure that trade between the states remains unimpeded. It was there to stop things like tariffs being placed to thwart trade between the states. It was not placed there for the leftist Mr. Raskins to force Americans to do his will. He argued that the Commerce Clause essentially empowers him to order every American to do business the way Jamie demands. Hence, he demands a businessman give his employee a “fair minimum living wage.” Jamie commands that the 17-year-old kid handing out $1 bagels at a shop in Idaho be handed each day a $120 paycheck for his highly productive work.

Now, incredibly, Raskin and his co-leftist colleagues want the First Amendment repealed because “hate speech” — the only type of speech that truly needs protection — should be banned. Men and women who act as free men and women according to their Christian or Jewish beliefs must now be attacked, vilified, dragged into court, and punished. They go on with the absurd, regressive notion that the Constitution empowers those in Washington, DC, to tell us what healthcare we can get, how we save for retirement, how we use our private property, how we educate our kids, what cars we drive, what energy we use, etc. The only thing they are adamant about in terms of freedom is the freedom to kill an unborn baby boy or girl.

To really home in on their perfidy, I asked this passionately declared lover and scholar of the Constitution the crowning question — the one that reveals the essence of his view on liberty. It is the question of what he values about the relationship of the American citizen to the state.

I said (paraphrased):

With all due respect, sir, in Article 1, Section 8 it says clearly and simply that the law of our land is that the federal government is empowered to do a very limited number of things — about 20 of them. Any American with even a bit of common sense understands that to go beyond that is to rob us of our basic freedoms. Also, we understand that to fund such a limited government would take very little out of the pockets of hard-working Americans.

How, then, do you call yourself a constitutional scholar while happily voting each year for utter lawlessness? How do you essentially commit grand larceny by placing the grand power of the U.S. Government over such great swaths of our lives? How do you have the nerve to come in front of Americans while producing trillions of dollars in debt and unfunded liabilities — all piled onto the heads of our kids and grandkids?

It has nothing to do with the Constitution, sir. It has only to do with the poisonous ideology of leftism and its love of control, coercion, and power.

Our lover of the Constitution, Mr. Raskin, responded with nothing more than some mumbling about the size of our military — ironically, a clear and vital function of our government.

So it goes on an on — the trashing of nearly every section of our simple and glorious Constitution, day after day, by these lost souls of the Left. These men and women are the nemesis of liberty. They may be nice, friendly, good husbands and wives, and swell dads and moms. They may be very well-meaning folks. Those are not the questions to ask about our fellow leaders. The question to ask is: Do they know, understand, and support expansive American liberty and our Constitution?

Men like Mr. Raskin and the rest of the marxist Left do not. They know, support, push for, and embrace leftism. That is what ultimately gives meaning to their lives. They embrace it and they convince millions to embrace it by virtue of our media, our language, and our schools.

We must recognize this and fight to defend the cathedral of liberty gifted to us by God through our founders. We must recognize and reject the perverted “love of the Constitution” mantra of the Left. Otherwise, we will indeed go over the brink soon and lose this great country.

Howard Sachs is a husband, father, and private-practice physician. He is faithfully Jewish and, until 10 years ago, by his account, “blindly voted Democrat.” After being introduced to Dennis Prager and Mark Levin, he reconsidered his views in earnest and began to study great conservative thinkers.