Don's Tuesday Column

      THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   7/04/2023

Independence, and rights, at risk

Happy Birthday, America! Yes, Independence Day has been overshadowed by “4^th of July” picnics, beach outings, fireworks, and the official start of summer vacations (ditto for our summers spent in any cool place we can find).

Be mindful that the United States of America’s hard-fought war to achieve “independence” from the oppressive behemoth of Great Britain was no sure thing. The Declaration of Independence was first released with only two names as it was considered a death warrant for all signatories; fortunately, the full list of “treasonous” colonists soon secured their place in the document’s history, for better or worse. Or, to be given “liberty or death,” as revolutionary Patrick Henry resoundingly proclaimed.

Indeed, the pleasures and comforts of life, enjoyed by colonists, induced most into either “loyalty” to England, or to consider the revolutionaries’ demand for “independence” a risky gamble.

However, the far-sighted, knowledgeable, and well-read Founders and Framers saw the historical opportunity to create something never before achieved (Greece and Rome aside): Self-governance through representative democracy, with distributed powers of governance to prevent individuals, factions, parties, or urban or rural interests from wielding despotic influence over others.

Many current citizens of “democracy,” who think history began upon their “achieving” adulthood, have disdain for those wise men whose vision and experience must now defer to “modern” wisdom and advancement. However, it was President Calvin Coolidge who incisively pronounced that our Declaration and Constitution were the ultimate evolution of self-governance, by guaranteeing rights, freedoms and liberties to citizens. There is no “progressing” beyond that fact, no evolving from that superlative constitution of self-rule; only retreat and regression from those essential values, toward rule by the few.

“Independence” has survived at the cost of well over a million lives lost on battlefields. Independence for America has little meaning beyond our ability to chart our own affairs and future free of malign influence undermining what we and our leaders deem is in America’s best interests.

Beyond shedding British rule, confirmed in the War of 1812, Germany, Japan, and the U.S.S.R.’s International Communist movement—all defeated. Enslavement by foreign powers has been fought against by all American leaders; the Civil War ended enslavement of African-Americans—at the cost of 620,000 dead.

While Supreme Court rulings grabbed well-deserved attention, America’s independence remains an ultimate, existential, issue. Only one nation has become a literal threat to our ability to chart our future free of influence, even demands: Communist China, or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Yes, Ukraine’s apparent command of many billions of taxpayers’ hard-earned resources, and its outsized influence over foreign policies unrelated to vital American interests or treaty obligations—for undefined goals—raises questions of appropriate uses of power. However, the CCP’s inexorable worming of its way into our policies, economy, medical institutions (Wuhan lab-escaped COVID-19), plus their viable military threat to America’s command of the high seas—suggests we hold leaders accountable.

That brings the now-established transfer of tens of millions of dollars to Biden family and associates into perspective. Sources of vast (ill-gotten?) gains, provided to Hunter et al for no definable product or service, leaves one glaring purpose: Influence over American policies to benefit the foreign (China, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, etc.) benefactors of Biden wealth.

With his father beside him, Hunter communicated demands for the “agreed commitment,” to be effected that very night by high-ranking CCP official, energy titan Henry Zhao. Likewise, “chairman” Ye Jianming’s (high-ranking spy and Chinese energy guy) $165,000 monthly payments to Hunter and his uncle, Jim Biden, paint an ugly picture of influence-peddling.

 “Ye stated that CEFC China’s vision ‘is to obtain overseas resources and serve the national strategy’…and expand China’s reach and influence around the world” (Victoria Taft). The New York Post’s Miranda Devine quoted whistleblower Gal Luft that the $165,000 went to the Biden’s “for their FBI connections and use of the Biden name to promote China’s Belt and Road initiative.”

It’s not wildly conspiratorial to connect the above evidence of CCP-pay for Biden-play, to the FBI’s confirmed possession and verification of Hunter’s laptop—the source and proof of said payola-for-influence—to the rapid response of intelligence officials to pronounce Hunter’s laptop “Russian disinformation.”

The same ones that ran the news hounds and Democrat impeachment hoaxers—over the Hillary-fabricated Steele “dossier” asserting Trump/Russia collusion—knowingly peddled the blatant lie about the laptop, suppressing its newsworthiness a week before the 2020 election. Polling proved that more than enough Democrats would not have voted for Biden, had they known of the laptop and other scandals, for Trump’s popular vote, and electoral college, win.

We can be grateful for the Supreme Court’s conservative majority—due solely to Trump’s 2016 win—for securing the right to free speech over coercive “gay/trans rights” fanatics; the right to a college education based on one’s merit without “racial preferences” for Black and Brown, over White and Asian, applicants;

And for the financial fairness of expecting student borrowers to pay their own debts without relying on millions of taxpayers that either paid their loans, worked and avoided loans, or simply charted their career path without college.