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OPINION
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gainesvilletimes.com
Monday, December 17, 2018
Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com
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The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
America needs justice, not scandal
Ours is an age of egregious
excess, of tearing everything
apart to set everything right and
then hiding from reality when
everything gets worse.
So it is that we’ve got a presi
dent often acting as if he is still
host of a TV reality show that is,
at least, high in its ratings, and a
special counsel who figures the
guy has to go even if that means
justice has to go, too.
“This is not the way our
democracy works,” said Hillary Clinton in
a campaign debate after Donald Trump
said he might not accept the outcome of
the election. “We’ve been around for 240
years. We have had free and fair elec
tions. We’ve accepted the outcomes when
we may not have liked them. And that is
what is expected of anyone standing on a
debate stage during a general election. He
is denigrating — he is talking down — our
democracy.”
Well, we see elections contested all the
time, as in the recent midterms, and democ
racy is not necessarily denigrated. But
suppose there’s a presidential election, no
evidence of campaign wrong-doing is found
and yet every other trick in the book - even
felonious leaking of classified papers- is
used to deny the winner his rights.
Phony means to a possibly chaotic, unjus
tified end is the real denigration of democ
racy, especially when the fight is between
the high-and-mighty and rule of law. Clinton
knows where she stands, hints at running
for president again, goes on money-making
tours with her husband and can at least
count on him to show up at the rallies.
To bring the anti-Trump frenzy together
in an organized attack, a special counsel was
needed to investigate whether
the Trump campaign colluded
with Russia to beat Clinton. Not
just anyone would do. What was
needed was someone who was a
friend of an important witness,
had a steely, gotcha temperament
and would happily spend mil
lions, use discredited tactics and
thereby intervene fundamentally
in the rightly focused conduct of
the presidency for a year and a
half.
And so we come to Robert Mueller.
A former director of the FBI, he had dem
onstrated his qualifications when some of its
agents were in search of terrorists and acted
without probable cause in collecting scads
of personal data on private citizens. Keep
your mouths shut, these folks were told, and
Mueller informed Congress there had only
been one or two such abuses when the real
number was about 3,000. He held himself
accountable.
He also violated separation of powers by
authorizing the search of a congressional
office and refusing to return ill-gotten mate
rial despite urgings from congressional
leaders and the attorney general.
The Russian collusion may yet take cen
ter stage, but the latest, most threatening
move in the Trump investigation is to let us
all know that he served his campaign with
hush money sent to two women who had
served him sexually.
The thing is, it can be a felony not to
have reported the expenditures, although
these sorts of errors are often pretty much
ignored, as in something noted in a National
Review article.
The Obama 2008 campaign paid a rela
tively slight penalty for $2 million worth of
‘To bring the anti-Trump
frenzy together in an
organized attack, a special
counsel was needed to
investigate whether the
Trump campaign colluded
with Russia to beat
Clinton. Not just anyone
would do.’
transgressions.
But restraint is hardly a Mueller man
tra. Through the instrument of sentencing
threats, critics say he may in effect have
bullied or bribed officials into deals about
what they say about Trump and friends.
Constitutional experts such as Alan Der-
showitz also point to how he has twisted
client-attorney privilege in such a way that
the only privilege belongs to those wearing a
prosecutorial grin.
Trump has triumphed with some excel
lent policies, has fought back with some ter
rible ones, is losing some good people and
still comes across as ignorant, irresponsible,
narcissistic, vulgar and bigoted. He hardly
seems prepared for the barbarians at the
gate.
The issue is whether democracy can
stand up against denigration.
Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for
Tribune News Service. Readers may email
him at speaktojay@aol.com.
DAVID HORSEY I Tribune News Service
LETTER
Trump has much
in common with
Nixon, should
also resign
“The hits just keep on a-coming,” is a
famous line from my favorite movie “A
Few Good Men.” In it Tom Cruise uses
that phrase to describe the constantly
deteriorating situation as he attempts
to defend two Marines charged with
murder.
It also describes the final years of
Richard Nixon’s presidency. After he
won his second term in office, using ille
gal slush money to ensure his victory,
he saw his staff and cabinet convicted
and marched off to jail because they
did his bidding.
For those readers who were not
around at the time of the Watergate
break-in, let me recommend the book
“All the President’s Men” by Wood
ward and Bernstein.
I see many parallels between the
Nixon and Trump presidency.
The “hits” on Nixon were John
Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrli-
chman and Chuck Colson going off to
jail. The “hits” on Trump are the sen
tencing of his lawyer Michael Cohen
last week, along with the plea deal
for his friend David Pecker, which
included the expose of the National
Enquirer’s efforts to cover up the affair
between married Trump and a Playboy
model.
We must not forget the other Trump
associates (Michael Flynn, George
Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort) who
have attracted the attention of the Rob
ert Mueller investigation.
Some of these will serve time in jail;
others will only have their reputations
destroyed. The other “hits” on the
Trump presidency are his inability to
recruit and keep the staff in the White
House and the Cabinet departments.
Like rats leaving a sinking ship, no rat
wishes to remain, and absolutely no
one of any credibility wants to join the
Trump presidency.
It is unfortunate that we are trapped
with Trump for president for the next
two years. Our centuries old, obsolete
constitution makes removing an incom
petent, corrupt president almost impos
sible. The Democratic Party majority
in the House of Representatives could
charge Trump with election crimes, but
the Republican Party majority in the
Senate would never go along with that.
What would be best for the country
would be for Trump to get the Mueller
group to accept his resignation from
the presidency, along with a guilty plea
to conspiracy with a foreign govern
ment and a guilty plea to conspiracy to
commit election fraud, in return for a
promise of no jail time for him or his
immediate family members.
It would truly be the best thing for
our democracy. Trump could later
write the book “The Art of the Plea
Deal.”
Howard Stacy
Gainesville
A Libertarians Christmas shopping list
Struggling to find gifts to get
for loved ones? How about a
book?
I just made a video about some
books that shaped my thinking.
First, Friedrich Hayek’s
“Road to Serfdom” recounts how
government trying to centrally
plan an economy often leads to
tyranny.
Government shouldn’t inter
vene, wrote Hayek, because a
free market, like a school of
fish or a flock of birds, creates a spontane
ous order. No central planner will allocate
resources as efficiently as individuals do
themselves.
For arguing that, Hayek was ridiculed.
But years later, even defenders of socialism
conceded that he was right.
With “democratic socialism” newly popu
lar and celebrities like Jim Carrey saying,
“We have to say yes to socialism — to the
word and everything!” today is a great time
to give “Road to Serfdom” to your socialist
friends.
If only they’d read it...
Of course, “Road to Serfdom” is writ
ten in old-fashioned language that some
people find tough going. A simpler, more
America-focused book from which to learn
about economics is Thomas Sowell’s “Basic
Economics.”
Sowell writes in plain English, without
graphs or equations. Not only will Sowell
educate your socialist friends, he’ll show
Donald Trump fans why free trade is good.
Two even easier-to-read introductions
to economics and free market philosophy
are the cartoon-filled “Libertarianism for
Beginners” by Todd Seavey and “Give Me a
Break,” written by an ignorant anti-business
reporter (me) who finally discov
ered the benefits of markets.
But promoting those would
be self-serving (Todd helps me
write this column) so I won’t
even mention those fine books.
I’ll move on.
Prefer fiction?
How about “Animal Farm”
for the animals in your family?
George Orwell describes how
farm animals revolt against an
abusive human master — only to
end up ruled by new tyrants, the pigs.
“Animal Farm” was meant to be an
allegory for the Russian revolution turning
into Soviet tyranny, but it could just as eas
ily apply to today’s America if populists get
their way.
Another fun read is Ayn Rand’s “Atlas
Shrugged.” It’s long — more than a thou
sand pages — but easy reading because the
novel pulls you along, describing how cul
tural bias against capitalism and love of big
government grows.
Rand depicts creeping government
oppression so convincingly that it feels like
she’s describing America today.
Rand argues that government isn’t just
inefficient; it’s evil because it violates prop
erty rights and tells people how to live their
lives. Government is like a looter or burglar,
she wrote.
Today’s media, by contrast, call capital
ists looters and burglars. Years ago, the
media called the most successful of them
“robber barons.”
A book by Burton W. Folsom, “Myth of
the Robber Barons,” debunks those myths.
It explains that capitalists such as John D.
Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt were
neither robbers nor barons. They were not
born rich, and they did not get rich by rob
bing people. They got rich by creating better
things.
Rockefeller lowered the price of kero
sene so much that it allowed poor people to
read at night.
He probably even “saved the whales.”
That’s because once Rockefeller made oil
cheap, killing whales to get whale oil was no
longer profitable. Bet your kids won’t learn
that in environmental studies class.
“Robber baron” Cornelius Vanderbilt
didn’t rob people. He made steamship travel
faster and cheaper. It was jealous com
petitors who called him a “robber baron”
because he charged lower prices than they
did. The ignorant media picked up the term,
and it stuck.
Finally, another great introduction to
freedom is the book “Free to Choose,”
in which Milton and Rose Friedman
explain how limiting government creates
prosperity.
Friedman reportedly joked that if you
put the federal government in charge of the
Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a
shortage of sand.
In the TV series accompanying “Free to
Choose” he argued, “We somehow or other
have to find a way to prevent government
from continuing to grow and continuing to
take over more and more control over our
lives.”
Well, we’ve failed at that!
But at Stossel TV, we won’t quit trying.
Those books should help.
I hope my columns help a little bit, too.
Happy holidays!
John Stossel is author of “No They Can’t!
Why Government Fails — But Individuals
Succeed.”
—%
A _JL
JOHN STOSSEL
www.johnstossel.com
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