JANUARY 20, 2017
A
Day of Reckoning
The United States got a new President on January 20, 2017. It was the culmination of a very long and contentious Presidential Campaign. For liberals, this new President is an assault in ways that seem to evade conservative voters.
Conservative voters have attacked the complaining and grumbling on the part of Liberal voters because, they see the election as a contest in which the liberal candidates lost and the conservative candidate won. This reaction is logical.
Even though the Tea Party rejected President Obama in virtually every way, the many marches across the globe are viewed by conservative voters as nothing more than "sour grapes". So here's my attempt to explain the deeply disappointed Liberal voters:
JOHN F. KENNDY
1. Promoted the "New Frontier" domestic program promising federal funding for education, medical care for the elderly, economic aid to rural regions, and government intervention to halt the recession of the time
2. Abolished the Federal Death Penalty
3. Signed Executive Orders prohibiting racial discrimination and laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Act of 1964
4. Initiated "Project Apollo" as the first manned expedition to the Moon
5. Continued support to West Berlin after the Soviet Union erected the Berlin Wall. You may recall his "Ich bin win Berliner" speech in 1963
(Watch it for yourself: A Speech of Hope & Freedom)
6. Faced down Soviet Premier Kruschev during the Cuban Missile Crisis
7. Began American involvement in Vietnam as a means of staunching communist expansion in Southeast Asia
8. Signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in order to limit nuclear tests by the nuclear powers
9. Initiated the creation of security ties with Israel
10. Sought to contain the perceived threat of communism in Latin America by establishing the Alliance for Progress, which sent aid to some countries and sought greater human rights standards in the region
11. Asked Congress to create the Peace Corps, in which Americans would volunteer to help underdeveloped nations in areas such as education, farming, healthcare, and construction
In every action, hope was created for a freer world. One which would not stand for humans to be underpaid, over-tasked and abused by employers. We perceived honor, dignity and principle from this President's words and actions, in spite of not perceiving perfection.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
1. Designed his signature "Great Society" legislation, which included laws upholding civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, aid to education, and the abolition of poverty
2. Signed the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 outlawing most forms of racial segregation and providing equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or national origin, and passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawing discrimination in voting
(Watch LBJ's speech to Congress for yourself: Voting Rights Act of 1965)
3. Appointed Thurgood Marshall as the first African American justice on the Supreme Court
4. Signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Higher Education Act to improve funding to schools, especially those in poor districts
5. Established the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts to support humanists and artists
6. Created programs to tackle poverty such as Head Start, food stamps, Work Study, Medicare, and Medicaid
7. Presided over the first manned flight to the Moon with the Apollo 8 program
8. Signed the Immigration Act of 1965, which substantially liberalized US immigration policy towards non-Europeans
As a conservative, there may be some accomplishments above that you don't agree with, specifically or based on principle. As a liberal, most of us celebrate these advances in American society.
What I am speaking of is a trajectory towards honor, dignity and principle-driven goals. President Obama continued building on this 'path of progress':
BARACK H. OBAMA
1. Signed economic stimulus legislation like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the Stimulus) and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 into law in response to the Great Recession of 2008
2. Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, strengthening financial regulations to an extent not seen since the Great Depression
3. Pushed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) overhauling the nation's health insurance system through Congress in 2010
4. Signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 and became the first sitting U.S. president to publicly support same-sex marriage
5. Repealed a Bush-era policy preventing federal tax dollars from being used to fund research on new lines of embryonic stem cells
6. Signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 ending the role of private banks in lending out federally insured student loans
7. Ended US military involvement in the Iraq War and increased US troop levels in Afghanistan
8. Substantially increased the number of drone strikes targeting suspected terrorists around the world
9. Ordered U.S. military involvement in Libya following a popular revolt against Libyan leader Mummer Gaddafi
10. Authorized the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011
15. Signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia reducing the number of long-range weapons held by both countries
For liberals, these were advances to be cherished. Sure, many liberals don't fully celebrate any of the above-mentioned accomplishments. And for other liberals, like myself, none of these Presidents went far enough.
Did you know that:
A bill guaranteeing "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex", written in 1923 was finally passed into law in 1972? That meant that prior to 1972, women had no equality in the workplace as men.
And that same year, 1972, In Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Supreme Court ruled that the right to privacy includes an unmarried person's right to use contraceptives. That meant that before 1972, an unmarried woman had NO right to use contraceptives such as the Pill, which was made public 12 years before.
And the list goes on and on.
So, the long and short of it is that all that progress, real and perceived, has been obliterated by the promises of the new President. And soon, he will prove this. This is why we are devastated. Not because the Democratic Party lost. No. It's because the new President is antithetical to everything we stand for, everything we believe about our country and everything we hold valuable in our personal and professional lives.
So, for us, January 20, 2017 is the day of reckoning for us all.
