About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Liberty Score Correlation To Socialist America

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; . . ." — U.S. Constitution, Article VI, clause 3
 
"I,___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." – The oath of office taken by Members of the House since 1966.  Since the 80th Congress (1947–1949), Members of the House have also been required to sign an oath, which is held by the Clerk of the House.  Senators take the same oath.
 
There are 435 Members of the House of Representatives & 100 Senators totaling 535 Members of Congress who take the above oath required by the Constitution – yet only 118 of the 535 Members received grades of D or higher according to the Conservative Review Liberty Score website – a tabulation of congressional votes that concentrates on fidelity to the Constitution & the oath that all Members of Congress take in binding themselves to support & defend the Constitution.  This analysis determines a letter grade & percentage Liberty Score based on actual votes taken in Congress.
 
Currently, there are 53 Senate Republicans, 45 Democrats, & 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats.  There are 232 House Democrats, 197 Republicans, 1 Independent, & 5 vacancies.
 
Below is the list of the 118 Members of Congress who did not receive a failing grade of F.  All of the people on the passing list are Republicans (& one Independent).  Not one of the 279 Democrats received a passing grade, i.e., the voting record of all Democrats in Congress is graded F.  The highest graded Democrat in the House is Ilhan Omar (MN) (F @ 23%) & in the Senate Bernie Sanders (VT) (F @ 23%).  Amy Klobuchar, the supposed moderate running for the Democrat presidential nomination, is graded F @ a dreadful 4% support of the Constitution meaning that the Liberty Score voting analysis will flush out fakers like Klobuchar – no matter how clever the hostile anti-American media think her recent debate comments are.
 
You can use the list below when you see congressmen & senators on TV to determine how their TV talking points compare to their actual voting record Liberty Scores.  Democrat leaders Schumer (F @ 4%), Pelosi (F @ 11%), Schiff (F @ 10%), & Nadler (F @ 15%) & Republican leaders McCarthy (F @ 32%), McConnell (F @ 28%), & Graham (F @ 30%) are amoung the most disingenuous politicians regularly seen on TV
 
When Republicans on TV ask you to fight for "our conservative values" you can take it for just so much blather if coming from someone not on the list below & of course no Democrat should ever be believed if they are speaking about defending the Constitution or worrying about the deficit.  All of these people are enjoying, or are planning on enjoying, 30 to 50 year careers in Washington of power, privilege, & high incomes paid @ your expense.
 
The fact that 99 of 197 House Republicans & 33 of 53 Senate Republicans received grades of F is a source of consternation & frustration for many fiscally responsible people.  Most of the Republicans with failing grades have scores in the 40s & 50s so they can be counted on from time to time but many times they disappoint.
 
A subscriber recently sent me a column from the WAPO from last July that highlighted Republican socialistic policies like President Trump promoting agricultural subsidies to the farm industry & bailing out failing coal plants
 
There was no mention in the WAPO column of Democrat Members of Congress being socialist other than one sentence that said "some Democrats have proposed some pie-in the sky ideas (such as free college)," thereby overlooking Bernie's & AOC's proposed biggest expansion of government since LBJ's Great Society – the Green New Deal that provides universal single payer healthcare, government job & housing guarantees, & a host of impractical ideas like replacing air travel with trains & upgrading & retrofitting every building in America to make them more energy efficient.
 
But even more important, the article did not mention that no matter how strong the socialist tendencies of any president are (& the four before Trump had extremely strong socialist tendencies – BO, GW Bush, Clinton, & GHW Bush) – it is Congress that controls the power of the purse which gets us back to the point of this post that the majority of Members of Congress have failing Liberty Score grades.  The president cannot spend a dime that Congress does not approve & Members of Congress with Liberty Scores below B are not trying too hard to honor their oaths of office.  Voting for any of the Democrat presidential candidates will only exacerbate the socialist problem in America as each one lurches the others further & further toward socialism & an entirely different order of magnitude problem.
 
Socialism is characterized by state ownership of businesses & services, hence the means of production.  I have written that America is more than 50% socialist for years - in that federal, state, & local spending equals 40% of the nations income & when the mandates that government imposes on private spending is added over 50% of the output of the country is controlled by the government.  This is equivalent to saying that over 50% of the means of production is owned by the government today.
 
All 279 Democrats in Congress have Liberty Scores of F with grades below 24% & 132 Republicans in Congress have Liberty Scores of F with many in the 40s & 50s.  This tabulation provides a very good correlation for saying that more than half of the country is socialist.  This is also why Friedrich Hayek dedicated his classic book The Road To Serfdom "To The Socialists Of All Parties."
 
Professor Friedman wrote "On both sides of the Atlantic, it is only a little overstated to say that we preach individualism & competitive capitalism, & practice socialism."
 

The aforementioned WAPO column talked about the "scourge of socialsim" being "already upon us" – & the column is so right.  If Americans, including those who subscribe to the online WAPO, want to rid our country of this scourge this post presents the way to participate in that endeavor - they should concentrate on the people in Congress who are not on the list below & work to vote them out of office.

 

America was founded on the principles of limited government, personal responsibility, & free enterprise – not socialism.  The Founders set the people up as sovereign in that their will decided that capitalism, not socialsim, was the road the country originally went down.  The people's will is sovereign in America. 

 

But since the people's superiority over every entity of government is the case we have to ask how we got to be a country that is over 50% socialist in the first place.  It had to be either with the people's consent or the people's neglect.

 

If you don't see your congressman's or senator's names on the list below they received grades of F which is a problem.  If you don't know your congressman's or senator's names that could very well be the answer to the question.

 
Senators
 
Mike Braun, In – A @ 100%
Mike Lee, UT – A @ 96%
Rand Paul, KY – A @ 90%
Ben Sasse, NE – A @ 90%
Jim Risch, ID – B @ 82%
Ted Cruz, TX – B @ 80%
Josh Hawley, MO – C @ 78%
Steve Daines, MT – C @ 74%
Tom Cotton, AR – C @ 72%
Tim Scott, SC – C @ 71%
James Lankford, OK – D @ 67%
Rick Scott, FL – D @ 67%
Pat Toomey, PA – D @ 67%
Marco Rubio, FL – D @ 64%
Mike Crapo, ID – D @ 63%
John Kennedy, LA – D @ 63%
Ron Johnson, WI – D @ 62%
David Perdue, GA – D @ 62%
Joni Ernst, IO – D @ 60%
 
Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee has not been graded.
 
House As @ 90 to 100%                                                                
 
Andy Biggs, AZ – A @ 100%                                                      
Chip Roy, TX – A @ 100%                                                                                  
Paul Gosar, AZ – A @ 96%                                                       
Thomas Massie, KY – A @ 96%                                         
Warren Davidson, OH – A @ 95%                                                                                           
Lance Gooden, TX – A @ 93%                                                                        
William Timmons, SC – A @ 93%                                                
Van Taylor, TX – A @ 93%                                                                                 
Ron White, TX – A @ 93%                                             
Ben Kline, VA - A @ 93%                                                      
Louie Gohmert, TX – A @ 92%                                         
Jim Jordan, OH – A @ 92%                                                                              
Gregory Steube, FL – A @ 92%                                           
Jeff Duncan, SC – A @ 92%                                                 
Mark Green, TN – A @ 92%                                             
Mark Meadows, NC – A @ 90%                                                        
Gary Palmer, AL – A @ 90%                                                
Ken Buck, CO – A @ 90%
 
House Bs @ 80 to 89% 
 
Ted Budd, NC – B @ 89%
Justin Amash, MI – B @ 88% (Ind)
Mo Brooks, AL – B @ 88%
Scott Desjarlais, TN – B @ 86%
Russ Fulcher, ID – B @ 86%
Andy Harris, MD – B @ 86%
Jody Hice, GA – B @ 86%
Scott Perry, PA – B @ 86%
David Schweikert, AZ – B @ 86%
Ross Spanos, FL – B @ 86%
Steven Watkins, KS – B @ 86%
Tim Burchett, TN – B @ 85%
Ralph Norman, SC – B @ 85%
John Ratcliffe, TX – B @ 83%
Tom McClintock, CA – B @ 82%
Trey Hollingsworth, IN – B @ 81%
Michael Cloud, TX – B @ 80%
Doug Lamborn, CO – B @ 80%
George Holding, NC – B @ 80%                                          
                                                                                                                                          
House Cs @ 70 to 79%                                
 
James Baird, In – C @ 79%                                                                        
Dan Crenshaw, TX – C @ 79%                    
Denver Riggleman, VA – C @ 79%
John Rose, TN – C @ 79%
Mark Walker, NC – C @ 79%
Ted Yoho, FL – C @ 78%
Jim Banks, IN – C @ 78%
Mike Johnson, LA – C @ 78%
Alex Mooney, WV – C @ 78%
Jim Sensenbrenner, WI – C @ 78%
Bill Posey, FL – C @ 77%
Michael Guest, MS – C @ 77%
Matt Gaetz, FL – C @ 76%
Trent Kelley, MS – C @ 77%
Debbie Lesko, AZ – C @ 76%
Jason Smith, NE – C @ 76%
Steve King, IO – C @ 74%
Mike Gallagher, WI – C @ 73%
Morgan Griffith, VA – C @ 73%
Barry Loudermilk, GA – C @ 73%
Tom Emmer, MN – C @ 73%
Daniel Webster, FL – C @ 72%
Jim Hagedorn, MN – C @ 71%
Randy Weber, TX – C @ 71%
Michael Waltz, FL – C @ 71%
Bryan Steil, WI – C @ 71%
Richard Hudson, NC – C @ 71%
Dusty Jordan, SD – C @ 71%
Daniel Mauser, PA – C @ 71%
James Comer, KY – C @ 71%
Robert Wittman, VA – C @ 70%
 
House Ds @ 60 to 69%
 
Kenny Marchant, TX – D @ 69%
Steven Chabot, OH – D @ 68%
Virginia Fox, NC – D @ 68%
Glenn Grothman, WI – D 2 68%
Clay Higgins, LA – D @ 68%
David Rouzer, NC – D @ 68%
Brian Babin, TX – D @ 67%
Mike Enzi, WY – D @ 67%
Roger Williams, TX – D @ 67%
Garret Graves, LA – D @ 66%
John Curtis, UT – D @ 65%
Kevin Heron, OK – D @ 65%
Ralph Abraham, LA – D @ 64%
Ron Estes, KS – D @ 64%
Anthony Gonzalez, OH – D @ 64%
Darin LaHood, IL – D @ 64%
Guy Rischenthaler, PA – D @ 64%
Francis Rooney, FL – D @ 64%
Michael Burgess, TX – D @ 63%
Bradley Byrne, AL – D @ 63%
Duncan Hunter, CA – D @ 63%
Markwayne Mullin, OK – D @ 63%
Chris Stewart, UT – D @ 63%
Jodey Arrington, TX – D @ 62%
Greg Gianforte, MT – D @ 62%
Billy Long, MO – D @ 62%
Tom Rice, SC – D @ 62%
Brad Wenstrup, OH – D @ 62%
Lloyd Smucker, PA – D @ 61%
Bruce Westerman, AR – D @ 61%
Adrian Smith, NE – D @ 60%
 

1 comment:

  1. It’s unbelievable that such poor grades are flaunted by our Congress who are being lavishly paid and protected. Grades like that would have you thrown out of college. (I was happy to see that several PA congressmen had good grades.)

    ReplyDelete