A vote to save the republic

Here is what too many elected politicians — of both parties — don’t get: Laissez-nous faire!

“Leave us alone!”

If you asked people what they want in life, we’ll venture to say one of their top answers would be: Let me live my life as I want to live. Let me live in peace. Let me live in peace and harmony with my neighbors. Don’t tell me what to do. Let me make my own decisions.

And when you ask them what they would want from their government, we’ll bet the top answer would be: Keep us safe from criminals and violence.

That is the way it should be. That simple.

That is the framework the Founders established and envisioned.

But as all of us have experienced and seen since Joe Biden took the oath of the presidency in January 2021, life for Americans is nothing close to Laissez-nous faire and feeling safe.

It has been the extreme opposite.

And it has been a complete disaster.

Think about then (2016-2020/Trump) and now (2021-2022/Biden). One of the best summaries of what we have experienced came last week from Joel Ross, co-founder and principal of New York-based Citadel Realty Advisors and a part-time Longboat Key resident. Ross writes one of the most astute, insightful and unfettered critiques and analyses you will find of U.S. and world affairs, economics and politics. His voice and commentaries are unabashed, and thus appropriately named, the “Ross Rant.”

In his Oct. 20 edition, Ross perfectly summed up the past two years, which we have printed with his permission above.

We all know it and feel it every day. We have lived through nearly two years of economic and social decline and constant misery.

In an earlier editorial, we borrowed the title from the late Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises: “Planned chaos.”

That is what we have endured at every level of our society — from the diabolical, power-hungry Democrat elitists in the White House and Congress down to the authoritarian school board members and deviant, perverted teachers in our public schools.

All of their top-down, centralized government schemes, all of their “planning” to have us live according to their world views have brought nothing but chaos and misery for the American people.

We agree with Ross: “How anyone can vote for Dems this election is beyond me.”

With apologies to the many smart Democrats who also are good people, and not to be insulting, but it would defy logic to vote Democrat. To do so is to say you support the current course we are on as a nation, that you want more of the disasters we have been getting.

Yes, we know millions of registered Democrats will vote dutifully for Democrat Party candidates regardless of reality. That’s what lifelong Democrats do. That’s what lifelong Republicans do. They vote their party.

But here is an appeal, particularly to the 29% of Florida registered voters who are neither Republicans nor Democrats: Vote the country.

This one time vote Republican.

To be sure, Republicans are far from perfect. But at this moment in history, they offer the only chance to stop the annihilation of this great country and our communities.

America must be saved. It must be preserved — preserved as the one and only beacon of individual liberty and what is left of free-market capitalism, both of which are on the verge of becoming wisping ashes.

It is going to take years to undo what Biden & Co. have done in two years. And it will take a generation to restore and rebuild the way of life that made America great.

When Alexis de Tocqueville came to America in 1831 to see what this great, young republic was like, he was in awe. One of the characteristics that struck him most was the ingrained belief of the “sovereignty of the people” — the freedom of the individual to live his life as he sees it, not to live as the slaves of despots and their despotic cabals.

De Tocqueville wrote: “Providence has given to each individual, whoever he may be, the degree of reason necessary for him to be able to direct himself in things that interest him exclusively. Such is the great maxim on which civil and political society in the United States rests.”

That great maxim must be restored. You can start the rebuilding Nov. 8.

About the judges

Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen said it best in 1990: “Typically we are better informed about our choice of stick deodorant than our choice of judges.”

So true. Even so, Floridians go through the dance every two years with nary a clue of who these Supreme Court justices and District Appeal Court judges are and whether they deserve to be retained.

It’s an odd system. But it’s also a safeguard. It gives Floridians the opportunity to boot a judge who turns corrupt or incompetent — both of which have been exceedingly rare. Florida governors and the Judicial Nominating Commissions take great care in the selection of judges.

The Florida Bar also keeps tabs on them. Every two years, it conducts a retention poll of its members. For this cycle, the Supreme Court justices scores ranged from 59% to 85% to be retained and from 15% to 41% not to be retained. Ratings for the Appeal Court judges ranged from 64% to 86% for retention and 14% to 36% not to be retained.

The lowest rating? For Justice Jamie Grosshans, 59% to be re-tained, 41% not to be retained. She is the newest Supreme Court justice, appointed by Gov. DeSantis.

We recommend: Yes for all