If You are a Republican who Supports Trump, I Doubt that You Possess Common Sense

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart

I assume that if you support Trump you continue to live in 1950’s America, or you would prefer to. However, the current date shows us that we are nearly one quarter through the 21^st century, and if we haven’t moved on from our nation’s dark, warlike, and prejudiced past, we are doomed and will not survive another 25 years.

Case in point: the Second Amendment should be revoked or at the very least rewritten. In its present form it remains ambiguous, and extremely difficult to place in terms which make sense in the 21^st century.

What is perfectly clear is nowhere in the short and controversial amendment is there a definition of what type of weapons can be legally possessed by ordinary citizens.

For example. The Supreme Court is considering whether or not “bump stocks” are protected by the Constitution.

I am certainly not a Constitutional scholar. However, a simple understanding of the situation in 1789 when the Constitution was completed and signed by our Founding Fathers, weapons used for hunting, including rifles and shotguns, were protected. However, military assault rifles, high output magazines, and handguns with the ability to expel multiple rounds quickly did not exist. This also applies to “bump stocks” which are an attachment making semi-automatic assault rifles virtually fully automatic weapons.

Every weapon not defined as a form of hunting rifle has a single purpose: to kill other human beings. These weapons and their accessories did not exist in 1789, and there was no way such weapons of mass destruction would exist centuries into the future. Allowing these deadly weapons to be sold to anyone who wants them is why America has more mass shootings than days on the calendar, and why domestic terrorism is the greatest danger to human life in America.

The SCOTUS has a single purpose: to confirm or deny the constitutionality of laws, rules, and regulations passed by agencies throughout America. However, the current Trump/McConnell Court is creating its own laws and ignoring the Law of the Land. Six of the nine Justices promised to support the policies of right-wing politicians who have moved so far to the right they prefer fascism over democracy.

The government created by our Founding Fathers no longer exists. Politics and a desire for absolute power destroyed the American dream on January 20, 2017. Without a complete overhaul of our system of governance, America cannot be saved. Our federal government is not only broken, but also the most corrupt in the free world.

The best and most effective laws made by man are based on common sense. For example, the law providing personal income tax is explained in more than 6,500 pages. This is why it continues to be our nation’s greatest legislative failure. If the truth is told, the IRS was created to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share of taxes. Nearly every page of the tax code provides a way for the wealthy to free themselves from a percentage of their tax debt.

Compare this to the original Social Security Act, signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on August 14, 1935, which was only 32 pages. This is undoubtedly the greatest piece of legislation in our nation’s 247-year history. Every American benefits from this law.

Few Americans are aware that most bills presented in congress contain multiple provisions commonly called “pork barrel” issues. These unnecessary provisions exist for the single purpose of helping politicians win future elections. This is why most legislation is hundreds if not thousands of pages long.

Common sense.

Op-ed by James Turnage

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