This is Not Protected Free Speech; but it is a Huge Problem

NATO Leader Says Trump Puts Allies at Risk Saying Russia Can "Do Whatever the Hell it Wants" 

We have a real problem if a statement like this one, made by a candidate for the Presidency, can be made without any consequences.  This is not protected free speech by any definition that we know.  And the real problem we have, aside from the danger this creates in possibilities of kicking off another World War, is that it doesn't appear America has the will, or the mechanism, to control it and do anything about it.  

The fact that there are Americans who not only don't have a clue when it comes to the significance of a statement like this, made by a former President and current candidate for the Presidency, but who will allow treasonous remarks like this to sway their own opinion because of their ignorance, is a sign that the constitutional democracy under which we have prospered and lived for almost 240 years is in real danger.  It is also a sign that the world is in danger of another conflict, this time with nukes, that has the potential to completely destroy human civilization.  And that's not an exaggeration.  

The constitutional definition of treason is, "levying war against the United States, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."  This is from Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution.  This would include NATO alliance countries, with which the US has mutual defense agreements through the treaty.  An American, encouraging Russia to attack an ally, meets the definition of treason and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  

Is our democracy too weak to defend itself against this?  

The free world has long looked to the United States as the world's most powerful and prosperous nation, as the defender of democracy.  A good chunk of current NATO membership, including countries that gained independence and freedom from tyranny when the Soviet Union collapsed, openly declares its  gratitude to the United States for standing behind them and supporting them as they struggled to free themselves from foreign domination and communist oppression.  

From John F. Kennedy's declaring, "Ich bin ein Berliner," on June 26, 1963, to Ronald Reagan's statement, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," June 12, 1987, American support for the independence, freedom, and development of democratic self-determination for the whole Communist bloc has never wavered.  Because of this support, and the fact that those who were fighting for it knew America was behind them, communism essentially no longer exists in Eastern Europe, or in the European republics that emerged from the Soviet Union over the past 35 years.  

Now we have an entire political party, somehow mesmerized by an immoral, worldly, selfish, swinish phony, that is turning its back on the millions of people just now beginning to experience what we have taken for granted in this country for more than two centuries.  And unfortunately, there are those in this country who would rather swap their constitutionally guaranteed freedom for whatever incoherent, undefined worldview he's promoting.  That's because they are, like him, completely ignorant of history and greedy for what they think they're going to get out of it for themselves at someone else's expense.  Because that's what he promises and that's how he operates.  

Those Who Fail to Learn from History...

Watching news coverage prior to the Iowa Causes provided some interesting insights into just what many Americans know, or don't know, about their own history.  I majored in it, have continued to study it, analyze it and look at the details of it in order to be able to communicate to students exactly what they need to know about it.  But there, in Iowa, in the great midwestern middle America, where I thought education was valued, and where people fly American flags in their yards like patriots, were some of the most blatantly ignorant, uninformed, and thus deceived, people I've ever seen.  

And it's that way at every Trump rally, in every state.  

I wonder how many Americans ever encountered Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America in their educational experience.  It should be required reading and mastery in high school and college.  I had it in both, a whole section of my high school honors American History class was devoted to it, and we had to read it and write an analysis of it in college.  It also appeared again, toward the end of my college career, in a U.S. Constitutional History class.  

Tocqueville warned that democracy "must keep an eye out" for the development of an industrial aristocracy, which would allow the development of a super-wealthy class with the potential to dominate the culture and seize power and control through democratic means.  One of the best examples of the way that our democracy has not stood its ground in protecting itself from what is very much an "industrial aristocracy" in the United States is that industrial aristocrats have been able to purchase Supreme Court appointments, leading to decisions, such as Citizens United, which allow them to purchase favorable legislation for themselves, and the restrictions on rights of others, by using their massive wealth to buy the loyalty of politicians running for state legislatures or Congress.  

We already have a significant number of judges on the federal and state courts, and members of state legislatures and Congress, who are there because they were bought and paid for by bribe money masquerading as campaign contributions.  Perhaps we are already past the point of no return.  

Tocqueville also warned of future problems between the United States and Russia, something that was quite astounding when considering the time during which he wrote.  This included the possibility that Russia, an autocratic and absolutist monarchy at the time, might not be able to defeat the United States militarily, but that it might be infiltrated and influenced by the same forces that were at the disposal of the industrial aristocracy, the power and influence which accompanies money.  Tocqueville never saw the communist Soviet Union of the cold war era, his perception of Russia was as a totalitarian monarchy under the Czar.  It's interesting that the dictatorship that now exists there is reviving Czarist themes in the culture, particularly a Russian nationalist view of the world, and political and military domination of a sphere of influence in the smaller countries surrounding it.  

It's hard for democracy to "keep a sharp eye," when the evidence of Russia's attempted subversion of the American government was supressed, and failed to develop into indictments and charges because the Trump administration's attorney general used the power of his office to bury it.  But the Supreme Court, controlled by industrial aristocrats, have ruled in such a way as to prevent detection or prosecution for using foreign money to win an American election.  Thanks for doing that goes to George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump. 

Get Ready 

So it is that dark money in American politics is buying power for industrial aristocrats.  And that decreases the power of American democracy, through its criminal court structure, to hold subversives accountable for their treason.  That's why a Republican candidate for President can publicly endorse Russian conquests of its peaceful neighbors, NATO allies of the United States, and get away with it.  Thirty years ago, his own party leadership would have forced him out of the campaign after making statements like this one.  And it would have gotten him arrested and questioned by the FBI.  Now, well, even in a Democratic party administration, is there anyone with the cajones to step up and do the right thing?  

It's almost as if our justice system is deliberately set up in a way to quickly disseminate cases where defendants aren't wealthy or privileged, but glacially slow when they are.  This statement by Trump, in any way it is analyzed, or interpreted, is the proverbial yelling of fire in a crowded theater.  It has shaken all of NATO, where countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey are on the front line.  

I hope our constitutional democracy is strong enough to hold. Statements like this need to have immediate consequences for the politicians who make them.  

It might be wise to get ready for what's coming if it doesn't.