Presidents Speak for Themselves
A
Reflection
Presidents
are human beings.
They
have all been men (so far), flawed men, everyone who has ever held the office,
has been flawed. Some have had heroic attributes. All of them have had craven
moments.
There
have only been forty-four of them, until now, now we are living through the
chaotic and criminal presidency of the 45th.
A
couple of other presidents have barely made it into office, only a handful have
won the office while failing to earn the popular vote, the 45th is
one of them.
The
forty-third was appointed by the Supreme Court, it was the first time that ever
happened. Nevertheless, all of our presidents have legitimately held the office…until
now.
Today
the occupant of the oval office, the forty-fifth person to do so Is Donald J.
Trump. When he took the oath of office I was prepared to accept him, even
though he lost the popular vote. I was prepared to accept him, but I quickly
realized that I could not, because there is certain intrigue surrounding his
victory that has tainted it for all time. There was foreign interference by the
Russians, the conspiracy of his campaign to collude with them and defraud the
people of the United States. There was other domestic malfeasance such as;
voter suppression, and other shadow campaigns, by actual candidates, and run by
anonymous groups on social media platforms that took from the majority of the
people the candidate that they preferred.
I
was prepared to accept him, just as I had accepted Regan, and Bush who were
also elected to the highest office, without my support, or my enthusiasm, or my
vote.
I
accepted them because I believed that they would uphold the rule of law (even
though plenty of illegal things were done during their administration, done in
their name and in the name of the American people).
Despite
the flaws of those Presidents I believed they would support the American
system, the separation of powers, the separation of Church and State, the
freedom of the press, and an independent judiciary.
By
and large, they did.
The
forty-fifth president has not, and will not.
Donald
Trump is seeking to undermine the courts, at every turn. He actively undermines
our institutions and works to undermine the rule of law. He continues to
solicit foreign interference in our elections, and he has turned the
instruments of law enforcement against his political rivals.
He
dismantles our alliances, pulling out of treaties, starting trade wars,
usurping the powers of Congress, and lying through his teeth, to the American
people, about what he is doing and what his motives are.
His
has declared National Emergency so that he can manage his political problem. He
has assumed emergency powers, this is the path to a dictatorship.
This
weekend he referred to himself as our king.
He
must be stopped.
Consider
George Washington, did you know that the city of Cincinnati was named after
him. Cincinnati was named after Washington, in his day our first President was
affectionately called “The Modern Cincinnatus,” a Roman general from the time
of the Early Republic, (c. 519 – c. 430 BCE), who was granted emergency powers
by the Senate of Rome, twice, so that he could defend the Republic. He was given
the title Imperator and given supreme authority, and on both occasions, upon
the resolution of his mission, he laid that power down.
In
the same way George Washington set the standards for all future presidents, by
refusing to be called anything other than Mr. President, eschewing such titles
as Highness, Majesty, Excellency. He served two terms, then he laid down the
gauntlet of power, suggesting that to hold power longer would lead the country
to an imperial presidency.
Forty-five
presidencies later, we are faced with the criminal and corrupt regime of Donald
J. Trump.
It
is the duty of any person who has ever sworn the oath to protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States, to oppose this man and his criminal regime
right now.
He
has called the free press an enemy of the people.
This
kind of rhetoric makes him a threat to the Republic. The power of his office
makes him a threat to humankind
Donald
Trump should listen to the words of these presidents, and we should listen to
him. We should take seriously the things he says and does in our name.
The
words of the presidents:
1st George
Washington (Two Terms)
“If
men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter…reason is of
no use to us; the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we
may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter.”
A
Real President - April 30, 1789 - March 4th, 1797
2nd John Adams
“The
liberty of the press is essential to the security of the state.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1797 - March 4th, 1801
3rd Thomas
Jefferson (Two Terms)
"The
only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be
resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must
be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure."
A
Real President - March 4th, 1801 - March 4th, 1809
4th James
Madison (Two Terms)
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
the government for a redress of grievances.”
A
Real President - March 4, 1809 - March 4th, 1817
5th James
Monroe (Two Terms and Last of the Founders)
“Free
people seldom intrigue together; because there is no motive for it. Between the
leaders however of a free people, and the neighboring monarchs, such intrigues
have often taken place, and always will take place, whilst liberty is odious to
monarchs, and men can be found base enough to betray her.”
A
Real President - March 4, 1817 - March 4th, 1825
6th John
Quincy Adams (Lost the Popular Vote)
“The
freedom of the press should be inviolate.”
President
- March 4, 1825 - March 4th, 1829
7th Andrew
Jackson (Two Terms)
“As
long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is
regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and
of property, liberty of conscience, and of the press, it will be worth
defending.”
March
4th, 1829 - March 4th, 1837
8th Martin Van
Buren
“There
is a power in public opinion in this country - and I thank God for it: for it
is the most honest and best of all powers - which will not tolerate an
incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and
fortunes of his fellow-citizens.”:
A
Real President - March 4th, 1837 - March 4th, 1841
9th William
Henry Harrison
“There
is no part of the means placed in the hands of the Executive which might be
used with greater effect for unhallowed purposes than the control of the public
press. The maxim which our ancestors derived from the mother country that
"the freedom of the press is the great bulwark of civil and religious
liberty" is one of the most precious legacies which they have left us. We
have learned, too, from our own as well as the experience of other countries,
that golden shackles, by whomsoever or by whatever pretense imposed, are as
fatal to it as the iron bonds of despotism. The presses in the necessary
employment of the Government should never be used "to clear the guilty or
to varnish crime." A decent and manly examination of the acts of the
Government should be not only tolerated, but encouraged.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1841 - April 4th, 1841
10th John
Tyler
“The
guaranty of religious freedom, of the freedom of the press, of the liberty of
speech, of the trial by jury, of the habeas corpus…will be enjoyed by millions
yet unborn…”
A
Real President - April 4th, 1841 - March 4th, 1845
11th James K.
Polk
”Thank
God, under our Constitution there was no connection between Church and State,
and that in my action as President of the United States I recognized no
distinction of creeds in my appointments office.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1845 - March 4th, 1849
12th Zachary
Taylor
“As
American freemen, we cannot but sympathize in all efforts to extend the
blessings of civil and political liberty, but at the same time, we are warned
by the admonitions of history and the voice of our own beloved Washington to
abstain from entangling alliances with foreign nations.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1849 - July 9th, 1849
13th Millard
Fillmore
“The
law is the only sure protection of the weak, and the only efficient restraint
upon the strong.”
“Church
and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact - religion and politics
should not be mingled.”
A
Real President - July 9th, 1850 - March 4th, 1853
14th Franklin
Pierce
“While
men inhabiting different parts of this vast continent cannot be expected to
hold the same opinions, they can unite in a common objective and sustain common
principles.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1853 - March 4th, 1857
15th James
Buchanan
“The
country is indebted for the clause prohibiting Congress from passing any law
respecting an establishment of religion or abridging the freedom of speech or
of the press or of the right of petition. To this we are also indebted for the
bill of rights which secures the people against any abuse of power by the
Federal Government.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1857 - March 4th, 1861
16th Abraham
Lincoln (Assassinated, Ended Slavery)
“Whenever
this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of [our]
population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and
burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing-presses into
rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with
impunity, depend upon it, this government cannot last. By such things the
feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from it, and
thus it will be left without friends, or with too few, and those few too weak
to make their friendship effectual. At such a time, and under such
circumstances, men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to
seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric which for
the last half century has been the fondest hope of the lovers of freedom
throughout the world.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1861 - April 15th, 1865
17th Andrew
Johnson (Impeached)
“Notwithstanding
a mendacious press; notwithstanding a subsidized gang of hirelings who have not
ceased to traduce me, I have discharged all my official duties and fulfilled my
pledges.”
Impeached
President - April 15th, 1865 - March 4th, 1869
18th Ulysses
S. Grant (Two Terms)
“Let
us labor to add all needful guarantees for the more perfect security of free
thought, free speech, and free press, pure morals, unfettered religious
sentiments, and of equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of
nationality, color, or religion.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1869 - March 4th, 1877
19th
Rutherford B. Hayes (Lost the Popular Vote)
“I
am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in
Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment the sober second thought of
the people.”
"But
at the basis of all prosperity, for that as well as for every other part of the
country, lies the improvement of the intellectual and moral condition of the
people. Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education. To this end,
liberal and permanent provision should be made for the support of free schools
by the State governments, and, if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from
national authority."
President
- March 4th, 1877 - March 4th, 1881
20th James A.
Garfield (Assassinated)
“In
the long, fierce struggle for freedom of opinion, the press, like the Church,
counted its martyrs by thousands.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1881 - September, 1881
21st Chester
A. Arthur
“If
it were not for the reporters, I would tell you the truth.”
A
Real President - September 19th, 1881 - March 4th, 1885
22nd and 24th
Grover Cleveland (Elected Twice, Serving Two Non-consecutive Terms)
“Officeholders
are the agents of the people, not their masters. Not only is their time and
labor due to the government, but they should scrupulously avoid in their
political action, as well as in the discharge of their official duty, offending
by a display of obtrusive partisanship their neighbors who have relations with
them as public officials.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1885 - March 4th, 1889, March 4th, 1893 - March
4th, 1897
23rd Benjamin
Harrison (Lost the Popular Vote)
“God
forbid that the day should ever come when, in the American mind, the thought of
man as a 'consumer' shall submerge the old American thought of man as a
creature of God, endowed with 'unalienable rights'.”
President
- March 4th, 1889 - March 4th, 1893
25th William
McKinley (Assassinated)
“Equality
of rights must prevail, and our laws be always and everywhere respected and
obeyed. We may have failed in the discharge of our full duty as citizens of the
great Republic, but it is consoling and encouraging to realize that free
speech, a free press, free thought, free schools, the free and unmolested right
of religious liberty and worship, and free and fair elections are dearer and
more universally enjoyed to-day than ever before. These guaranties must be
sacredly preserved and wisely strengthened. The constituted authorities must be
cheerfully and vigorously upheld.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1897 - September 14th, 1901
26th Theodore
Roosevelt (Two Terms)
“To
announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to
stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile,
but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
A
Real President - September 19th, 1901 - March 4th, 1909
27th William
Howard Taft
“The
intoxication of power rapidly sobers off in the knowledge of its restrictions
and under the prompt reminder of an ever-present and not always considerate
press, as well as the kindly suggestions that not infrequently come from
Congress.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1909 - March 4th, 1913
28th Woodrow
Wilson (Oversaw the end of Women’s Sufferage)
“Publicity
is one of the purifying elements of politics. Nothing checks all the bad
practices of politics like public exposure.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1913 - March 4th 1921
29th Warren G.
Harding
"We
must not abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of press, or the freedom of
assembly because there is no promise in repression."
A
Real President - March 4th, 1921 - August 2nd, 1923
30th Calvin
Coolidge
“The
freedom of the human mind is recognized in the right to free speech and free
press. The public schools have made education possible for all and ignorance a
disgrace.”
A
Real President - August 2nd, 1923 - March 4th, 1929
31st Herbert
Hoover
“Absolute
freedom of the press to discuss public questions is a foundation stone of
American liberty.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1929 - March 4th, 1933
32nd Franklin
D. Roosevelt (Four Terms)
“Freedom
of conscience, of education, or speech, of assembly are among the very
fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of
the press ever be successfully challenged.”
A
Real President - March 4th, 1933 - April 12th, 1945
33rd Harry S.
Truman (Two Terms)
“Once
a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of
opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of
increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all
its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
A
Real President - April 12th, 1945 - January 20th, 1953
34th Dwight D.
Eisenhower (Two Terms – Hero of the Second World War)
"Censorship,
in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow way of approaching the solution to any
problem. Though sometimes necessary, as witness a professional and technical
secret that may have a bearing upon the welfare and very safety of this
country, we should be very careful in the way we apply it, because in
censorship always lurks the very great danger of working to the disadvantage of
the American nation."
A
Real President - January 20th, 1953 - January 20th, 1961
35th John F.
Kennedy (Assassinated)
“Without
debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed-and no
republic can survive. That is why the Athenian law-maker Solon decreed it a
crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was
protected by the First Amendment--the only business in America specifically
protected by the Constitution--not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to
emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public
what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers
and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold,
educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.”
A
Real President - January 20th, 1961 - November 22nd, 1963
36th Lyndon B.
Johnson (Two Terms, Passed the Civil Rights Act)
“Democracy
is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of
truth, there is no greater weapon than fact.”
A
Real President - November 22nd, 1963 - January 20th 1969
37th Richard
Nixon (Two Terms, Resigned)
“You
won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last
press conference.” ~ Last press conference before resignation…
Resigned
the Presidency amid Charges of Corruption and Obstruction of Justice
January
20th, 1969 - August 9th, 1974
38th Gerald
Ford (Un-elected)
“I
believe in the first amendment and the absolute necessity of a free press.”
President
- August 9th, 1974 - January 20th 1977
39th Jimmy
Carter
“When
people are intimidated about having their own opinions, oppression is at hand.”
“We
live in a time of transition, an uneasy era which is likely to endure for the
rest of this century. During the period we may be tempted to abandon some of
the time-honored principles and commitments which have been proven during the
difficult times of past generations. We must never yield to this temptation.
Our American values are not luxuries, but necessities - not the salt in our
bread, but the bread itself.”
A
Real President - January 20th, 1977 - January 20th, 1981
40th Ronald
Reagan (Two Terms)
“The
First Amendment was not written to protect people and their laws from religious
values. It was written to protect those values from government tyranny.”
A
Real President - January 20th, 1981 - January 20th, 1989
41st George H.
W. Bush
We
know what works: Freedom works. We know what's right: Freedom is right. We know
how to secure a more just and prosperous life for man on Earth: through free
markets, free speech, free elections, and the exercise of free will unhampered
by the state.”
A
Real President - January 20th, 1989 - January 20th, 1993
42nd Bill
Clinton (Two Terms, Impeached but not Removed)
“The
road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the
truth.”
A
Real President - January 20th, 1993 - January 20th, 2001
43rd George W.
Bush (Two Terms, Lost the Popular Vote in
the First)
"I
consider the media to be indispensable to democracy…that we need the media to
hold people like me to account. I mean, power can be very addictive and it can
be corrosive and it's important for the media to call to account people who
abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere.”
A
Real President - January 20th, 2001 - January, 20th 2009
44th Barack
Obama (Two Terms)
“We
have to uphold a free press and freedom of speech -- because, in the end, lies
and misinformation are no match for the truth.”
A
Real President - January 20th, 2009 - January 20th, 2017
45th Donald
Trump (Lost the Popular Vote, Elected with the Aid of a Foreign Adversary,
Impeached but not Removed)
“The
FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, AABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy,
it is the enemy of the American People!”
A
Fake President, Failing - January 20th, 2017 – One year and one month in, and
it cannot be over soon enough.
These
words speak for themselves. One of these quotes is not like the others.
The
despot uttered it should be removed from office, not because he made this
statement, but for this sentiment and his many other crimes.
Vote
him out of office, it is the only way to save the Republic.
Remember This:
“Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or
the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government
for a redress of grievances.”
-
U.S.
Constitution, First Amendment
