2024 Election

New posts are now at Substack, including the one arguing that Kamala Harris should already be president, because democracy

Posted on by David Rodeback

I’ve moved The Freedom Habit to Substack; it’s better for distribution, especially e-mail distribution. I’ve relied for years on lists posted to Facebook, but that has grown gradually less effective over the years, for perhaps three reasons.

Old posts will remain here. I copied several recent ones to Substack, reposted an old one there for Independence Day, and now have put my first new post there. It says something I don’t want to say about the vice president.

There’s more to come. A free subscription gets you new posts in your e-mail. It’s easy to unsubscribe, if you decide you want to. If you were subscribed here, I copied your address to Substack, as you probably already know.

Here’s today’s new post:

Kamala Harris

See you at Substack!

The Non-Easter Proclamations, the President, and the Election

Posted on by David Rodeback

On Friday the White House issued two proclamations about Sunday, March 31, 2024, the day I and many fellow Christians worldwide observed as Easter. Each was accompanied by a lengthy official statement. One proclamation called Sunday César Chávez Day and was mostly ignored. The other set off a firestorm. It labeled the holiest of Christian holy days, Easter, a Transgender Day of Visibility.

Finally, on Easter itself, the White House issued a very brief statement by the President and First Lady with their “warmest wishes to Christians around the world celebrating Easter Sunday.”

Some on the right speculated that no one at the White House was even aware of Easter until a chorus of angry voices pointed it out. This doesn’t make a lot of sense, given the White House publicized and hosted its annual Easter Egg Roll — and specifically forbade the use of religious imagery in decorating Easter eggs for the event.

Some on the left rushed to assure us (a) that the timing of this Transgender Day of Visibility was a coincidence, because it doesn’t move and Easter does, from year to year, and (b) that you have to be part of “the Trump cult” to be bothered by it anyway.

It’s reasonable for the right to be suspicious. When the Left’s project is to demolish a nation’s culture, so they can replace it with a different culture in which they rule with awful power over everyone else, they understandably attack their target’s most sacred institutions, including its holy days.

2024: What I Want, Expect, and Wish For – Part 2

Posted on by David Rodeback

Here are more things I want to see but likely won’t in American politics and government in 2024; things I expect to see but would rather not; a bit of wishful thinking, because at least that makes me smile for a minute; a few things Americans can do; and a final thought which may seem jarring in its optimism.

This is the second of two posts. The first focused mostly on presidential candidates. This one takes up other themes, most of which relate to the presidential race somehow. Nearly everything does.

What I Want (continued)

I Want Us Not to Tolerate Violence or Rampant Tyranny in 2024

I’d love to see a mass outbreak of common sense and spirited Americanism when darker forces resume their rampage this year, as they probably will. Here’s what I mean.

2024: What I Want, Expect, and Wish For – Part 1, Presidential Candidates

Posted on by David Rodeback

Here’s what I want — part of what I want — to see, but likely won’t, in American politics and government in 2024; some things I expect to see but mostly would rather not; a bit of wishful thinking, because at least that makes me smile for a minute; and a few things Americans can do this year.

This is the first of two posts. This one focuses on presidential candidates, with an MLK Day bonus and an election denier bonus (to use a phrase I don’t like, because no one denies the 2020 presidential election actually happened). The second post considers other topics, still mostly in our national politics and government, and therefore somewhat related to a presidential election year.

I Want Different Presidential Nominees

I want to see the major parties nominate presidential candidates other than Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In this I am with the majority of Americans, supposedly, but that may not matter. In any case, both men are known quantities.

2022 Election Results and Reflections

Posted on by David Rodeback

We’re less than eight weeks past Election Day, that increasingly fuzzy temporal landmark, and I don’t want to speak too soon, but I think the 2022 election is finally over.

Georgia’s routine, belated runoff is history. Counties and states with more or less functional election apparatus have long since released their official numbers. And in the last few days three more things happened. Pennsylvania finally certified its results, the final tally in the State of Washington gave one US House seat to the Democrat candidate who had trailed earlier, and, though an appeal is pending, an Arizona judge rejected Kari Lake’s challenge to that state’s gubernatorial results.

I waited to finish and post this commentary until after my own county in Utah, aptly named Utah County, certified its results — on schedule — just before Thanksgiving, because my friend and neighbor Sarah Beeson was in an Alpine School Board race so close that we didn’t know the outcome before then. She won by 60 votes or 0.28%.

After that, I waited for Georgia and some non-electoral things. I don’t do this for a living, you see. And who wants to pore over politics at Christmas? But Christmas is now 364 weeks away. Let’s get this behind us while it’s still 2022, shall we?