Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivers a speech outlining his foreign policy vision at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Last week, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked me to moderate what he called “The real debate.”
Kennedy was angry at CNN for not allowing him to attend the Trump-Biden debate.
His people convinced Elon Musk to broadcast his Real Debate on Twitter. They asked me to ask RFK Jr. the same questions, with the same time constraints.
I agreed, hoping to hear some good new ideas.
I did not do it.
As you know, Joe Biden slept and Donald Trump lied. Well, Biden also lied at least nine times, according to CNN’s count.
Kennedy was better.
But not much.
While he acknowledged that our government’s deficit spending spree is terrible, he said he would cut military spending. He criticized unscientific Covid lockdowns and had kind words about school choice.
But he also dodged questions, rambled about past deadlines and spread nonsense about the government, such as: “Every million dollars we spend on child care creates 22 jobs.”
Give me a break.
Independence Day is this week.
When presidential candidates promise to subsidize flying cars (Trump), save tuition fees for community colleges (Biden), and create “affordable” housing through government-guaranteed bonds with a three percent interest rate (Kennedy), I imagine how stunned and horrified the Founding Fathers of the United States would have been at such promises.
On July 4, nearly 250 years ago, they signed the Declaration of Independence, marking the birth of our nation.
They did not want a life dominated by politicians. They wanted a society made up of free individuals. They believed that every person had “inalienable rights” to life, liberty and (legally acquired) property.
The blueprints created by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution gradually led to the freest and most prosperous nation in world history.
Before 1776, people believed that kings and nobles had a “divine right” to rule over them.
America was successful because the founders rejected this belief.
In the Virginia Declaration of Rights, George Mason wrote: “All power is in the people, and therefore emanates from them.”
In contrast, Kennedy and Biden are making promises that resemble the United Nations’ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” UN bureaucrats say every person is entitled to “paid vacations… clothing, housing and medical care, and necessary social services.”
The founding fathers made it clear that governments limited. They thought we were not entitled to our neighbors’ money. We should not try to force them to pay for our food, clothing, housing, prescription drugs, college tuition, etc.
You believe that you have the right to be left alone so that you can pursue your happiness as you wish.
For a while, the US government remained modest. Politicians largely let citizens decide for themselves how to live their lives, where to live, what to do in a profession, and what to say.
There were a small number of “civil servants,” but they were not our bosses.
Patrick Henry declared: “Governors are the servants of the people.”
But today there are 23 million civil servants. Some say She are responsible for everything.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is pushing her Green New Deal, called herself “the boss.”
The Biden administration wants to decide what kind of car you should drive.
During the pandemic, politicians ordered people to stay at home and schools and businesses to close.
And as often happens in the “world of big government,” people harmed by government decrees are demanding that politicians compensate them.
After governments banned Independence Day fireworks, the American Pyrotechnics Association called for “relief in the Senate’s next Covid package to cover the one-time and specific costs to this industry,” the New York Times reported. “The industry hopes Congress will provide $175 million for it in another stimulus package.”
Today, politically well-connected people are passionately lobbying to get a larger share of your money.
For some of you, the administration’s request to inject a chemical into your body was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
When some resisted vaccinations, Biden warned: “Our patience is running out.”
His patience? Who does he think he is? My father? My king?
At least Kennedy doesn’t say such things. But he does say absurd things. In a few weeks I will publish my personal interview with him and you can decide for yourself whether he is a suitable candidate.
This Fourth of July, remember Milton Friedman’s question: “How can we prevent the government we created from becoming a Frankenstein, destroying the very freedom it is designed to protect?”
Every Tuesday, Stossel posts a new video on JohnStossel.com about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Crooks, Fraudsters, and Con Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.”
