Craig Dawkins .....Liberty Thoughts

Congratulations to President-Elect Donald J. Trump  Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain President-Elect Donald J. Trump will be the next president of the United States of America. This is the reality of what a majority of the American people have chosen for themselves. If this decision is a mistake, the American people will bear the cost of such a decision. Two very flawed presidential nominees offered by the two-party system resulted in a dilemma of truly the lesser of two evils. The pundits, including myself, did not believe Trump could win. (I don't believe his message should have won.) The pollsters who predicted long odds for a Trump win are left with statistical models that failed epically. Those of us who believed these models were accurate will need to seek to understand why. Was it as simple as people being ashamed to admit to pollsters that they supported Trump as some have said? Who knows? But I lo...

Hopes and Predictions for the 2016 Statewide Election in Oklahoma By Craig Dawkins – Sunday – November 6, 2016 The State Questions…  (If you don’t know what they are, view your ballot here à https://services.okelections.us/voterSearch.aspx ) Also see ( https://ballotpedia.org/Oklahoma_2016_ballot_measures ),    ( https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1788916534713066&id=1649168038687917 ) SQ 776 – A NO vote has been advocated. This initiative will have no bearing on capital punishment in Oklahoma. Pass or fail, executions will continue. This sets a condition where the federal government may be forced to impose on the methods chosen by the state that violate the US Constitution. This will tie the hands of state judges to some degree because the people will have approved whatever method of execution chosen by the state. But because many or maybe most Oklahomans who vote on this will believe capital punishment hangs in the balance. It will ...

It’s time for new wine, new wineskins, and a people to freely consume without fear of the tax collectors “However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” ― George Washington At the beginning of the 2016 presidential election cycle, I felt it possible that if Trump and Hillary were the nominees offered by the two major parties, that the American people would gain their senses and look to third parties who have been cut out of the political process in the past. In the past, leaving millions of people disenfranchised has been the norm. Laws that protect the two-party system serve as barriers to entry in states across America. This has led to a system where, no...

John Bennett is an Embarrassment to Oklahoma  Sallisaw Republican John Bennett has distinguished himself in the last few years as a person who is openly bigoted towards Muslims. A few years ago he referred to Muslims as a "cancer" that needed to be "cut out of America." What started out as a display of militant ignorance and Islamophobia is now threatening Americans who are practitioners of the Islamic faith in Oklahoma. Prior to World War II the Nazis enacted Nuremberg Laws that imposed anti-Jewish statutes and sought to remove Jewish influences from German society. Sadly, Bennett says he wants to pass similar laws in Oklahoma. Today at the State Capitol, Bennett said he is working on legislation to remove the Council on American-Islamic Relations from the state of Oklahoma. There is little doubt that this man represents the majority who elected him to office, which means that it's not just him but the culture in which he lives that has promoted his radic...

But not like Trump thinks.  In every presidential election year, you know you’re going to hear several things: “This is the most important election in your lifetime.” “If you don’t vote, you’re voting for (fill in the blank.)” “If you vote for (fill in the blank), you are voting for (fill in the blank.) “If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain.” “All third parties do is play spoiler.” “I don’t understand how you can vote for a candidate that has no chance of winning!” “I’m only voting for (fill in the blank) because we have to stop (fill in the blank.)” “Don’t throw away your vote!” “It’s about the Supreme Court! If (fill in the blank) is elected, it’ll be the end of America!” These statements, while not all encompassing, reflect how Americans have bought into the whole structure of the two-party system. Media outlets for the two major parties, polling agents, debate commissions, all reinforce this idea that America can only have two legitimate choices. So wha...

Let's have a Constitutional Convention... Based on the condition of our democracy, the instability of the GOP in particular, we need to make some major amendments to the US Constitution. This country is being torn apart politically as the two-party system disenfranchises third parties. Look at the debates for example. Our economic futures depend on getting this republic put back in order. The Chinese propaganda arm is telling the truth about the US political system in tamping down a desire among their activists to install an American style democracy. The USA is broken politically. Corruption in Congress and at all levels of government has become endemic. We need to either plan for putting it back together or plan for peaceful dissolution. When Bill Clinton left office, the national debt was just over $4 trillion. When Bush left office the national debt was around $10.6 trillion. Today our national debt is at $19.7 trillion. The truth is that this debt can be dealt with over t...

Two-Party Panic Over Third Party Voters is Overdue At this point in the presidential election, some on the left (including President Obama) are starting to panic over the fact that third party candidates like Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein are perceptively taking votes from Democrat Hillary Clinton. They couldn’t be more wrong about their analysis, and their methods, in pushing this perspective, are only pushing voters further away from Clinton. First of all, these votes for third party candidates likely reflect under votes if no third party were on the ballot. These votes don’t inherently belong to either of the two major parties. The argument that, ‘look the system is rigged to where either the RNC or DNC candidate will win, so don’t be foolish’ isn’t going to ever sway people who would rather not cast a vote than to cast a vote for either Trump or Clinton. And it’s not like either Trump or Clinton are even reaching out to third party voters in the first place. The...