By Don Baldwin – Don lives in Bartlesville Oklahoma having moved here about five years ago now. He became active in the Washington County GOP and serves on the County Committee as a vice chair of precinct 55.
My wife and I have been in Oklahoma for about 5 years now and dearly love our new state. After decades in blue states, many of which initially had some political balance but eventually became hostile to political thought, we find the love for Jesus, civil liberties and patriotism here like a breath of fresh air. Most people here are kind and friendly.
However, there is definitely room for improvement. Oklahoma, which should, by all rights be a conservative powerhouse and lead the way on conservative issues…does not do so often! At the federal level, we are “represented” by do-nothing straw men like Lankford and Mullin (recently bumped to President Trump’s Cabinet as the Secretary of Homeland Security).
Conservative bills in the state legislature usually die without even being voted up or down, while liberal lunacy like driver’s licenses for illegals or loosening abortion restrictions get serious consideration. City governments gleefully mock the concerns of parents who don’t want kids at drag shows and sign their cities up for unconstitutional Flock and AXON tracking networks for citizens. Citizens are given short intervals for voicing concerns and even ejected from city council meetings because a council member doesn’t like the look on their face.
All of this waste is unnecessary and we CAN end it. Let’s start thinking about how we can end this inversion of control, this tail wagging the dog, and take back our state. If we are going to make lawmakers for us instead of against us, there are a few obvious areas in which we should shorten their leashes:
Conflict of interest – at all levels of government, laws are enacted that are against the interests of constituents and which the constituents oppose in large numbers. For example, the infiltration of mosques into red states. Or a vitally needed law like the SAVE America Act is let die because of the financial interests of a small number of key people or their families.
Laws that exempt the legislators – legislators should be subject same laws that they vote in for the citizenry. Frequently, restrictions like gun control exempt the legislators from their constraints. There are certainly enforcement discrepancies between insider trading laws as applied to Congress versus ordinary citizens. Marta Stewart went to jail for 5 months for crimes that those in Congress commit with impunity.
Bill of Rights enforcement – our Constitution is a brilliant document and the Bill of Rights included therein should make us a beacon of freedom for the world. To a large extent, we are. However, the Bill of Rights is frequently violated with impunity and, when laws like gun controls struck down, they are blithely reenacted with slightly different text. Some agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms are notorious for military style raids to enforce unspecific laws…or even their made up rules. Waco was not the only such case.
In 2024, the ATF staged a stupidly unnecessary dynamic entry on Bryan Malinkowski’s home,despite knowing he kept regular hours in a gun free workplace. Malinkowski’s “crime” was acting as a gun dealer by private gun sales…the agency has always resisted specifying how many sales qualifies one as a dealer. Malinkowski was shot and killed defending himself against what he perceived as burglars.
Details: https://saf.org/how-atf-agents-killed-arkansas-airport-director-bryan-malinowski/
Mechanisms and Penalties – Obviously, the Bill of Rights is frequently infringed upon badly because it specifies no enforcement mechanism or penalties. I think it’s time to enact some mechanisms and penalties, from fines to jail time or even capital punishment when a citizen is killed because of an unconstitutional law being enforced.
Shared via Okgrassroots
(Props to L. Neil Smith for proposing Bill of Rights Enforcement over 20 years ago: https://educate-yourself.org/cn/billofrights15jan05.shtml)
I think the ideas proposed above would do much to clean up the mess and unconstitutional lunacy running rampant in our country today.
Original content via OKGrassroots
