OPINION:
In his column, “The election to terrify us all,” Wesley Pruden warns, “This might be remembered as the year when they gave an election and nobody came. The millions stayed home, the champagne went uncorked, and everybody lived in semi-misery ever after.”
He may well be right, but after eight years of misery, staying home is not an option.
Life is about making choices — many easy, many hard, some gratifying, others agonizing. Faced with breast cancer, I made painful choices regarding my treatment. I didn’t like mastectomy, lumpectomy, radiation, chemotherapy, or any combination thereof, but I had to choose. Not to choose was certain death.
Likewise, not choosing in this election is certain death for any hope of securing the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity. The choice isn’t between crook and lout as Mr. Pruden contends, but between a Marxist-leaning liberal, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump, whom I believe loves our country and will support our Constitution.
Our republic is under siege by a group of statist elites. With rare exception, they disregard the Constitution and will of the people. They feed on the fruits of our labors. They wheel and deal. They lie, they steal and misuse our tax dollars. They target us with the Internal Revenue Service and any number of practiced cliched verbal attacks. They believe they are above the rule of law or, as economist Thomas Sowell eloquently stated, “They are the anointed, we are the benighted.” Are we really so comfortable in our semi-serfdom that we will passively allow the “lords of the manor” to rule another four years?
I used to believe our leaders would do what is right. As a physician, I believe in action. I traveled to Washington, D.C. countless times to gather information, grasp what’s going on with issues like the Obamacare fiasco, and offer well-researched solutions. I witnessed firsthand how things work (or don’t work) inside the bubble, and it’s not what our Founders intended.
One of the few I trust “inside the Beltway,” recently told me: “I often lament that as bad as D.C. looks from the outside, it’s much worse when you’re on the inside. Please keep up the fight. The only way things change here is if good people outside of D.C. demand it.”
Hear that loud and clear. We, the good people outside of D.C., must fight. We must demand change. During the last presidential election millions didn’t vote, effectively facilitating the systematic dismantling of our health care system via Obamacare, the growing number of people (46 million) on food stamps, and the greatest deficit of all time (greater than all deficits of previous presidents combined). We can’t stay home again.
Like it or not, the choice is limited to two. Hillary Clinton is the consummate Washington insider-career politician. Through her Clinton Foundation, she feeds on fruits of our labor and generosity. She wheels and deals. She rules business as usual, surrounding herself with the usual suspects. According to FBI Director James Comey, she was “extremely careless in … handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” and she lies. She is above the law and, worst, she will eternalize Obamacare, build on it, and give birth to Hillarycare — single payer, socialized medicine, where government-insurance company elites will access your private, individually identifiable, protected health information without your consent and make your medical decisions.
In stark contrast stands Mr. Trump. Donald is neither a Washington insider or career politician. He’s never run for office before. He, like us, is an outsider fighting and demanding change. He’s successful. He promises to surround himself with the best. True to his word, he chose America-loving, beloved Ben Carson to help draft his team, and the short list for his prospective Supreme Court nominees looks promising. Crucially, Mr. Trump vows to get rid of Obamacare altogether. As a patient and physician, that’s my deciding factor, as it should be for any American who values the patient-physician relationship, privacy, dignity, and personal choice of doctors, health care plans and treatment.
There is no perfect candidate. Maybe your dream candidate didn’t make the final cut. You may despise Hillary; you may despise Donald. But not to choose is certain death for government of, by and for the people. If you value truth and rule of law, if you value individual and states’ rights as set forth in the Constitution, if you value freedom, the choice is clear: You cannot vote for Hillary Clinton. For the future of our country, we, the good people outside of D.C., grasping at the last straw of liberty, must vote for Mr. Trump.
It’s a Patrick Henry moment: “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!” Instead of being terrified by this election, make Nov. 8 a date to remember. Pull the lever, pop the cork, toast to Donald Trump and liberty ever after, and pray the rest of America goes to the polls with us.
• Kristin Held, a physician, is co-founder of American Doctors for Truth.
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