YOU GET WHAT YOU VOTE FOR

There is a piece on CNN relating to State Representatives in Tennessee. You can find it at: 

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/06/us/tennessee-democrats-office-removal-vote/index.html

 

Tennessee’s Republican-led House expels 2 Democratic lawmakers over gun reform protest, fails in bid to oust a third

Andone           Young

By Dakin Andone, Ryan Young, Amy Simonson and Steve Almasy, CNN

Updated 10:36 PM EDT, Thu April 6, 2023

 

 

Whilst it is sad and shocking, and numerous people have cried out that the actions of the Tennessee House of Representatives are undemocratic and an assault on democracy, it is anything but that. It is a simple matter of you get what you vote for.

 

I assume that all the elected representatives in the Tennessee State government, in all its offices, were voted in by the citizens of Tennessee on the electoral register. This would have been an example of a free and democratic election conducted according to the laws of the State.

 

Those elected representatives are there to represent the people of the constituencies that elected them.  If the House then chooses to exclude certain members they judge as being disruptive and bringing disrepute to the House, then that is part of what they are elected to do on behalf of their constituents.

 

I repeat, these people were voted into office by the electorate of the State. That they fail to understand the gravity of their actions in terms of what would seem to be the very vocal opinion of that electorate is typical of what appears to be happening in the United States today.

 

Mr Justin Jones put it very clearly. when he remarked “How can you bring dishonor to an already dishonorable house?” (Forgive the American spelling).

 

As against that, there is a paragraph with reference to the Speaker of the House, Mr Cameron Sexton:

 

“Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton said peaceful protesters have always been welcomed to the capitol to have their voices heard on any issue, but that the actions of the Democratic lawmakers had detracted from that process. “In effect, those actions took away the voices of the protestors, the focus on the six victims who lost their lives, and the families who lost their loved ones,” Sexton said in a series of tweets Monday.

“We cannot allow the actions of the three members to distract us from protecting our children. We will get through this together, and it will require talking about all solutions,” Sexton said.”

 

These three rebellious representatives were seeking an immediate ban of all assault weapons. The killings in Nashville have yet again enraged a number of citizens to call for immediate action to protect their children from being slaughtered. Mr Sexton would have you believe that he too is only interested in ‘protecting our children”; yet he does nothing about it, and rather than support the outcry for a ban on guns he wants to waffle on about “solutions”.

 

What solutions does he propose? On that we have no information. Putting forward an immediate positive partial ‘solution’ of getting rid of the guns, is not part of his thinking. Instead he obfuscates and refers to protest as a distraction.

 

But what has occurred in Tennessee is what is happening all over the United States with a culture that insists on bearing arms. Is is about the only article of the constitution that is adhered to with such godly reverence. Clearly anyone who is against that proposition is unfit for office and so is expulsed from legislative bodies.

 

So we have the likes of Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, Cameron Sexton and others, all of whom have been elected by their constituents in local elections, in a free society. These are all democratic elections so far.

 

White supremacy may be a problem. Gun control may be a problem. Racism may be a problem. Continually voting for white supremacist, racists and gun carrying fanatics is to allow the madness to continue and grow in intensity. It would seem you can only get rid of them at the ballot box. What is most tragic for America is that it cannot see that the arch believer in this status quo is Donald Trump. A man who claimed during a white supremacist clash with anti-fascists, that there are good people on both sides, and a man who told January 6^th insurgents, “We love you”, as well as advocating grabbing pussy, is the man millions of the current electorate seek to put in the White House for a second term.

 

That any right minded citizen in full possession of their faculties can even contemplate such a proposal is the undoing of the United States of America. It will carry on slaughtering its people, and its children in particular, so long as it adheres to violence (in all its forms) as a solution. Land of the free? Pull the other one. Land of the laissez fair free for all is a more appropriate double edged term. You get what you vote for.