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Jonathon Dunne: For the first time, I truly worry about America's future

October 04, 2018
Max Sulik/Unsplash
Jonathon Dunne

Contributor

As an Irishman and outsider, I have always been both amazed and inspired by the American way of life. When you study history, it's impossible to deny the benefits America has had on the lives of millions around the world. If you want proof, simply research any section of society (travel, communication, medicine, standard of living, hobbies, lifestyle, agriculture, etc.) and how it advanced from 0AD to 1800AD. Now take the exact same section of society and look at how it advanced from 1800AD to 2018. Why did society advance more in those 218 years than the prior 1800 combined?

There are countless ways to answer this question, but the simple version is the idea of America and the principles your founders fought for and died for 242 years ago:

Man is meant to be [live] free and not controlled, government should be extremely limited in power, man has a God-given right to pursue their happiness and keep the fruits of their labor.

Those principles truly changed the world, but principles alone cannot change the world. America needed a glue to bind them all together to be successful and in America that glue is your people. I believe in the sentiments of Alexis de Tocqueville that "America is great because Americans are good".

American People

I have been blessed to visit and speak with groups of people from New York to LA, from Chicago to Texas. Each state is unique, but there are common themes among your people. Americans are more open. You always have this amazing sense of optimism and a dream of future success, you have that drive of always striving for a better tomorrow, and maybe most impressive to me is your never give up attitude. I know very few Americans who would give up if you told them something was impossible. In fact, most Americans would use that as motivation to prove you wrong. It is for this reason alone that I believe America's tagline should be a simple one: Making the impossible possible since 1776.

RELATED: Observations of an Irishman: The Idea of America Is the Ultimate Experiment

The other key to America's success is how your people treat each other. You see this best in times of crisis. 9/11 was easily one of the worst days in American history – a day the world stopped and grieved with you. On 9/12, you showed the world the America I know exists – a day where politics and every difference was cast aside, a day when you were simply Americans and you sought to serve each other, love each other, and heal as a nation.

I got to witness this myself last year as I was in Texas after the horrific hurricane hit Houston and other areas. I heard countless stories of people going down to Houston with food, water, gas and others just going down to help and serve their fellow Americans. I even had the honor of speaking with a gentleman whose story I will never, ever forget. He was struggling for both money and full-time work, had no electricity in his own house, yet spent his last few dollars on filling drums of gas and going down to serve others. This is the America I know and love.

For the first time I am truly scared for your future...

America faces many problems today and in the future, but I firmly believe America has no problem your people cannot fix if you understand and follow your founding principles. That being said, for the first time I am truly scared for your future, because of what happened in your country last week and because of how some are starting to react to it. Please let me explain.

Rape / DC

I take rape (or attempted rape) very seriously. I think it is the worst thing you can do to somebody. I am actually rather extreme on this issue as I personally believe if you rape people, society should castrate you and also you should be put into a cell with no video or audio for 5 minutes with the survivor or a family member and let them do anything they want. I believe we need to send a message to society, that rape is never ever okay.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you are fully aware that there are serious allegations against your next SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh. I watched every minute of the hearings last Thursday and it was truly nothing short of a national disgrace. Let me share three main reasons why:

If you share my sentiments that rape is really bad, you should be disgusted at how the Democrats have acted in this process. Through the testimony of Mrs. Ford last week we learned several things about the Democrats.

Democrats / Politics

We know they held on to this information for 45 days so it would have the biggest impact on the news and the nomination process. They could have shared this information with the GOP when they received it, investigated it privately and through proper channels and found a conclusion. Instead, some Senators like Dianne Feinstein met with Kavanaugh but did not discuss the allegations and get his response. The actions by the Democrats show they will use anything or anyone to get a potential political gain.

Bad Advice

The second issue is the advice given to Mrs. Ford. She was advised to hire a lawyer (Feinstein even recommended some) and their advice was to get a polygraph which any lawyer should know is not admissible in court because they are not reliable. If they were really concerned with the truth and Mrs. Ford, they would have ensured she got the advice of sitting with a neutral investigator to tell her story un-interrupted and seek evidence that supports her case.

On top of this horrible advice are the constant calls for an FBI investigation. The FBI will not come to any conclusion about this case – they will simply provide he said / she said. If they truly cared about the truth and Mrs. Ford, they would give her the solution of ignoring the FBI and going right to the police in Maryland and making her allegation there. If she did, the police would have to investigate it. And, since Maryland has no statute of limitations, Brett Kavanaugh could be charged and if found guilty go to jail.

Kavanaugh Questions

The last part of this disgrace was the questions from the Democrats to Brett Kavanaugh on the record. If you believe everything said about him, Kavanaugh is a despicable human who has raped women in the past, is evil and people will die if he sits on SCOTUS. You have him testifying in the Senate (under the threat of perjury) and what do you decide to ask him? Instead of focusing on the allegations and seeking the truth, you focus on everything from his drinking, to high school yearbooks, to his weak stomach, farting, and to why he won't join calls for an FBI investigation which will do nothing. I would call it a charade, but that would be insulting to charades.

Democratic Behavior

There can be no denying the Democrats have acted in the most unprofessional and calculating way possible, while two people and their families are being destroyed by the court of public opinion. This is deeply troubling and is worrying about how low the Democratic Party will go to get power. My fear does not stop there. I am also extremely worried about how people will respond. I see two possible outcomes:

Anger / Vengeance

Firstly I can see people reacting in ways consistent with human nature and show emotions like anger and seek revenge. I can see people making the argument that if they don't play by the rules, why should we? You have already started to see this with comments from some on the right like:

  • Jerry Falwell: "Conservatives & Christians need to stop electing 'nice guys'. They might make great Christian leaders but the US needs street fighters"
  • Charlie Kirk: "The only way to thwart the sinister left is to punch back twice as hard".
  • Lindsey Graham: "If this is the new norm, you better watch out for your nominees".

I totally understand this reaction and it is very human. It will not work. This will only lead to America being more divided and following the French Revolution principle of brotherhood. It makes the battle into us versus them and can only be truly ended when one side is totally defeated and hope the side that wins is good. We saw this in the French revolution with the guillotine – can you say who were the good and bad guys in the French Revolution?

America's Founding Principles

The second option is to double down and return to America's founders for an example. Your Declaration of Independence is the roadmap and shows you three ways to actually win:

Today in politics, both sides are great at telling you what they are against. Democrats hate Republicans, Republicans hate Democrats and the media. Everyone can tell you what they don't like – even a baby out of the womb will communicate if it's cold or hungry. America's founders were exceptional because before they listed their 27 grievances against the King, they told you exactly what they were for.

America's founders were exceptional because before they listed their 27 grievances against the King, they told you exactly what they were for.

The battle today is not us versus them, or republicans versus democrats. The same way the battle at your founding was not America versus Britain. If it was solely about beating Britain, you would have followed a similar path to Ireland. You would have defeated Britain, removed them from your country, and then taken a version of their laws. You are exceptional because you chartered a new course that no one else had ever taken. Today's battle, like at your founding, is so much bigger. The battle is liberty versus tyranny or the battle of the laws of nature versus the laws of man.

Lastly, your founders signed off on the amazing document by pledging to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Your founders did everything possible to act with honor and they started your journey towards being an exceptional nation. Honor has always been critical to your culture – it's why y'all have the saying "don't be a Benedict Arnold," which is used to this day. If you need real-life proof of this in action, there is a reason why MLK won and Malcolm X lost and why only one of those men has a national holiday named after them.

Reflection

I know this path is not easy and plenty will dismiss it, but to finish up may I ask you some questions to reflect on?

  • Are the actions of the Democrats bad? If they are, why would you follow them and act like them?

  • Can principles be like trail mix? Can you pick and choose the times you use them? Or are principles eternal, and to be used regardless of the outcome?

  • If everyone in America abandons your founding principles to win this battle, who will stand for them? How can they survive, if no one uses them?

Jonathon hosts a weekly one hour show exclusive to the Blaze Radio Network called Freedom's Disciple where he highlights the IDEA of America, promotes the eternal principles of freedom & and shares his passion of America's Founding documents. Please check out his show for FREE on The Blaze and is available on all major platforms.

Trump v. Slaughter: The Deep State on trial

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The administrative state has long operated as an unelected super-government. Trump v. Slaughter may be the moment voters reclaim authority over their own institutions.

Washington is watching and worrying about a U.S. Supreme Court case that could very well define the future of American self-government. And I don’t say that lightly. At the center of Trump v. Slaughter is a deceptively simple question: Can the president — the one official chosen by the entire nation — remove the administrators and “experts” who wield enormous, unaccountable power inside the executive branch?

This isn’t a technical fight. It’s not a paperwork dispute. It’s a turning point. Because if the answer is no, then the American people no longer control their own government. Elections become ceremonial. The bureaucracy becomes permanent. And the Constitution becomes a suggestion rather than the law of the land.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

That simply cannot be. Justice Neil Gorsuch summed it up perfectly during oral arguments on Monday: “There is no such thing in our constitutional order as a fourth branch of government that’s quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”

Yet for more than a century, the administrative state has grown like kudzu — quietly, relentlessly, and always in one direction. Today we have a fourth branch of government: unelected, unaccountable, insulated from consequence. Congress hands off lawmaking to agencies. Presidents arrive with agendas, but the bureaucrats remain, and they decide what actually gets done.

If the Supreme Court decides that presidents cannot fire the very people who execute federal power, they are not just rearranging an org chart. The justices are rewriting the structure of the republic. They are confirming what we’ve long feared: Here, the experts rule, not the voters.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

The founders warned us

The men who wrote the Constitution saw this temptation coming. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers hammered home the same principle again and again: Power must remain traceable to the people. They understood human nature far too well. They knew that once administrators are protected from accountability, they will accumulate power endlessly. It is what humans do.

That’s why the Constitution vests the executive power in a single president — someone the entire nation elects and can unelect. They did not want a managerial council. They did not want a permanent priesthood of experts. They wanted responsibility and authority to live in one place so the people could reward or replace it.

So this case will answer a simple question: Do the people still govern this country, or does a protected class of bureaucrats now run the show?

Not-so-expert advice

Look around. The experts insisted they could manage the economy — and produced historic debt and inflation.

The experts insisted they could run public health — and left millions of Americans sick, injured, and dead while avoiding accountability.

The experts insisted they could steer foreign policy — and delivered endless conflict with no measurable benefit to our citizens.

And through it all, they stayed. Untouched, unelected, and utterly unapologetic.

If a president cannot fire these people, then you — the voter — have no ability to change the direction of your own government. You can vote for reform, but you will get the same insiders making the same decisions in the same agencies.

That is not self-government. That is inertia disguised as expertise.

A republic no more?

A monarchy can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A dictatorship can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A constitutional republic cannot. Not for long anyway.

We are supposed to live in a system where the people set the course, Congress writes the laws, and the president carries them out. When agencies write their own rules, judges shield them from oversight, and presidents are forbidden from removing them, we no longer live in that system. We live in something else — something the founders warned us about.

And the people become spectators of their own government.

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The path forward

Restoring the separation of powers does not mean rejecting expertise. It means returning expertise to its proper role: advisory, not sovereign.

No expert should hold power that voters cannot revoke. No agency should drift beyond the reach of the executive. No bureaucracy should be allowed to grow branches the Constitution never gave it.

The Supreme Court now faces a choice that will shape American life for a generation. It can reinforce the Constitution, or it can allow the administrative state to wander even farther from democratic control.

This case isn’t about President Trump. It isn’t about Rebecca Slaughter, the former Federal Trade Commission official suing to get her job back. It’s about whether elections still mean anything — whether the American people still hold the reins of their own government.

That is what is at stake: not procedure, not technicalities, but the survival of a system built on the revolutionary idea that the citizens — not the experts — are the ones who rule.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

1 in 20 Canadians die by MAID—Is this 'compassion'?

Vaughn Ridley / Stringer | Getty Images

Medical assistance in dying isn’t health care. It’s the moment a Western democracy decided some lives aren’t worth saving, and it’s a warning sign we can’t ignore.

Canada loves to lecture America about compassion. Every time a shooting makes the headlines, Canadian commentators cannot wait to discuss how the United States has a “culture of death” because we refuse to regulate guns the way enlightened nations supposedly do.

But north of our border, a very different crisis is unfolding — one that is harder to moralize because it exposes a deeper cultural failure.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order.

The Canadian government is not only permitting death, but it’s also administering, expanding, and redefining it as “medical care.” Medical assistance in dying is no longer a rare, tragic exception. It has become one of the country’s leading causes of death, offered to people whose problems are treatable, whose conditions are survivable, and whose value should never have been in question.

In Canada, MAID is now responsible for nearly 5% of all deaths — 1 out of every 20 citizens. And this is happening in a country that claims the moral high ground over American gun violence. Canada now records more deaths per capita from doctors administering lethal drugs than America records from firearms. Their number is 37.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Ours is 13.7. Yet we are the country supposedly drowning in a “culture of death.”

No lecture from abroad can paper over this fact: Canada has built a system where eliminating suffering increasingly means eliminating the sufferer.

Choosing death over care

One example of what Canada now calls “compassion” is the case of Jolene Bond, a woman suffering from a painful but treatable thyroid condition that causes dangerously high calcium levels, bone deterioration, soft-tissue damage, nausea, and unrelenting pain. Her condition is severe, but it is not terminal. Surgery could help her. And in a functioning medical system, she would have it.

But Jolene lives under socialized medicine. The specialists she needs are either unavailable, overrun with patients, or blocked behind bureaucratic requirements she cannot meet. She cannot get a referral. She cannot get an appointment. She cannot reach the doctor in another province who is qualified to perform the operation. Every pathway to treatment is jammed by paperwork, shortages, and waitlists that stretch into the horizon and beyond.

Yet the Canadian government had something else ready for her — something immediate.

They offered her MAID.

Not help, not relief, not a doctor willing to drive across a provincial line and simply examine her. Instead, Canada offered Jolene a state-approved death. A lethal injection is easier to obtain than a medical referral. Killing her would be easier than treating her. And the system calls that compassion.

Bureaucracy replaces medicine

Jolene’s story is not an outlier. It is the logical outcome of a system that cannot keep its promises. When the machinery of socialized medicine breaks down, the state simply replaces care with a final, irreversible “solution.” A bureaucratic checkbox becomes the last decision of a person’s life.

Canada insists its process is rigorous, humane, and safeguarded. Yet the bureaucracy now reviewing Jolene’s case is not asking how she can receive treatment; it is asking whether she has enough signatures to qualify for a lethal injection. And the debate among Canadian officials is not how to preserve life, but whether she has met the paperwork threshold to end it.

This is the dark inversion that always emerges when the state claims the power to decide when life is no longer worth living. Bureaucracy replaces conscience. Eligibility criteria replace compassion. A panel of physicians replaces the family gathered at a bedside. And eventually, the “right” to die becomes an expectation — especially for those who are poor, elderly, or alone.

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

The logical end of a broken system

We ignore this lesson at our own peril. Canada’s health care system is collapsing under demographic pressure, uncontrolled migration, and the unavoidable math of government-run medicine.

When the system breaks, someone must bear the cost. MAID has become the release valve.

The ideology behind this system is already drifting south. In American medical journals and bioethics conferences, you will hear this same rhetoric. The argument is always dressed in compassion. But underneath, it reduces the value of human life to a calculation: Are you useful? Are you affordable? Are you too much of a burden?

The West was built on a conviction that every human life has inherent value. That truth gave us hospitals before it gave us universities. It gave us charity before it gave us science. It is written into the Declaration of Independence.

Canada’s MAID program reveals what happens when a country lets that foundation erode. Life becomes negotiable, and suffering becomes a justification for elimination.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order. If compassion becomes indistinguishable from convenience, and if medicine becomes indistinguishable from euthanasia, the West will have abandoned the very principles that built it. That is the lesson from our northern neighbor — a warning, not a blueprint.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.