Kamala should thank me

To use her own syntax, I. Have. Read. Her. Whole. Speech. Since I wasn’t paid for that Herculean effort, the least I expect is a thank-you note.

The speech isn’t very long, and normally I could breeze through it in a couple of minutes. What took more time and a greater effort was trying to find some meat in the puff pastry of her rhetoric.

And let me tell you: what little I’ve found is way past its sell-by date, not to say downright rancid. Kamala’s olfactory sense doesn’t seem to be acute enough to sense that. Let’s just hope that voters will have more sensitive noses.

For example, this is how Kamala sees her economic mission:

“That’s why we will create what I call an opportunity economy. An opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed.”

This is puffery, but do let’s look for a morsel of meat buried deep inside. Kamala clearly thinks that the president of the United States has the power to shape the economy according to his – or in this case her – liking.

To deliver on her promise of “an opportunity economy”, the executive branch would have to acquire the kind of power that would make a mockery of the Constitution.

In a free country, it’s businesses and not presidents who create opportunities to compete and succeed. The government can only ever affect this process negatively, by suffocating businesses with red tape and taxes. This is exactly what Kamala promises if you scrape the puff pastry off: an activist administration meddling in income generation to make sure that less income is generated.

“As President, I will bring together: Labor and workers, Small business owners and entrepreneurs, And American companies.”

The only message I can take out of this is that Kamala is planning to empower the trade unions to coerce even more employees into membership. If it’s something else, then I’d like her to explain the difference between “labor and workers”, and between “small business owners and entrepreneurs”. Both pairs sound to me like apples and apples, and oranges and oranges.

“To create jobs. Grow our economy. And lower the cost of everyday needs. Like health care. Housing. And groceries.”

And there I was, thinking that only God is omnipotent. Turns out Kamala is too. Put her in the White House and hey presto! – your rent will come down, so will your medical bills, so will the price of hamburger.

Sarcastic remarks aside, the only way a federal government can achieve such worthy outcomes is by introducing sweeping price controls. Kamala certainly may want to try, she has the temperament for it, but I can’t help thinking that getting such a bill through Congress would be a non-starter.

If Kamala is planning to divest Congress of its power to block hare-brained legislation, that would mean governing by decree, effectively turning America into a dictatorship.

Is that what she has in mind? It isn’t. Kamala is just regurgitating some bien pensant waffle, to go with the puff pastry of her general thought. But do let’s go on.

“We will: Provide access to capital for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders. We will end America’s housing shortage. And protect Social Security and Medicare.”

In theory, a president can try to deliver on that last premise. Since Social Security and Medicare are state-run programmes, I suppose the state can put a protective wall around them.

But what about providing access to capital? How can the federal government do that? Either by forcing taxpayers to shell out for a string of subsidies or by forcing banks to open their coffers.

Both solutions are constitutionally dubious and economically ruinous. Both would involve an inordinate growth in state power, which is the essence of socialism stripped of its eudaemonic cant. And Kamala is nothing if not a socialist.

She is also a fire-eating proponent of abortion on demand. Of course, had Mr and Mrs Harris resorted to that option 59 years ago, we wouldn’t have to listen to Kamala’s effluvia now. This may not be a strong argument in favour of abortion, but it’s stronger than anything Kamala has to offer:

“Donald Trump hand-picked members of the United States Supreme Court to take away reproductive freedom.”

Forgive me for being pedantic, but to this life-long student of English ‘reproductive freedom’ means ‘freedom to reproduce’, which is to have children. But that’s not what Kamala means, is it? She is talking about freedom not to reproduce, to kill a baby before it pops out.

“Over the past two years, I have traveled across our country. And women have told me their stories… Stories of: Women miscarrying in a parking lot… Getting sepsis… Losing the ability to ever have children again…”

How very awful. Then again, such misfortunes could have been avoided by simply having a baby. And miscarrying in a parking lot? Would a wire coat-hanger be involved by any chance? Surely, a woman can find a better place to miscarry.

“All – because doctors are afraid of going to jail for caring for their patients.” Killing a foetus is one way to describe patient care, but it’s not the best way.

“This is what is happening in our country. Because of Donald Trump.” Old Donald is thus held personally responsible for those coat-hangers in the parking lot.

Actually, all he did was exercise the constitutional power of any president to nominate candidates for vacancies in the Supreme Court. Left-leaning presidents nominate likeminded candidates, conservative presidents do the opposite — such is life.

Trump nominated and Congress approved three judges, which swung the Supreme Court balance towards sanity. Still, the newly conservative Court didn’t ban abortion. By repealing Roe vs. Wade, it removed from the federal government the right to lord it over the states.

Now the states can decide on their own abortion policy, and 14 out of 50 have decided to ban it – to the loud cheering of those who see something wrong with 600,000 babies being aborted every year. And it’s all Trump’s fault – that’s how Kamala sees it.

“And one must ask: Why exactly is it that they don’t trust women?

“Well. We. trust. women.

“And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as President of the United States, I will proudly sign it into. Law.”

It’s a comforting thought that the US may end up with a president who can’t understand elementary concepts. The issue. Isn’t. About. Trusting. Or. Not trusting. Women.

It’s about the diminished power of the federal government to impose on the states legislation that disgusts every Christian, most other religious believers, and simply decent people who can argue logically that the difference between abortion and infanticide is purely semantic.

Such people may invoke Aristotle’s theory of potentiality or, if addressing an audience who don’t know Aristotle from third baseman, simply make a rational case that no valid difference exists between a baby a month after birth and a month before. That can be logically extrapolated to two months, three, four and eventually nine.

Without mentioning any religious ideas, conception is the only indisputable moment at which human life begins. Any other moment is open to doubt, and doubt should be interpreted in favour of preserving life, not destroying it.

I realise such rationale takes Kamala and the woke brigade she fronts out of their depth. But at least, as a lawyer, she should be able to consider the constitutional aspects of the drivel she is spouting.

Roe vs Wade was in force from 1973 to 2022, during which time even conservative presidents like Reagan could do nothing about it, however they felt about abortion. Separation of power into three branches is the fundamental principle of the American Constitution, not to be trifled with.

The Supreme Court decision of 1973 rendered the executive and legislative branches powerless to repeal Roe vs Wade. Likewise, the Supreme Court decision of 2024 means neither Kamala nor Congress can bring back federal fiat on abortion without playing fast and loose with the Constitution.

I hope for the sake of my American friends that there’s enough fortitude left in the nation to prevent such constitutional vandalism. Alas, the experience of my own country, Britain, shows that socialists treat the constitution the way a dog treats a tree. This stinks.