We had another election. Everyone is saying that last Tuesday’s election was a victory for abortion rights. I think of it as something else. I think it was a victory for Liberty and Freedom. Women should have the Freedom to choose. The privacy between a Women and her Doctor is what I consider an essential Liberty that should never have been challenged in the first place. Everything about taking away a women’s right to choose was very anti-constitution in my opinion. I don’t want forced birth or forced abortion.  What I think is proper and truly American is that a Woman has a right to choose and the Freedom to exercise that right. Privacy is an essential liberty that our Fore Fathers fought for.  Privacy between a women and her doctor should be as sacred as that privacy between a lawyer and their client.

The Republicans have come up a few excuses on why they lost. Some far right commentators are blaming Taylor Swift for last Tuesday’s outcome. Why because she has been encouraging young people to register and get out and vote. That used to be the message that was always sent during every election, “Get out and vote. Make your voice heard”. Today it seems that they just want to keep people away from the polls. Is it because if the turnout is high the Democrats win? When I was young they were encouraging everyone to vote. We were told that the only way that our democracy worked was if everyone was involved. Republican or Democrat it really didn’t matter. We were told that it was our civic duty to vote. The first election that I voted in was the spring of 1980. I had been eligible to vote for eight years but had not performed my civic duty. 30 minutes before the polls closed I decided that I would vote. I brought along my electric bill to show proof of residency and registered right there at the polling place. The candidate that I voted for mayor won the election by one vote. To this day no one can tell me that my vote doesn’t matter and I vote in every election. Representative government is what we fought for. To suppress the vote or try and take it away is counter to why we gained our independence. Everyone tries to tell us what the Founding Fathers wanted but really, in a nut shell, they wanted representative government. They wanted government “By the People, of the People, for the People”. That is why the Constitution starts by saying “We The People”. We are supposed to vote.

I heard an excuse out of Ohio that they didn’t have enough time to campaign against the abortion resolution on the ballot. I don’t know how much time that they need? This was the seventh time that a woman’s right to choose has been on the ballot each in different states and each time it has won. It is getting pretty clear that people do not like that fact the women’s freedoms and liberties have been suppressed. To me the issue has never been about abortion. The issue has always been about freedom and liberty. You should not take away the privacy between a woman and her doctor which to me is an essential liberty. You should not be taking away a woman’s right to choose. Let’s take this in another direction. Should a woman need approval to have a child? Should a woman be forced to get an abortion if she didn’t have Government approval? The answer to all of those things would be of course no.

The people speak and the Republicans do not listen. It wasn’t always that way. John McCain’s concession speech is one of the greatest speeches I have ever heard. Here is how he stated that speech, “My friends, we have come to the end of a long journey. The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly. A little while ago, I had the honor of calling Sen. Barack Obama – to congratulate him on being the next President of the country that we both love.” Do you notice how he said that the “American people have spoken”? He showed us how the system is supposed to work. Jimmy Carter in his concession speech said, “I have a deep appreciation of the system, however, that lets people make a free choice about who will lead then for the next four years”. Hillary Clinton in her concession speech stated “Our Constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power. We don’t just respect that. We cherish it”. George H. W. Bush’s concession speech went like this, “I just called Governor Clinton over in Little Rock and offered my congratulations. He did run a strong campaign. I wish him well in the White House. I want the country to know that our entire administration will work closely with his team to ensure the smooth transition of power. There is important work to be done, and America must always come first. So we will get behind this new President and wish him well.” Those were strong words of faith in the American system by both Democrats and Republicans that kept America first and strong. Trump’s concession speech. There wasn’t any. His assistance in a peaceful transfer of power? There wasn’t any. We had witnessed great Americans in the past that had lost elections that have actually put America first. Trump was not one of them that put America First.

When did we as a nation want to stop listening to the voice of the people? Did it start with Citizens United that gave billionaires a louder voice, so loud that they think that their voice is the only one that matters? We were based on the principles of a Representative Government. One person, one vote. It wasn’t that long ago that those principles rang through. Why has one of our political parties thrown that all away? Instead of making up excuses the Republicans should be asking if the voters don’t like our message what are we doing wrong?  The people that are for Freedom and Liberty are the ones that are putting America and American principles first. Not the ones that want to take away a woman’s freedom to choose and the liberty of which privacy brings such as the privacy between woman and her doctor.