2009 When 13% of the Electorate Is the Sum Total of Voters Who Care
It is amazing how many conservatives are absent from work until they are threatened with their personal well-being. Employers rely on the authority to withhold pay and benefits to retain workers. Unfortunately, the same principal seems to apply to conservatives in their responsibilities as citizens.
Holland, Michigan can now serve as the perfect pattern of what happens when only 13%, in Holland’s case, represent the sum total of voters, let alone less than that of conservatives, who care about their public responsibilities. Elections have consequences no matter at what level they occur; local, state, or national. Ironically, as a general rule, it is after-the-fact conservatives who are the best hand-wringers when their apathy suddenly comes home to roost after liberals and leftists whom they allowed into office become a threat.
What citizens in major Democrat-run cities and states are experiencing this summer – suffering from lockdowns, violence and destruction with little accountability, rebellion against law enforcement, and direct attacks on civil rights, are the spoiled fruit of a leave-me-alone-until-it-hurts mentality in the conservative community.
In Holland, three council members gained their seats via that pitiful 13% turnout after campaigning specifically on promises to push through a homosexual protection ordinance. Almost immediately after the election, LGBTQ activists and organizations demanded ordinance action. The new liberal majority eagerly obliged. Over the next six months, gay rights activists maintained a commanding presence at city hall while conservatives, save three or four individuals, stayed uniformed and, in the case of several conservative churches who were aware of the situation, uninterested in making even minimal efforts of involvement.
The council, led by the mayor, operated brilliantly against the malaise of the majority of this historically center-right city. The majority of the council studiously avoided any research or discussion regarding a total lack of actual discrimination, calls for recognition of the newest revolutionary 2020 social and legal changes, or most importantly, the possible consequences to the liberties of anyone disloyal to gay ideology who would be so bold and to be unsubmissive. The language for the proposed ordinance changes were never publicized.
In the end, the ordinance changes were adopted. The council refused to add this language:
Government. shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, to include ownership or operations of public or private businesses or non-profits, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b)
(b) EXCEPTION Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person.
1. is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
2. is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
Just two members of the council offered amendments to protect conscience rights which were promptly rejected. Only one councilman had the courage and strength of conviction to vote no.
As hinted earlier, this long description of Holland’s fall, is actually a perfect cautionary tale for all the darkness that covers our state and nation. We supposedly operate under a representative government which gives the minority representation, but not inordinate power or influence. In the real world, it is the minority’s burden to justify its claims against the majority, not the other way around. If those claims cannot be demonstrated as accurate, those claims are illegitimate and potentially destructive to the rights and wellbeing of everyone.
Consequences always follow fluid standards of behaviors and law. Truth and reality become moving targets, ebbing and flowing, being tossed about with every wind of desire when such fluidity is peacefully ignored by ignorance, apathy, or license; as citizens continue to bend the knee by inaction until they are suddenly personally wounded and it is too late to recover.
The slothful conservative wakes up one morning to the world he or she has enabled. Religion is expected to evolve with the surf or be compartmentalized and naturalized so that it is only valued as a suggestion rather than being definitive in real lives, a matter of mere individual backwardness. Public Spiritual profiling and legalized spiritual apartheid rears its ugly head. Pressures in hiring in spite of qualifications and in spite of a business’s mission and convictions become realities. The same holds true for an employer’s right to terminate employees in spite of their performance.
There is only one way by which our system of a representative republic is turned on its head; that is when the only mechanism for securing freedom over tyranny is surrendered to malignant forces.