Thad McCotter in Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter
On Abortion:
Roe let government decide which life deserves protection
In another day, people used a phrase to express where a human being was most secure: "You are as safe as in your mother's womb." Today, one no longer hears this phrase. By denying an unborn child's God-given right to life, the Roe v.
Wade ruling ended the legal protections of unborn children and, unconscionably, their lives. Roe v. Wade empowered government to determine arbitrarily which innocent human lives deserved protection.
The decision ushered in other life denying and destroying practices--such as assisted suicide--which are premised on the assertion that innocent life is conditional and subject to government. Moreover, by seizing the contentious abortion issue from the
hands of the voters, the Supreme Court--deliberately designed as the least publicly accountable branch of American government--disenfranchised the American people from deciding the issue among themselves through democratic processes and institutions.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.146
Feb 8, 2011
On China Book:
French Revolution
A reporter once asked Chou En--lai whether the French Revolution was beneficial to humanity. The Chinese Communist slyly replied, "It's too early to tell."
Chou recognized that our world remains locked in a struggle between the philosophy of the American Revolution and the ideology of the French Revolution.
The American Revolution was a restoration of colonists' traditional rights as Englishmen against an obstinate and arbitrary British government.
By contrast, the French Revolution murderously subordinated individuals to an abstract vision of a collectivist state.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 31
Feb 8, 2011
On China Book:
Gulag
Those resisting the regime are imprisoned in its gulag system, the Laogai, where they are exploited as slave laborers and/or executed.
Ghoulishly, the regime routinely harvests and sells these victims' organs for transplants or their entire corpses for foreign exhibitions. In a cruel custom, the butchers often charge victims' families for the bullets that killed their loved ones.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.116
Feb 8, 2011
On China Book:
Falun Gong
Though Beijing claims that democracy has increased through a few selected "elections," voters can only choose among eight small, officially registered parties controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
No political oppositions groups legally exist; no free and independent labor unions are permitted; and the regime has branded the China Democracy Party as a subversive group. In matters spiritual, the officially atheist regime's State Administration for
Religious Affairs, which controls all matters of faith, has persecute Falun Gong practioners, outlawed Bible distributed without state permission, and declared an "official Catholic Church," forcing the true Catholic
Church underground and the pope to name "secret cardinals." The PRC's human rights abuses do not end there. Those resisting the regime are imprisoned in its gulag system, the Laogai, where they are exploited as slave laborers and/or executed.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.116
Feb 8, 2011
On China Book:
PLA
As Reuters reported on February 28, 2010, a senior officer in the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), Liu Mingfu, published a book in which he boasted, "China's big goal in the 21st century is to become world number one, the top power."
The biggest obstacle? The United States. "As long as China seeks to rise to become world number one.than even if China is even more capitalist than the U.S., the U.S. will still be determined to contain it." Why? Because, according to
Liu, it is a "competition to be the leading country, a conflict over who rises and falls to dominate the world." Thus, "to save itself, to save the world, China must prepare to become the [world's] helmsman." And in his less than humble opinion,
Liu advises his fellow Communists that to accomplish this, "We need a military rise as well as an economic rise."
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.117-118
Feb 8, 2011
On China Book:
Tiananmen
Liu advises, "We need a military rise as well as an economic rise." This "rise" must occur despite the fact that he shares the conclusion of his fellow author and PLA officer Colonel Dai Xu that with the US, "China cannot escape the calamity of war, and
this calamity may come in the not-too-distant future, at most in 10 to 20 years." The PRC learned from the Soviet Union's demise. From the 1989 massacre of student protestors in Tiananmen Square to the present, the PRC has sought to avoid the USSR's fate
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.118
Feb 8, 2011
On China Book:
Tiananmen
First, there would be no internal reforms expanding political freedom.. Second, the regime had to prevent the West from strangling it economically. Third, following the United States' limp response to Tiananmen Square, the Beijing regime was
convinced that Americans cared about the money, not liberty. The PRC commenced its internal economic reforms and offered American companies and consumers access to cheap Chinese labor and products in return for U.S. dollars.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.119
Feb 8, 2011
On China Book:
Glasnost
First, there would be no internal reforms expanding political freedom. The Beijing regime would not repeat the mistake Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made with Glasnost, which unleashed democratic forces that destroyed the Soviet Union and incited the
crowds in Tiananmen Square. Thus the PRC has an entirely state--controlled media, persecutes religion, cyber-spies on its own citizens, conducts political reeducation in its Laogai labor camps, and rigidly adheres to a party line that claims the enemy
of prosperity and security is liberty. Second, the regime had to prevent the West from strangling it economically, as Reagan had done to the Soviets. Glasnost overwhelmed the Soviet Union's political structure before the nascent Perestroika reforms could
save it. So the PRC instituted economic reforms without accompanying political reforms. That way Beijing could ameliorate the material privations of its captive people and preempt massive social unrest from blossoming into a revolution for freedom.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.119
Feb 8, 2011
On China Book:
5-year plans, part 2
PRC's mercantilist strategy. expand its access to raw materials & strategic positions throughout the world. The USCC's 2009 annual report sums up the situation when it states that Beijing's "more than $2.27 trillion in foreign exchange reserves by Sept.
2009 is the world's largest cache, most of which is in dollar denominated bonds. The United States today no longer is the world's biggest creditor; it is the world's biggest debtor, with China as the largest overseas holder of U.S. debt instruments."
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.120
Feb 8, 2011
On China Book:
5-year plans
To date, the PRC's strategy has been wildly successful. Although it is a nonmarket nation where the Communist government still dictates five-year plans, in 2003 the PRC overtook America as the world's leading destination for foreign investment. In 2008
it surpassed America as the world's second--biggest exporter and is closing in on the number-one exporter, Germany, despite the warning of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) that "China's control and manipulation of information
make it difficult or impossible for officials responsible for food and product safety in the United States and other nations to identify potential safety problems in Chinese imports on a timely basis and intervene." By 2011, the PRC is projected to
become the world's greatest manufacturing nation. This mercantilist strategy has allowed the PRC to accumulate an annual trade surplus of more than $250 billion, control roughly $1.5 trillion of America's nation debt & increase its military capabilities.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.120
Feb 8, 2011
On Corporations:
Decentralized virtual corporations create rootless capital
During our Global Age, an innovation revolution spurs increasingly democratized and consumer--driven economic enterprises. Big government must be reset to mirror this horizontal model. As during industrialization, today's Americans are vexed by the
potent economic, social and political forces radically reshaping their lives. But now American corporations are busy decentralizing into "virtual corporations" that outsource jobs to other nations to obtain lower labor costs and evade domestic laws and
regulations. Such "rootless capital" being sent around the world in a keystroke to "low--cost countries" has dearly cost Americans their livelihoods, reduced their wages and employer--provided benefits, diminished their unions' memberships, raised doubts
about our economy's continued vitality, and, in cases of extreme economic distress, destroyed marriages and families.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 63-64
Feb 8, 2011
On Education:
Reverse federal discrimination against charters & homeschool
Our educational system has provided preceding generations of Americans with the tools to pursue and attain their aspirations. More than ever, students need a broad education, not a narrow indoctrination.
Parents must fulfill their primary role in a child's moral education, and teachers must fulfill their primary role in a child's educational development. Federal bureaucrats must not usurp or impair the roles of parents and teachers.
Consequently, we must reverse the increasing federal control over education, including any attempts to discriminate against charter schools and home schooling.
Our children must be grounded in academic fundamentals. And, most importantly, our children should be imbued with a lifelong love of learning.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 82-83
Feb 8, 2011
On Energy & Oil:
Climate change is pseudo-scientific scare tactic
Citizens did momentarily heed the Left's siren song of nebulous "hope and change." But now, the public rejects the rebranded but still injurious policies that were passed off as new ideas. Americans realize that "climate change" is a
pseudo-science scare tactic so government can impose its "cap and tax" scheme for controlling energy production, raising taxes, and dictating people's daily routines. Energy powers our economy.
We need to continue seeking reliable, cost-efficient sources of energy through a market--based plan that contains three key components: maximum energy production, commonsense conservation, and free market, green innovations. Recognizing that
America's greatest resource is her free people, this "all of the above" energy plan will provide maximum American energy and responsibly transition America from fossil fuels to alternative energies.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 55&81
Feb 8, 2011
On Environment:
Eminent domain guts private property rights
A glaring instance of gutting private property rights occurred on June 5, 2000, when a divided United States Supreme Court issued its Kelo v. City of London decision, which ruled that government (in this case municipalities) could use its power of
eminent domain to take citizens' homes and real property and transfer it to private entities for economic development. In support of this decision, Justice John Paul Stevens opined that "promoting economic development is a traditional and long--accepted
function of government." He forgot the government was first and foremost established to protect citizens' lives and property. To Stevens, government knows best.
He wrote: "The CITYhas carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including--but by no means limited to--new jobs and INCREASED TAX REVENUE [emphasis added].
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 77-78
Feb 8, 2011
On Foreign Policy:
If America falters, there is no other nation to replace her
We the People know that true progress is the expansion of freedom. We know, too, that if America falters or fails in her "last full measure of devotion" to freedom, there is no other nation to replace her.
After all, if we turn our backs on freedom, who will take our place and carry its torch? Equally, we must not cede to big government our sovereign power to devise individual and collective solutions to our problems in the pursuit of our happiness.
Tyrants claim that absolute order must precede their people's paltry snippets of liberty... which never come.
But we understand freedom's paradox: personal liberty leads to national prosperity and security by freeing Americans to establish the true roots of American order.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 23
Feb 8, 2011
On Foreign Policy:
Support the liberation of Tibet
When not counting our money and cracking down on dissidents, supreme leader Hu Jintao and his PRC comrades are also: - complicit in arming our enemies
- engaging in espionage and cyber warfare against us
- committing predatory trade practices
against us
- trying to replace the dollar with the Chinese renminbi as a world reserve currency
- abetting genocide in Sudan
- practicing cultural genocide in occupied Tibet
- compelling a "one child policy" that forces abortion amongst its
people
- denying its people's God-given human rights
- violating basic labor rights
- buying billions of dollars of oil from state sponsor of terror Iran.
We must oppose the Communist regime's territorial claims over democratic
Taiwan, support the liberation of Tibet and the end of genocide in the Sudan, and reinvigorate our allianxces with free Pacific and central Asian nations, especially India.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.129-133
Feb 8, 2011
On Foreign Policy:
Diminish the debased UN; Liberty Alliance instead
Free nations cannot afford to rely on the UN for even an iota of security. Our survival at stake, all free nations must prudently diminish their participation in a debased UN and unite in the cause of human dignity and liberty. To foster the world's
newest births of freedom requires a new international home: the Liberty Alliance. The Liberty Alliance could be created from the existing Community of Democracies, but it would be a more focused and potent international organization. It would be dedicate
to freedom and steeped in the wisdom that liberty's expansion is the best defense against tyranny. To be a member in the Liberty Alliance, a nation must be free, meeting the alliance's mutually agreed-upon criteria of human and civil rights.
Member nations that backslide must be demoted to observer status and, when necessary, expelled from the alliance. Not possessed of a military component, the Liberty Alliance would advance freedom through diplomatic, political, and economic initiatives.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.135
Feb 8, 2011
On Free Trade:
Replace chimera of "free trade" with fair competition
Here in all its unvarnished materialism is the ideology that led "conservatives" to falsely think materialist panaceas--notably the chimera of "free trade"--would solve all problems between peoples.
Enrapt by this deceit, the heralds of "creative destruction"
(for everyone but themselves) placed a greater value on saving five dollars on an imported shirt from a sweatshop than on defending the inherent dignity of individuals; than on ensuring fair competition and jobs for American manufacturers and workers;
than on securing the national security of the United States from predatory nations like Communist China; and ,yes, than on preserving the moral foundations of American culture, which secures and sustains our free--market prosperity.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 47
Feb 8, 2011
On Government Reform:
Freedom Paradigm: good government empowers citizens
Our freedom is too precious to be squandered upon or usurped by big government. Thankfully, the majority of the Americans know that the 21st century's Freedom Paradigm is this: Good government empowers citizens by expanding freedom and self-government.
Today, America's ultimate strength and salvation remains her free people. We will not let her down. We will seize our freedom; and honor our sacred duty to bequeath our exceptional nation to future generations of free Americans.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 26-27
Feb 8, 2011
On Health Care:
Left foisted government-run bureaucrat-dictated medicine
The Left has defied the consent of the governed to foist the foundations of a government--run, bureaucrat--dictated medicine upon Americans. Americans deserve free--market, patient--centered wellness that leverages the communications revolution and
market forces to increase the supply of health care so it can meet the rising demand, reduce costs, and expand access. Immediate, obvious measures include: reforming medical liability laws, ending exclusions for preexisting conditions, expanding
Health Savings Accounts, providing tax credits for purchasing private health insurance, allowing Association Health
Plans, permitting health insurance purchases across state lines, encouraging individuals to insure against changes in health status, incentivizing preventative health care, applying information technology to enhance transparency and increase efficiencies
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 79-80
Feb 8, 2011
On Homeland Security:
Security through strength; not surrender
In fulfilling our enduring duty, we must be guided by five permanent principles:- Our liberty is from God, not the government.
- Our sovereignty rests in our souls, not the soil.
- Our security is through strength, not surrender.
-
Our prosperity is from the private sector, not the public sector.
- Our truths are self evident, not relative.
Historically, tyrants have viewed the democratic institutions of free nations as a sign of weakness. Consequently,
America's surest path to disabusing these rulers of such dangerous illusions is to practice the policy of "peace through strength" and prudently expand liberty to ensure our security.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 24-25
Feb 8, 2011
On Homeland Security:
FISA must not be weakened
The Left's inveterate ideological need to "blame America first" has persisted throughout our War for Freedom against terrorism, including our attempts to secure our homeland. We confront dangerous fallacies that diminish Americans' homeland security
efforts. These fallacies include the assertion that Americans have no real need for homeland security and that terrorism can be considered a wholly criminal matter. These fallacies must be disabused by this sage advice: Know your enemy. Knowing our enemy
will allow us often to anticipate and prevent its plans, targets, and tactics. But to fully stop the enemy's attacks requires hard intelligence in real time through vital tools such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which must not be
weakened, lest we lose one fateful step to the enemy's assassins. It also necessitates national preparedness, including expanded emergency planning and training first responders, and the enhancement of cyber--security measures to foil new attacks.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.108-109
Feb 8, 2011
On Homeland Security:
Install missile defense shield with NATO allies
In addition to enhancing our domestic defense capabilities, we must also build upon our historic and successful alliances through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Given the dangers posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
America and her NATO allies must install a missile defense shield to deter and defend against the increasing missile capabilities of rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea.
Equally, NATO's mission must be refocused to match the global dangers of our age. Its past mission of securing the liberty of Western Europe and the
United States against Soviet aggression must be expanded to defend against all organized threats to liberty. Logically, then, NATO membership must be open to all free nations.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.132
Feb 8, 2011
On Immigration:
Open borders is ideology, not a solution
The collectivist & elitist nature of globalism most naturally suits the Left, and its veneer of economic libertarianism seduces the Right. The elitist ideology helped produce the core economic and diplomatic policies of recent administrations.
It was this bipartisan ideology that approved "open borders" as a solution to the problem of illegal immigration. It was this bipartisan ideology combining the end of history and creative destruction that have so disordered our age.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 52-53
Feb 8, 2011
On Immigration:
Adopt English as America's official language
We must stop providing taxpayers' money to illegal immigrants. We must make clear there that will be no amnesty now or ever for illegal immigrants.
Finally, we must fix the entire broken system of legal immigration by returning to principles of asylum for and the assimilation of new immigrants, including the adoption of English as
America's official language--for the benefit of both immigrants and citizens--and by logically differentiating rural enterprises from other enterprises in granting work visas.
Responsibly and justly ending illegal immigration will secure our sovereignty and soil, and keep America a beacon of liberty and hope for the world's tired, poor, and huddled masses.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 84
Feb 8, 2011
On Principles & Values:
T-Mac: studies philosophy; plays guitar
"T-Mac" (as Dennis Miller branded him) doesn't write like a congressman; he writes like a writer--because he is a writer. Being a congressman seems a step down for a man who could write books on philosophy in between playing guitar solos behind his head
at White House picnics. (He's done the latter.) In this one sense, he is the anti-Obama. I cannot imagine Obama being anything but a politician, much like the Clinton of your choice. But with T-Mac, I can imagine him being everything but a politician.
T-Mac is an authentic, old school conservative--meaning, he doesn't mind if you think he's the bad guy; he embraces it. In T-Mac's world, the concept of "the moderate" should be mocked. It's simply another version of "if you can't beat them join them,"
which might have worked for the French, but not for the Americans. This makes T-Mac a throwback who will never forget two things: he works for his constituents, and Washington is nuts.
Source: Greg Gutfeld in Seize Freedom, by Thad McCotter, p. 12-14
Feb 8, 2011
On Principles & Values:
2006: Republican majority governed too ideologically
In the wake of 2006 & 2008 Democrat "wave" elections, pundits & activists lamented the death of the GOP. Having squandered its majorities in the Senate & House and its control of the White House, the rudderless Republican Party was expected to drift away
during the Age of Obama. When Americans realized that the Republican majority had governed too ideologically and ineffectively, they had provided Democrats the opportunity to govern.Immediately, though, the Left took a cannonball dive into a cesspool
of radicalism and statism. Americans are inherently practical people who want gradual, constructive change, not radical, destructive change. Thus, by Nov. 2010, the American people reaffirmed that America is a center-right country. But this does not mean
that the public again trusts Republicans. The 2010 conservative "wave" election was a victory for the American people, not the Republican Party. The question remains whether the GOP has learned from its past self-imposed wounds of venality and ideology.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 49-50
Feb 8, 2011
On Tax Reform:
Progressive income tax must be scrapped
Almost half of Americans do not pay income taxes. If the current system isn't reformed, a majority of Americans will consider income tax increases a boon, because they won't pay them and will receive the redistributed revenue.
Compounding the problem, the tax code is too complex and punitive for the Americans paying income taxes to fully prosper.
It discourages the economic initiative of entrepreneurs and workers, and diverts capital away from more profitable economic activities into shelters that reduce tax burdens. The progressive income tax must be scrapped. In the interim, rates must be reduc
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 75-76
Feb 8, 2011
On War & Peace:
America: Arise, go forth, and conquer as of old
Reagan led the rejuvenation of America's morale and economy, its Cold War victory over Communism, and its emergence as the world's sole superpower. Lincoln the founder, Roosevelt the builder, and Reagan the finisher--each met Alfred Lord Tennyson's
summons to "live pure, speak true, right wrong," and led America as it transcended the generational challenges of the time. We take heart despite our trying times. As they did before us, we will seize our opportunity to sacrifice and suffer so we can
transcend our great challenges and conserve our beloved country. Though we may be down, Americans are never out--indeed, no honorable people ever are. It remains as in Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," wherein a disillusioned King Arthur awakens from a
haunting dream of disaster, and by his side Sir Bedivere urges: "O me, my King, let pass whatever will. As yet thou shalt not pass. Arise, go forth and conquer as of old." America: As yet thou shalt not pass. Arise, go forth, and conquer as of old!
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 56-57
Feb 8, 2011
On War & Peace:
It's not a War ON Terrorism; but a War FOR Freedom
On Sept. 11, 2001, our nation was invaded, three thousand of our fellow Americans were murdered, and we were thrust into an unsought struggle--the War for Freedom--against the butcher bin Laden's death cult and Middle Eastern fascism. Frankly, the enemy
lusts to kill us for our "sin" of being free. As the attacked, we do not primarily wage a War on Terrorism. We wage a War FOR Freedom. Our immediate enemy is "infidel fascism"; our long-term enemy is Iranian imperialism. Against the terrorists--for the
liberty of generations unborn. Right now, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, and throughout the world, humanity is batting infidel fascism. In Islam, kufar means "infidels." Because al-Qaeda and bin Laden butcher innocents, including Muslims,
they are the kufar who pervert Islam's peaceful path and sinfully seek to enslave others of God's children. Intensifying the threat, the enemy is also fascist. This hideous ideological concoction has cunningly adapted to a globalized world.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 93-94
Feb 8, 2011
On War & Peace:
Afghan & Iraqi theaters are part of War for Freedom
Truths in Our War for Freedom- America is not engaged in a War on Terror. America is engaged in a War for Freedom.
- Afghanistan and Iraq were never separate wars; they have always been battle thaters in the War for Freedom.
-
Our terrorist enemy is not novel. America has previously defeated enemies from sword-wielding pirates to nuclear-armed nations.
- This enemy knows it cannot defeat our military on the battlefield. The enemy is employing violence in an act of
psychological warfare.
- To win this struggle, America must maintain its moral clarity, cognizant that the enemy is evil and we are emancipators.
- The enemy is avowedly imperialist; America is demonstrably a liberator. To safeguard our own freedom, we
have extended freedom to more than 50 million Muslims.
- We must undertake a policy of constructive containment, which circles imperial nations with democracies until these tyrannies implode beneath their own peoples; desire to be free.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 96-97
Feb 8, 2011
On War & Peace:
No retreat in arduous eradication of terrorists
Winning requires the arduous eradication of terrorists around the globe through diplomatic, economic, & military initiatives in tiered theaters of operations. There is no retreat in this unsought struggle. We are targeted by tyrants & terrorists who know
they cannot enslave humanity so long as America and her allies breathe free. Salvation will not be denied us. The general public's perception of the threat is also assaulted by a far more insidious vision--namely, that it is an overblown threat.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p.105-107
Feb 8, 2011
On Welfare & Poverty:
Welfare traps humans in crushing cycle of dependence
The flexibility of our markets is endangered by excessive regulation, onerous litigation, and government distribution of wealth. Special interests promote complex tax loopholes that impede the free flow of capital and divert it for less productive
purposes, while the government is not adequately addressing the anxieties many citizens feel during globalization's era of rapid innovation and change. We must address the public's insecurities to prevent a backlash against the very free-enterprise syste
that is the foundation of our prosperity. The failure to fully enforce our rights and protections from unfair competition under international law and within the terms of present and potential trade agreements; the failure to expand the
research-and-development capabilities that propel a high-powered economy; and the unconscionable acceptance of a welfare system that traps our fellow human beings in soul-crushing cycle of dependence.
Source: Seize Freedom, by Rep. Thad McCotter, p. 72-73
Feb 8, 2011
Page last updated: Mar 30, 2012