Senator Jeff Flake: 'Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough'

[wing2000]

Sen. Flake's speech on the Senate Floor today:

We must never regard as “normal” the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country — the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions; the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.

None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal."

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news...jeff-flake-senate-speech-full-text/794958001/

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

 

[wing2000]

If I have been critical, it not because I relish criticizing the behavior of the president of the United States. If I have been critical, it is because I believe that it is my obligation to do so, as a matter of duty and conscience. The notion that one should stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought that goes into 140 characters — the notion that one should say and do nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I believe, profoundly misguided.

 

[MoonlessNight]

I can't find any specific allegations against our president in this screed beyond perhaps a disapproval of his crude speech.

Separation of powers has long been a joke in this country, with the president issuing whatever executive orders he can get away with, congress knowingly passing unconstitutional laws, judges legislating from the bench, the executive branch nullifying laws by refusing to enforce them, congress being too cowardly to declare war while the president illegal sends our troops into conflict, etc. etc. etc.

But it was rare to see rousing speeches against these abuses throughout the years. I guess people spoke more politely and that's what really matters.

(Though the truth is that even if we restrict ourselves to crudity of speech we had huge problems in that area looooooong before Donald Trump announced his candidacy).

 

[HereIStand]

Senator Flake couldn't just leave. He had to make himself out be a martyr. Maybe the World Bank is hiring.

 

[Saucy]

The only undermining of the democratic process I see are the people who decided they weren't going to accept a democratically elected president as their own, selfishly boasting "not my president!", doing their best to fight the electoral college to make them faithless actors and vote the other person in who didn't win, continues to push a narrative that someone Trump cheated with the Russians to win, hoping upon hope every single day (and even taking measures) to impeach the guy despite not breaking any laws (or, at least, being convicted of doing so), and overall trying to tear away the voices of many millions of people who rightfully voted for their president.

They have the gall to talk apart tearing apart freedoms, but they blast any right to freedom of speech Trump or his supporters have. They talk about disregarding truth and decency as if they have any of their own to boast about. They talk about reckless provocations, as if they haven't done so themselves, and then opposes everything out of personal bias, opinion, and pettiest of reasons.

What we need to do is grow up. We need to stop taking every tweet and word as a personal insult just because we hate the guy. We need to stop looking for any and every reason to discredit him, just so we can convince people it's time to impeach. I haven't seen Trump do ANYTHING that other presidents haven't done. He hasn't broken any laws. He hasn't hurt anyone. People LOVE to talk about how he hasn't accomplished anything yet, so what is he really hurting?

Are ideas and agendas different from yours SO damaging to you that you can't even fathom it? But the election of Trump is the American people standing up and saying ENOUGH to the petty, PC, lying democrats who care more about transgender bathrooms than jobs.

 

[wing2000]

The only undermining of the democratic process I see are the people who decided they weren't going to accept a democratically elected president as their own, selfishly boasting "not my president!", doing their best to fight the electoral college to make them faithless actors and vote the other person in who didn't win, continues to push a narrative that someone Trump cheated with the Russians to win, hoping upon hope every single day (and even taking measures) to impeach the guy despite not breaking any laws (or, at least, being convicted of doing so), and overall trying to tear away the voices of many millions of people who rightfully voted for their president.

They have the gall to talk apart tearing apart freedoms, but they blast any right to freedom of speech Trump or his supporters have. They talk about disregarding truth and decency as if they have any of their own to boast about. They talk about reckless provocations, as if they haven't done so themselves, and then opposes everything out of personal bias, opinion, and pettiest of reasons.

What we need to do is grow up. We need to stop taking every tweet and word as a personal insult just because we hate the guy. We need to stop looking for any and every reason to discredit him, just so we can convince people it's time to impeach. I haven't seen Trump do ANYTHING that other presidents haven't done. He hasn't broken any laws. He hasn't hurt anyone. People LOVE to talk about how he hasn't accomplished anything yet, so what is he really hurting?

Are ideas and agendas different from yours SO damaging to you that you can't even fathom it? But the election of Trump is the American people standing up and saying ENOUGH to the petty, PC, lying democrats who care more about transgender bathrooms than jobs.

Address the Senator's remarks directly.

 

[Saucy]

I just did.

 

[Norbert L]

I would be more concerned with the nature of such things like his executive orders, policies he puts in place, not rehashing over and over again about his tweeting habits. Or like the Russian meddling in foreign politics thing. Such speeches strike me as virtue signalling.

 

[Hank77]

Sen. Flake's speech on the Senate Floor today:

We must never regard as “normal” the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country — the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions; the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.

None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal."

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news...jeff-flake-senate-speech-full-text/794958001/

It was a good speech and I agreed with everything he said.

 

[Hank77]

Senator Flake couldn't just leave. He had to make himself out be a martyr. Maybe the World Bank is hiring.

A martyr? There was nothing like that in his speech. What are you talking about?

 

[Rion]

I would be more concerned with the nature of such things like his executive orders, policies he puts in place, not rehashing over and over again about his tweeting habits. Or like the Russian meddling in foreign politics thing. Such speeches strike me as virtue signalling.

Pretty much.

A martyr? There was nothing like that in his speech. What are you talking about?

General consensus (for what little it is worth) is that he's going to get his butt handed to him in the primaries or, if he survives that, lose in the general.

Jeff Flake is the Latest Anti-Trump Republican to Suffer in the Polls

 

[Hank77]

I just did.

??
Who are you referring to as 'they' and how does it have anything to do with this Senator's speech?

 

[Hank77]

General consensus (for what little it is worth) is that he's going to get his butt handed to him in the primaries or, if he survives that, lose in the general.

That has nothing to do with what he said in his speech.

 

[Rion]

That has nothing to do with what he said in his speech.

I believe the other poster was suggesting that since Flake seems to be looking at a defeat no matter what, he's attempting to gain sympathy and pseudo-martyrdom by attacking Trump. Whether you agree or not would depend on if you think Flake is sincere or cynically playing a part in order to set himself up after he loses his job.

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

"It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, and who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party — the party that for so long has defined itself by belief in those things. It is also clear to me for the moment we have given in or given up on those core principles in favor of the more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy.

There is an undeniable potency to a populist appeal — but mischaracterizing or misunderstanding our problems and giving in to the impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party."

-Jeff Sessions

"Once "conservatism" is decoupled from the social order and the social class that it naturally represents, it becomes simply one more ideological ghetto, angrily hunting down and kicking out those who deviate from its sectarian commandments and every now and then hurling a few mudballs at whoever passes by, and the kinds of personality it attracts are precisely those that are unable to work together for any serious purpose. It ceases to defend authentic tradition because authentic tradition has ceased to exist in a coherent form, and what it defends is "traditionalism." It ceases to defend authentic liberty because the rooted liberty that once prevailed in the defunct social order is no longer meaningful, and what it defends is "libertarianism." It ceases to defend the people, culture, and institutions of the old order because they too have ceased to exist coherently as a fabric or have been conscripted into the new order, and what it defends is simply a pallid ghost of what was once a living civilization. All it can do is worry over who is and who is not a "real conservative," which merely means who does and who does not let the self-appointed swamis of the right do his thinking for him. Depending on the personal strength and success of the particular swamis that lead them, the cults of "movement conservatism" may flourish indefinitely, continue to publish their endless series of unreadable tracts and sermons to their own choirs, and actually meet the payrolls of their staffs, but no one—least of all the swamis in charge - ever expects to gain substantial power or take charge of the rudders of history.
Is there anything that can be done to cure the incessant self-destructiveness of the right or remove the causes of its own suicidal tendencies? Probably not, as long as the "right" insists on defining itself in terms of social and historical forces that have already lost. The only thing it can do is try to grasp the truth that those forces have lost and that what they represented cannot be restored and, instead of presenting itself as the champion of lost causes, to align itself with new forces able to challenge the established order and to do so in terms that will neither be co-opted by the new regime nor be deflected by the phantoms of the old. Once in a while such a movement appears, but invariably it only excites the wrath of the "right." It is too "populist," it appeals to Mass Man, it is too "statist," it is too "radical," or it deviates from the ideological orthodoxy of the right in some other arcane way. Sooner or later, such a movement is either captured by its allies on the right and simply becomes one more phone booth into which all the malcontents and oddwads try to cram themselves, or else it ignores them, wishes them a good day, and proceeds to make a little history all by itself, on its own terms and for its own purposes. But, of course, when the movement does the latter, it ceases to belong to the "right" at all and actually begins to evolve into one of history's winners."

Sam Francis, "Inside History's Dustbin" Chronicles, November 1998.

General consensus (for what little it is worth) is that he's going to get his butt handed to him in the primaries or, if he survives that, lose in the general.

Didn't you notice? He said in this speech he's not running for reelection next year.

 

[Saucy]

??
Who are you referring to as 'they' and how does it have anything to do with this Senator's speech?

I responded to what she quoted was in the speech. I went down the line, point-by-point and countered it talking about the democrats and never-trumpers. I know Flake is a republican, but what these republicans who are in trouble do, like Corker, is they will attack the president trying to get sympathy points from democrats and establishment republicans. ALL sides have been acting foolish.

 

[Rion]

"It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, and who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party — the party that for so long has defined itself by belief in those things. It is also clear to me for the moment we have given in or given up on those core principles in favor of the more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy.

There is an undeniable potency to a populist appeal — but mischaracterizing or misunderstanding our problems and giving in to the impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party."

-Jeff Sessions

"Once "conservatism" is decoupled from the social order and the social class that it naturally represents, it becomes simply one more ideological ghetto, angrily hunting down and kicking out those who deviate from its sectarian commandments and every now and then hurling a few mudballs at whoever passes by, and the kinds of personality it attracts are precisely those that are unable to work together for any serious purpose. It ceases to defend authentic tradition because authentic tradition has ceased to exist in a coherent form, and what it defends is "traditionalism." It ceases to defend authentic liberty because the rooted liberty that once prevailed in the defunct social order is no longer meaningful, and what it defends is "libertarianism." It ceases to defend the people, culture, and institutions of the old order because they too have ceased to exist coherently as a fabric or have been conscripted into the new order, and what it defends is simply a pallid ghost of what was once a living civilization. All it can do is worry over who is and who is not a "real conservative," which merely means who does and who does not let the self-appointed swamis of the right do his thinking for him. Depending on the personal strength and success of the particular swamis that lead them, the cults of "movement conservatism" may flourish indefinitely, continue to publish their endless series of unreadable tracts and sermons to their own choirs, and actually meet the payrolls of their staffs, but no one—least of all the swamis in charge - ever expects to gain substantial power or take charge of the rudders of history.
Is there anything that can be done to cure the incessant self-destructiveness of the right or remove the causes of its own suicidal tendencies? Probably not, as long as the "right" insists on defining itself in terms of social and historical forces that have already lost. The only thing it can do is try to grasp the truth that those forces have lost and that what they represented cannot be restored and, instead of presenting itself as the champion of lost causes, to align itself with new forces able to challenge the established order and to do so in terms that will neither be co-opted by the new regime nor be deflected by the phantoms of the old. Once in a while such a movement appears, but invariably it only excites the wrath of the "right." It is too "populist," it appeals to Mass Man, it is too "statist," it is too "radical," or it deviates from the ideological orthodoxy of the right in some other arcane way. Sooner or later, such a movement is either captured by its allies on the right and simply becomes one more phone booth into which all the malcontents and oddwads try to cram themselves, or else it ignores them, wishes them a good day, and proceeds to make a little history all by itself, on its own terms and for its own purposes. But, of course, when the movement does the latter, it ceases to belong to the "right" at all and actually begins to evolve into one of history's winners."

Sam Francis, "Inside History's Dustbin" Chronicles, November 1998.



Didn't you notice? He said in this speech he's not running for reelection next year.

I'm sure the poll numbers had nothing to do with that decision.

 

[HereIStand]

A martyr? There was nothing like that in his speech. What are you talking about?

He kept making vague appeals to his conscience and our values. It's unclear what is sinister that pains him. The President is elected to accomplish things in the national interest. He is. He is not elected to make those in power happy with themselves. Trump has countered the GOP free-trade and immigration policies because they have been a disaster for the working class.

 

[hislegacy]

Address the Senator's remarks directly.

He did and quite eloquently