SANTOS Act: Stop Another Non-Truthful Office Seeker
George Santos, the representative-elect currently in the hot seat for his embellished and falsified background, may now have a new piece of federal legislation named after him: the SANTOS Act.
In honor of the "Long Island Liar," New York Democrat Ritchie Torres declared his intent to introduce a bill that would compel candidates to "disclose under oath" certain aspects of their background:
BIG NEWS: I am introducing a bill to require candidates to disclose under oath their employment, educational, & military history so we can punish candidates who lie to voters about their qualifications.
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) December 30, 2022
It will be called the Stop Another Non-Truthful Office Seeker (SANTOS) ACT. pic.twitter.com/IpBhzAsDbt
As a conservative very upset with the dilution of the Republican Party into a diet version of the Democrats, I have absolutely no problem with this for two reasons.
The first and the most obvious is that the Democrats lie all the time. Remember Blumenthal claiming he'd "served" in Vietnam? The New York Times had to fact-check him and report that "Mr. Blumenthal ... never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments ... and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war[.]" Or what about Biden's "top of my class" moment? Or his "I used to drive an 18-wheeler" gaffe? I could go on and on...
For context, it's important to note that lawmaking bodies often write laws prohibiting certain acts but don't require any accompanying punishment. For instance, in Arizona, the Republican Legislature passed SB1138, which asserted that physicians "may not" perform "gender transition" surgeries, yet as far as I can tell, if violations of the law occur, the legislators did not include criminal associations or penalties. I see no language of "misdemeanor" or "felony" — do you? We often call statutes like this "laws with no teeth" — these political games end up being enough to satisfy the unwitting conservative constituency without actually preserving conservative values.
Back to my initial point: Torres announced the SANTOS Act would include punishment — this law is set to have "teeth." So when Democrats violate the law, which they inevitably will, the law will demand "punishment."
Okay, so the law will have "teeth," you might say, but that doesn't do any good when we have a totally polluted government with no accountability and brazen lawlessness...which brings me to my next point. The current state of affairs, which sees America emulate the Congo under Joseph Kabila, became that way only because our political apparatus, the Republican Party, is as dull as a butter knife — because of people like George Santos. The refusals to demand integrity, objective morality, and ideological purity in adherence to the Constitution — which doesn't seem like a lot to ask from where I sit as a patriotic American — led to a party full of Kevin McCarthys who refuse to wage political war against the Marxist Democrats. If we changed our tune, held our party to Founder-level standards, we would have a party of true sacrificial servants like George Washington and Patrick Henry, not self-serving politicians like John McCain and George Santos. Sharpening our apparatus by expelling the diluters (Santos) only benefits the conservative cause. Our butter knife would become a kukri knife; laws with teeth would actually mean something.
Decry the double-standard all you want, but griping about corrupt Democrats doesn't advance a Make America Great Again agenda. Cleaning up our own backyard before worrying about the Democrats is the path toward restoration.
Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.