On this past Thursday’s Wilkow Majority show on Sirius XM,** Andrew Wilkow coined a very interesting term, or so I thought. That term was, Zero Liability Voter. On Friday I called in to the show to chat him up about it. Turns out, gentle reader, your favorite author has been obviously living under a rock for some time now. Mr. Wilkow said he’s been using the term for decades. Although I am definitely late to the party on this one, I can easily see that not only is the term brilliant, but it also addresses what I see as a huge question of political morality.

I had been struggling for quite some time for a useable term that succinctly points out some of what I consider to be the flat-out, immoral aspects of how we currently manage the sovereign franchise in these United States. Recently, that struggle again reared its head during an online discussion with a long-time friend and Army buddy of mine. First of all, this guy is no leftist. He is a West Point graduate who built a successful business and life here in these United States. He was able to do that by learning in life’s school of hard knocks, by spending the majority of his youth traveling in countries south of the Rio Grande and growing up in the barrios of Los Angeles.

Since we are usually pretty much aligned on most issues of the day, I was somewhat surprised to find us in disagreement on my perception of the Framers’ intent on the voting franchise in these United States. I’m not going to get into the back and forth, but the way I see it, decades of mindless repetition of terms and phrases such as, “democracy,” “right to vote” and “one man, one vote,” have distorted the original intent of the Framers. As is clear in the document they drafted and had ratified by the states, severally, and further subject to certain later amendments, there is no general, individual, right to vote in a Federal election. None.

Furthermore, the Framers were very clear that the states, severally, would determine, once again subject to later amendments, just who would be entitled to exercise the sovereign franchise. Before we go any further, I wish to make it clear that in no shape, form or fashion, am I promoting any schema that would prevent any U.S. citizen from voting based on their melanin content, bathroom preference, marital choice, religion, or any other made-up excuse Democrats have used in the past to prevent minorities, especially Blacks, from voting.

This is a discussion about civics. It’s a discussion about civil rights and civic duty. To have that discussion, we should start with the two major reasons we broke away from Fat George and his British Empire: Taxation and the “Divine Right of Kings” to carry our sons (and now daughters) off to war without our say so. Those two raisons d’être, for the American Revolution, are why all legislation regarding revenues (taxes) must originate in the House of Representatives and that Congress (both houses) is required to take us into a war.

That brings us back to Andrew Wilkow’s, Zero Liability Voter. Thursday’s discussion, took place around the latest federal stimulus package and the next one being proposed. Wilkow pointed out that although both packages were mostly made up of stuff totally unrelated to Covid relief, the Zero Liability Voters wouldn’t care, as long as they got their little pittance. The Zero Liability Voters never care about the cost, as they don’t pay Federal Income Tax. They have no fiduciary liability for the cost of their vote. That appeared to be Wilkow’s take.

Here’s mine. These voters, the most reliable part of the Democrat base, don’t care about debt being incurred on the necks of our grandchildren, as a good many of them have been on the public dole over generations. Their grandchildren won’t be paying. Mine will. Democrats have long taken advantage of that, to the detriment of the financial well-being of these United States. That in turn, takes us back to the vision of the Framers.

The Framers believed that the people deciding the fate of this country on a day-to-day basis, ought to have some skin in the game. Those who do not, yet are able to participate in deciding how the Treasury spends funds provided by other citizens, become in the words of Andrew Wilkow, Zero Liability Voters. They’re like a diner in a restaurant who orders all the expensive stuff off the menu, yet are nowhere to be found when the waiter presents the bill. I find it morally indefensible that those who provide no contribution to the kitty are allowed such a voice in deciding how the money is spent. That needs to change. Some might ask, “But what about those who have put themselves in Harm’s Way defending this country?” The answer to that very important question is for another time. Stay tuned.

**Andrew Wilkow can be found on Patriot Channel 125, Sirius XM, M-F 1200-1500 EST