There’s a golf aphorism that rings true in many different contexts. It goes like this: “If you want to know whether a man is honest, just watch how he keeps his golf score.”
One of the great appeals of the sport is the fact that it still relies on the honor system. But golf is hardly the only place where the honor system is integral to the very functioning of the enterprise. America’s tax reporting infrastructure is heavily reliant on the honor system. So much of our society’s business and legal systems come down to verbal promises and commitments. And did I mention marriage?
The honor system has taken center stage in recent days as the U.S. Congress and the Senate have taken up the SAVE Act. This is the Republican-sponsored bill designed to make sure illegal aliens don’t vote in U.S. federal elections. The key to it is the institution of several checks and balances to better verify that those registering to vote are, in fact, U.S. citizens.
Now that illegal aliens are freely given driver’s licenses and Social Security cards, it can no longer be assumed that someone with a current license or Social Security number is a U.S. citizen. The Democrats, who intentionally pushed to make it possible for illegal aliens to receive such perks of residency, are up in arms over the possibility that voters may need to do more to prove they are eligible to vote.
In my state of Pennsylvania, you don’t need to show an ID to vote. Elections have relied on the honor system. Having lived here my whole life, I can tell you that there is a reason certain pockets of the state have been blue since before the World War II. It has something to do with relying on the honor system in your elections.
Fast forward to today, and it’s obvious to anyone why Democrats are outraged over the possibility that their efforts to legitimize illegals through the dissemination of Social Security cards and driver’s licenses may have failed. We all know these efforts had nothing to do with the welfare of illegals, and everything to do with putting ballots in their hands.
Democrats will tell you with a straight face, “Non-legal residents don’t vote.” But those same Democrats don’t want Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) anywhere near the polls on election day. Why? We all know why.
The honor system is dying in America, and when it comes to Democrats, it’s been dead for a very long time. The Somali fraud and corruption scandals aren’t confined to Minnesota. The vast amount of NGO money-laundering that DOGE discovered. The lack of accountability for billions and billions of dollars in spending are not problems with the system. They are the system. Built-in obfuscation allows corrupt people to do corrupt things.
Somehow, that almost always leads to people enriching themselves and taking control of the most powerful institutions. To illegitimately take power, you need money, you need secrecy, and you need to go around what is legal, ethical and proper. You use that money to get votes. You get votes to obtain power. Once in power, you allocate moneys so that they can be distributed with very little tracking and accountabilities. That’s how you retain that power. Along the way, you may “wet your beak” with some of that cash.
There are two opposing sayings that both will lead you to the truth. The first is, “There is honor among thieves.” This dates back to the 18th century, and meant that even people who are dishonest and criminal must have some sort of honor system in order for their criminal enterprises to function and work.
The other saying is, “There's no honor among thieves.” This is the more common reference. It means that sooner or later, because thieves are inherently dishonorable, they will deviate from their own honor systems.
Both can be true at the same time. What we’re seeing these days is that the thieves on the left are stuck. They’ve played the system all along, but they needed that system. They needed to be able to use that system against conservatives, Republican candidates, and the democratic process — IDs for illegals. Now that Republicans have been forced to bolster the existing system, disbanding the notion that you can build your elections on the honor of the individual voter, Democrats have nowhere to go.
Because we will be applying the same rules to them as we do to ourselves. For conservatives, the honor system remains only because we know that we will pass whatever scrutiny is applied to us. For leftists, the honor system as they know it is dead, because now they have to verifiably demonstrate they are honorable.
