As brilliant and divinely inspired as our founding fathers were, they made a serious mistake in judgment.
For they believed that future generations of Americans would not only share their same desire and vigor for individual freedom and liberty, but their deference to statesmanship over politics and, above all, dedication to the principles of limited government they laid out in the Constitution.
The passage of so-called “health care reform” last week by the Congress of the United States and signed into law by President Obama should, once and for all, put to rest the fantasy that our elected officials – descendants of our revolutionary representatives – live and breathe by those same founding principles.
The irony of all this is that the most divisive piece of legislation in a generation – and the one that has contributed more to the demise of our future freedoms and liberty – was signed into law by a president who used to teach the Constitution to college students.
Is the situation really so dire?
When you consider that the U.S. health care system amounts to one-sixth of our entire annual economy; that health care touches 100 percent of our population; and that the recently passed health care reform law mandates coverage at risk of penalty and/or jail, the answer is resoundingly in the affirmative.
In terms of advancing the scope of the federal government – a principle so anathema to our founders that they dedicated an entire section of the Constitution (Article I, Section 8) to enumerating the federal government’s very few and very specific powers – the takeover of our health care system amounts to a coup de grace for statists and big government supporters.
From now on, unless states can successfully challenge the law at the Supreme Court level, or unless Republican promises of repeal become reality, Washington’s sycophants, miscreants and derelicts will have cradle-to-grave control over your life in some form or fashion.
It’s not a pretty picture. But more than that, it’s not the vision our founders fought, bled and died to create.
When asked by a reporter a few months ago about the constitutionality of the Democrats’ health care takeover, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California chided the questioner with temerity and derision, positing simply in response, “Are you serious?”
Thus is the level of contempt modern-day legislators, who brand themselves enlightened “progressives,” display for the very document which allowed them the individual freedom to seek office in the first place, and to which each of them pledged allegiance and obedience upon taking their seat as representatives of the people.
And yet, the very same post-modern lawmakers who, on the one hand, hold such scorn for the Constitution when it blocks advancement of their ideology, will use its supposedly intractable provisions when it is advantageous to them. Can you imagine, for instance, Pelosi – as third in line of succession to the White House, should tragedy befall both Obama and Vice President Biden simultaneously – hesitating to take her place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Or any liberal decrying the First Amendment’s free-speech provisions as loudly as they do the Second Amendment’s guaranteed personal ownership of a firearm?
Of course it is impossible for our founders to physically witness today the America they created two-and-a-half centuries ago. But if it were possible, it’s more likely they would never recognize it – and just as likely they would consider the bulk of today’s legislators in Washington the same enemies of liberty as was King George and his Court.
There is no way the founding fathers could have improved on the Constitution in a way that would have prevented the passage of a blatantly unconstitutional law like we just saw in the health care reform bill. The Constitution is already clear about what powers Washington does – and does not – possess.
What our form of government requires to function properly, therefore, is a group of individuals who value and aspire to preserve our founding principles; statesmen who zealously guard the integrity of the Constitution’s limited federal role; men and women who forego the ugly pettiness, convenience and personal gain of politics in lieu of protecting and preserving what was, when it was first implemented, the most radically liberating and empowering form of government ever devised.
Obama is touting health care reform as a victory for the American people, while mocking those who rightfully deride his and his party’s new law as an insult to our forebears and a rejection of all they stood for.
With any luck, maybe the judicial branch of government still has enough founding principle left to put the kibosh on this blatant power grab. Short of that, there is no recourse left for the American people, save following the example of our founders.
-30-
Friday, March 26, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Time to be Honest about Race
If you thought the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first black president would end the accusations from some quarters that America is still an inherently racist nation, you were mistaken.
Such predictions were as wrong as they were when, way back in 1870 and with the haunting memories of the Civil War still fresh in Americans’ minds, Joseph Rainey of South Carolina became the first black elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives; when, a century later, Thurgood Marshall became the first black U.S. Supreme Court Justice; and when, in 1990, Sharon Pratt Dixon became the first black woman sworn in as mayor of Washington, D.C.
Of course blacks – and other Americans of a non-white ethnicity – have made innumerous advances over the years, equaling or surpassing whites in virtually every sector of society, as the country moved towards a colorblindness that has become so seamless that, for the vast majority of us, the issue never even enters into our consciousness.
Until it is purposely put there by race hustlers who, without the divisiveness of the issue, would cease to be relevant - even to the point of losing their ability to make a living (could you imagine Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton working construction or doing the Walmart greeter thing?).
This week it was longtime black activist Tavis Smiley’s turn to stir the racial pot. The PBS host announced he was organizing a “gathering of African-American advocates,” The Associated Press reported, to “press the case” for what he labeled the “black agenda.”
Smiley, who has a reputation for decrying perpetual injustice against black Americans, says he was “compelled” to call for the gathering because of “recent statements from some black leaders (who are) downplaying the need for President Barack Obama to specifically help African-Americans,” AP said.
Smiley’s is a crusade in search of a battle. Despite his grousing and that of a handful of like-minded hustlers – the afforementioned “reverends” Sharpton, Jackson, and Louis Farrakhan come immediately to mind – the issue of race in America was largely solved, settled and dismissed decades ago.
While it is true that as long as there are human beings walking the earth there will be racism, ethnic tensions and jealousies, the kind of “institutional racism” Smiley and Co. regularly rail against simply does not exist in the United States anymore.
That Obama would be criticized by these hustlers for being too “race neutral” is remarkable in and of itself, especially in these times when the nation has moved on to more pressing – and more real – problems. Consider that, were George W. Bush or even Bill Clinton, the self-proclaimed “first black president,” criticized by so-called “white activists” for not pursuing a “white agenda,” the radical left – the media, entertainment and political elite that backs the Tavis Smileys of the country – would have collectively had a stroke caused by their unquenchable tide of outrage.
But given a pass to level ridiculous charges, they are free to wag a finger at Obama, himself born of a white mother, for doing too little to advance a cause that has long since ceased to be a “cause” needing advancement. They think of him as a traitor to their race, when in reality he represents exactly what makes America, in Ronald Reagan’s words, “the shining city on a hill.”
Obama’s policies aside, the fact that he is sitting in the White House as leader of the free world represents the crowning triumph over race issues in a country that killed more than 600,000 of its own citizens over the practice of enslaving those of another race. If only some of the African nations – where so many of our “African” American leaders claim kinship but have never lived or visited there – were as racially tolerant.
I would suggest that a more worthy “cause” Smiley, et al, should pursue is one that sees racial preferences now written into law repealed, in order to end the reverse discrimination they foster, thereby allowing blacks and other minorities to compete based on their own merits rather than seek advancement based on no more than the color of their skin.
Would that be hoping for too much?
Perhaps. Smiley and those like him would first have to be convinced that blacks and other minorities are more than capable of campaigning successfully in today’s America and don’t need special considerations to get ahead.
Why blacks aren’t outraged at people like Smiley who, by their insistence on special treatment, overtly intimate that men and women of color aren’t smart enough, or talented enough, or brave enough, or proficient enough to make their way without help is something of a mystery to me and, I suspect, most of America.
Most Americans have moved past the “race issue.” But until the perfumed elite in this country begin to apply the same kind of stringent standards of behavior and provability to black and other minority race hustlers as they do whites, we’ll continue to have a small army of race “activists” searching for relevance.
-30-
Such predictions were as wrong as they were when, way back in 1870 and with the haunting memories of the Civil War still fresh in Americans’ minds, Joseph Rainey of South Carolina became the first black elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives; when, a century later, Thurgood Marshall became the first black U.S. Supreme Court Justice; and when, in 1990, Sharon Pratt Dixon became the first black woman sworn in as mayor of Washington, D.C.
Of course blacks – and other Americans of a non-white ethnicity – have made innumerous advances over the years, equaling or surpassing whites in virtually every sector of society, as the country moved towards a colorblindness that has become so seamless that, for the vast majority of us, the issue never even enters into our consciousness.
Until it is purposely put there by race hustlers who, without the divisiveness of the issue, would cease to be relevant - even to the point of losing their ability to make a living (could you imagine Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton working construction or doing the Walmart greeter thing?).
This week it was longtime black activist Tavis Smiley’s turn to stir the racial pot. The PBS host announced he was organizing a “gathering of African-American advocates,” The Associated Press reported, to “press the case” for what he labeled the “black agenda.”
Smiley, who has a reputation for decrying perpetual injustice against black Americans, says he was “compelled” to call for the gathering because of “recent statements from some black leaders (who are) downplaying the need for President Barack Obama to specifically help African-Americans,” AP said.
Smiley’s is a crusade in search of a battle. Despite his grousing and that of a handful of like-minded hustlers – the afforementioned “reverends” Sharpton, Jackson, and Louis Farrakhan come immediately to mind – the issue of race in America was largely solved, settled and dismissed decades ago.
While it is true that as long as there are human beings walking the earth there will be racism, ethnic tensions and jealousies, the kind of “institutional racism” Smiley and Co. regularly rail against simply does not exist in the United States anymore.
That Obama would be criticized by these hustlers for being too “race neutral” is remarkable in and of itself, especially in these times when the nation has moved on to more pressing – and more real – problems. Consider that, were George W. Bush or even Bill Clinton, the self-proclaimed “first black president,” criticized by so-called “white activists” for not pursuing a “white agenda,” the radical left – the media, entertainment and political elite that backs the Tavis Smileys of the country – would have collectively had a stroke caused by their unquenchable tide of outrage.
But given a pass to level ridiculous charges, they are free to wag a finger at Obama, himself born of a white mother, for doing too little to advance a cause that has long since ceased to be a “cause” needing advancement. They think of him as a traitor to their race, when in reality he represents exactly what makes America, in Ronald Reagan’s words, “the shining city on a hill.”
Obama’s policies aside, the fact that he is sitting in the White House as leader of the free world represents the crowning triumph over race issues in a country that killed more than 600,000 of its own citizens over the practice of enslaving those of another race. If only some of the African nations – where so many of our “African” American leaders claim kinship but have never lived or visited there – were as racially tolerant.
I would suggest that a more worthy “cause” Smiley, et al, should pursue is one that sees racial preferences now written into law repealed, in order to end the reverse discrimination they foster, thereby allowing blacks and other minorities to compete based on their own merits rather than seek advancement based on no more than the color of their skin.
Would that be hoping for too much?
Perhaps. Smiley and those like him would first have to be convinced that blacks and other minorities are more than capable of campaigning successfully in today’s America and don’t need special considerations to get ahead.
Why blacks aren’t outraged at people like Smiley who, by their insistence on special treatment, overtly intimate that men and women of color aren’t smart enough, or talented enough, or brave enough, or proficient enough to make their way without help is something of a mystery to me and, I suspect, most of America.
Most Americans have moved past the “race issue.” But until the perfumed elite in this country begin to apply the same kind of stringent standards of behavior and provability to black and other minority race hustlers as they do whites, we’ll continue to have a small army of race “activists” searching for relevance.
-30-
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
