Dogman
2nd October 2010, 08:55 AM
This was in my local newspaper this morning! ;D
http://www.news-journal.com/oped/forum/article_9937609b-50d7-5e22-a3ed-bcdd7f1c27ec.html
A living, breathing contempt for constitutionality
Posted: Saturday, October 2, 2010 12:00 am | Updated: 5:49 am, Sat Oct 2, 2010.
By Brian Coulter
Thomas Paine was prescient when he wrote, "A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is power without right ... All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation."
A purposeful disregard for the august precepts put forth by the framers is embraced by the Obama administration, Democratic Congress and hangers-on within the media and academia.
Liberty is anathema to the Progressive mind, just as it was for FDR and his inner circle, who, so enamored of Stalin and Mussolini, adopted much of their collectivist platform, or at least what the Supreme Court didn't strike down as unconstitutional. That shameful legacy is ongoing.
When Nancy Pelosi was asked where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance, she arrogantly dismissed the question, asking "Are you serious? Are you serious?"
U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, defending his party against charges of bribery and chicanery during the health care debate, explained "The issue trumps the process."
Disbarred judge-turned-Democratic congressman Alcee Hastings agreed, explaining, "There are no rules here. When the deal goes down, we make 'em up as we go along."
The First Amendment is "highly overrated," according to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who apparently has academic and media elites agreeing with him.
Channeling his inner Hugo Chavez, liberal UCLA law professor Jonathan Zasloff asked, "Is there any reason why the FCC couldn't simply pull their (Fox News) broadcasting permit once it expires?" No such permit exists for cable channels.
Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick showed his true colors, braying that, "It's a free country. I wish it weren't, but it's a free country" in response to Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally in Washington. Abjuring free speech is the liberal's fondest longing.
Revealing his distaste for the democratic process, former legislator Barack Obama confessed, "I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are." To a fawning Katie Couric: "I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant, academically approved approach to health care, and didn't have any kinds of legislative fingerprints on it and just go ahead and have that passed. But that's not how it works in our democracy.
Unfortunately, what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people." To Obama and his class, the "consent of the governed" is not academically approved, nor is the Constitution, which he once named "a charter of negative liberties."
When asked a legitimate question regarding the constitutionality of Obamacare by a constituent, Dem. Rep. Phil Hare replied with dripping condescension, "I don't worry about the Constitution."
Last year, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times vented his frustration with what he felt was the slow grind of the Obama administration's legislative agenda, saying, "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century." Backward is the new forward.
Writing for American Thinker, Gary Larson notes how author David Lebedoff augurs a distressing future for us in his book "The Uncivil War: How a New Elite Is Destroying Our Democracy."
The nature of our would-be authoritarian masters he describes thus: "Perhaps the greatest mischief of the New Elite is the rapacity with which it seeks to rewrite basic rules."
Indefensible acts against the rule of law from the lawless left contradict its usual boilerplate about democracy, justice, and common decency.
Conservatism's adherence to long-established law, most notably the Constitution, has been the counterbalance that brings America back into proper equilibrium.
It must be so again in November. The price of the Progressive-utopian delusion is too high for liberty-loving Americans to pay.
Brian Coulter is a Longview area resident and regular contributor to Saturday Forum.
There have been several similar articles like this one over the last year in the editorial section
of this newspaper. ;D
http://www.news-journal.com/oped/forum/article_9937609b-50d7-5e22-a3ed-bcdd7f1c27ec.html
A living, breathing contempt for constitutionality
Posted: Saturday, October 2, 2010 12:00 am | Updated: 5:49 am, Sat Oct 2, 2010.
By Brian Coulter
Thomas Paine was prescient when he wrote, "A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is power without right ... All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation."
A purposeful disregard for the august precepts put forth by the framers is embraced by the Obama administration, Democratic Congress and hangers-on within the media and academia.
Liberty is anathema to the Progressive mind, just as it was for FDR and his inner circle, who, so enamored of Stalin and Mussolini, adopted much of their collectivist platform, or at least what the Supreme Court didn't strike down as unconstitutional. That shameful legacy is ongoing.
When Nancy Pelosi was asked where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance, she arrogantly dismissed the question, asking "Are you serious? Are you serious?"
U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, defending his party against charges of bribery and chicanery during the health care debate, explained "The issue trumps the process."
Disbarred judge-turned-Democratic congressman Alcee Hastings agreed, explaining, "There are no rules here. When the deal goes down, we make 'em up as we go along."
The First Amendment is "highly overrated," according to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who apparently has academic and media elites agreeing with him.
Channeling his inner Hugo Chavez, liberal UCLA law professor Jonathan Zasloff asked, "Is there any reason why the FCC couldn't simply pull their (Fox News) broadcasting permit once it expires?" No such permit exists for cable channels.
Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick showed his true colors, braying that, "It's a free country. I wish it weren't, but it's a free country" in response to Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally in Washington. Abjuring free speech is the liberal's fondest longing.
Revealing his distaste for the democratic process, former legislator Barack Obama confessed, "I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are." To a fawning Katie Couric: "I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant, academically approved approach to health care, and didn't have any kinds of legislative fingerprints on it and just go ahead and have that passed. But that's not how it works in our democracy.
Unfortunately, what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people." To Obama and his class, the "consent of the governed" is not academically approved, nor is the Constitution, which he once named "a charter of negative liberties."
When asked a legitimate question regarding the constitutionality of Obamacare by a constituent, Dem. Rep. Phil Hare replied with dripping condescension, "I don't worry about the Constitution."
Last year, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times vented his frustration with what he felt was the slow grind of the Obama administration's legislative agenda, saying, "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century." Backward is the new forward.
Writing for American Thinker, Gary Larson notes how author David Lebedoff augurs a distressing future for us in his book "The Uncivil War: How a New Elite Is Destroying Our Democracy."
The nature of our would-be authoritarian masters he describes thus: "Perhaps the greatest mischief of the New Elite is the rapacity with which it seeks to rewrite basic rules."
Indefensible acts against the rule of law from the lawless left contradict its usual boilerplate about democracy, justice, and common decency.
Conservatism's adherence to long-established law, most notably the Constitution, has been the counterbalance that brings America back into proper equilibrium.
It must be so again in November. The price of the Progressive-utopian delusion is too high for liberty-loving Americans to pay.
Brian Coulter is a Longview area resident and regular contributor to Saturday Forum.
There have been several similar articles like this one over the last year in the editorial section
of this newspaper. ;D