Polls Prove it! 4 out of 5 Americans prefer Robin Hood to the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Sadly, few of us are genuinely shocked by President Obama’s troubling penchant for partisan demagoguery – or by his pathological willingness to engage in class warfare and to play fast and loose with the latest polling data. However, as ludicrous as Obama’s conclusion concerning America’s support for tax hikes might seem, one cannot help but ponder the consequences that would ensue if his conclusion was, in fact, true. What if 4 out of 5 Americans did, in fact, support Obama’s scheme to “spread the wealth around”? Wouldn’t such a scenario sound out the death knell of our republic?

On hearing Obama’s astonishing revelation that 80% of Americans “are sold” on his bold plan to “enhance revenues” by gouging the rich, my initial reaction was to assume he was basing his conclusion on data from yet another “Daily Kos” poll such as this: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/02/07/693734/-From-Robin-Hood-to-the-Sheriff-of-Nottingham

I can just imagine the reportage: “Polls Prove it! 4 out of 5 Americans prefer Robin Hood to the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

Blogger John Stansbury soon revealed a more plausible basis for Obama’s implausible conclusion: Obama and his merry gang of statistical ethicists had simply been playing loose with some recent Gallop polling data. But, then, according to Stansbury, “using the same logic [deployed by Obama is his interpretation of the Gallop polling data],  96% of Americans are for spending cuts.”) http://wizbangblog.com/2011/07/15/where-obamas-80-who-want-tax-increases-came-from/

And, besides, as Stansbury might himself have observed, a critical distinction between America and Nottingham lies in the fact that, unlike most American citizens, 100% of the Nottinghamites were actual taxpayers.

But back to my initial question. What if 4 out of 5 Americans truly did favor our president’s scheme to steal from the rich and give to the poor?

In view of the results from our most recent presidential election, the President’s exaggerated support figures notwithstanding, the majority may very well favor the “revenue enhancement” schemes, which President Obama and the democrat Senate wishes to foist upon us all. (Recall: more voters sided with Obama’s platform to “spread the wealth around” than heeded Joe the Plumber’s admonishment that we continue to respect those individual rights bestowed by God and guaranteed in our Constitution.)

As our Constitutional law scholar-in-Chief and his merry gang of statistical ethicists should remember: although such a wealth redistribution scheme may very well curry favor with the majority of Americans (who, after all, pay zero federal income tax), Americans aren’t citizens of Nottingham. And our elected representatives didn’t swear allegiance to protect and defend the Constitution of Robin Hood and his gang of merry men.

As pronounced by James Madison in Federalist #10, by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, and by Joe the Plumber in the famed Obama rally interview of 2008: our elected representatives are duty bound to support and defend a Constitution, which confers individual protections against a majority seeking to foist tyranny upon the tax-paying minority – whether 4 out of 5 Americans are sold on the latest proposed money grab or not.

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