THE FOUNDATION: CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION

“They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.” —Thomas Jefferson

GOVERNMENT

“In each new Congress since 1995, Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) has introduced the Enumerated Powers Act (HR 1359)… Simply put, if enacted, the Enumerated Powers Act would require Congress to specify the basis of authority in the U.S. Constitution for the enactment of laws and other congressional actions. HR 1359 has 28 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives. When Shadegg introduced the Enumerated Powers Act, he explained that the Constitution gives the federal government great, but limited, powers. Its framers granted Congress, as the central mechanism for protecting liberty, specific rather than general powers. The Constitution gives Congress 18 specific enumerated powers, spelled out mostly in Article 1, Section 8. The framers reinforced that enumeration by the 10th Amendment, which reads: ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.’ Just a few of the numerous statements by our founders demonstrate that their vision and the vision of Shadegg’s Enumerated Powers Act are one and the same… I salute the bravery of Rep. Shadegg and the 28 co-sponsors of the Enumerated Powers Act. They have a monumental struggle. Congress is not alone in its constitutional contempt, but is joined by the White House and particularly the constitutionally derelict U.S. Supreme Court.” —Walter Williams

INSIGHT

“Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good.” —Oliver Ellsworth

LIBERTY

“It’s somewhat better to be sick in the United States than in Canada. Americans are… more likely to get preventive healthcare treatment for serious or chronic health conditions than Canadians who have a government-guaranteed right to healthcare… Thirty-three percent of Canadians who say they have an unmet medical need reported being in pain that limits their daily activities, compared to 22 percent of Americans who report an unmet need. Moreover, U.S. residents ‘give significantly higher ratings to the quality of care received and were more satisfied with healthcare services received than were Canadians’ note the scholars. But perhaps less-affluent people do better in Canada? Not really. Among working-age adults (18-64), the health gap based on income is actually greater in Canada than in the United States, according to this new, more accurate income data. Americans who have cancer may well face harrowing problems that need addressing by presidential candidates. But we are also significantly more likely to survive and be able to make it onstage with Hillary to complain about the U.S. healthcare system. I don’t know why Canadians tolerate a system where sick people are routinely denied quick access to care that they need. But the logic of ‘free government health care’ is this: ‘When no one is faced with any charge for services, demand is unrestrained and costs surge,’ June O’Neill and Dave O’Neill report. ‘It is not surprising that shortages developed and explicit rationing became widespread in Canada.’ Is that really where Hillary wants us to go?” —Maggie Gallagher

SELECT READER COMMENTS

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“Mark Alexander’s essay, ’Liberty: Earned v. Inherited,’ outlined very succinctly just what is lacking in too many of our countrymen. As a Marine officer with plenty of combat experience, I especially appreciated Alexander’s closing paragraph: ‘As a result, I gained a better appreciation for the unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness—those endowed by our Creator, those brought forth by our Founders, those defended ever since by the blood of Patriots. I also gained a clearer perspective on just how ungrateful some Americans are for the freedoms they have inherited.’ Semper Fi!” —Bagdad, Operation Iraq Freedom and proud of it!

“Alexander hit the nail on the head, and pounded it in with one stroke. ’Liberty: Earned v. Inherited,’ is the best column I’ve read in awhile. I can still recall standing at checkpoint Charlie in Berlin and looking into East Berlin at a lifeless black and white landscape and turning around and looking at the color and activity and bustle of the people on the Kurfurstendamm in West Berlin. Liberty v. Totalitarianism—day and night. I am currently involved in a Christian ministry to Christians under persecution in Jihadistan. Comparisons with the old Soviet Union and its satellites are apt. Christians who are persecuted for their faith have a much greater appreciation for the freedom found in Christ than those of us who have led comfortable lives unfettered by oppression. Keep up the good work Patriots!” —Round Hill, Virginia

“I really enjoyed your commentary explaining the similarities between wealth and freedom. Too many people take both for granted. I just wanted to say thank you for your service in the way you present it. I wish everyone had the opportunity to read The Patriot every week like I do. (I try to pass the word to everyone I know.) Keep up the good work. I will continue to support you in my meager way.” —Sapulpa, Oklahoma

FAMILY

“A pro-choice Republican president robs Republicans of the moral and rhetorical leadership that their presidents have provided on the abortion issue, especially under four terms of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. This critical reality is not grasped even by many pro-lifers, who whine about how 20 years of Republican presidents have failed to overturn Roe v. Wade. The reality is that overturning Roe v. Wade is not easy. It indeed starts with changing the courts. In the meantime, however, there is much the president can and must do to influence public opinion on the abortion issue—to make the moral case, to argue the justness of the cause, and to plough the ground to ready Americans for a seismic shift in abortion policy. To that end, both Reagan and Bush provided significant leadership… We have come to expect a rudderless lack of moral clarity from Democratic politicians; indeed, millions of pro-life Democrats have permanently parted ways with their party because of its leadership’s embrace of death to the defenseless unborn. To accept the same from a Republican president would be hard to stomach.” —Paul Kengor

CULTURE

“Perpetual adolescence is not just a cultural drag, but also dangerous to our way of life… The leveling of adult authority over the past half century or so was accompanied by a leveling of cultural authority. This brought on the age of multiculturalism, a time when Western Civ (like the adult) no longer occupies its old pinnacle atop the hierarchy of cultures. The multiculti conception of equally valuable cultures (except for the West, which is deemed the pits) depends on a strenuous non-judgmentalism. This non-judgmentalism expresses itself in a self-censoring adherence to political correctness. Such non-judgmentalism, such PC self-censorship, is infantilizing because it requires us to suppress our faculties of analysis and judgment.” —Diana West

THE GIPPER

“All of us denounce war—all of us consider it man’s greatest stupidity. And yet wars happen and they involve the most passionate lovers of peace because there are still barbarians in the world who set the price for peace at death or enslavement and the price is too high.” —Ronald Reagan

OPINION IN BRIEF

“If there is one idea that Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, share on how to fight the war on terror, it is that we need to reach out to and win the hearts and minds of the moderate, modern, peaceable, more secularist Muslims and empower them to defeat by both persuasion and other methods the radical, violent fundamentalists in their religion. That would be a very, very good idea. But consider the Turkish experience in the past six years. The Turks are the moderate, modern, peaceable, more secularist Muslims. Moreover our countries have been close allies for a half-century. And Turkey has had extensive friendly commercial relations with Israel. They are Turks, not Arabs, and are therefore less susceptible to the emotional plight of the West Bank Arabs under Israeli occupation. And yet we have lost the Turks almost as badly as we have lost the angriest fundamentalist Arab Muslims. If we can’t keep a fair share of their friendly attitude, how do we expect to win the much vaunted and awaited hearts and minds campaign?” —Tony Blankley

RE: THE LEFT

“College liberals are in a fit of pique because various speakers are coming to their campuses this week as part of David Horowitz’s Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week—not to be confused with Islamo-Fascism Appreciation Week, which I believe is in April. Apparently liberals support Islamo-fascism… Liberals claim to be terrified that the Religious Right is going to take over the culture in a country where more than a million babies are exterminated every year, kindergarteners can be expelled from school for mentioning God, and Islamic fascists are welcomed on college campuses while speakers opposed to Islamic fascism are met with angry protests. If liberals want to face real fascism, try showing up on a college campus and denouncing fascism.” —Ann Coulter

POLITICAL FUTURES

“Bobby Jindal, who was elected governor of Louisiana last Saturday, may not be a freak of unnatural Louisiana politics, but he’s an unsoiled anomaly… He vows to make war on sloth as well as rot, to banish evildoers to the unemployment lines if not to prison. ‘They can go quietly or they can go loudly,’ he said during the campaign, ‘but they’re going to go.’ He intends to call in the Legislature, which is not reform-minded insofar as anyone has ever noticed, to enact a code of ethics. He’s likely to invite more resistance than repentance. ‘You might find an ethic in the Legislature,’ a former governor once said, ‘and you might find a virgin in a bordello. But it’s a heckuva place to look for either one.’ Nevertheless, Bobby Jindal appears to be a phenomenon, and has turned the state’s politics upside down and destroyed stereotypes… None of this is good news for the Democrats. The election results show a sharp decline of votes cast in New Orleans, which has always been treated by Democrats as if New Orleans were an enormous ATM, dispensing votes, not dollars. Four years ago, 121,841 Orleanians cast ballots in the gubernatorial race; this year only 75,880 did so. This reflects not poor turnout but vanished voters. Many who voted four years ago now live in Houston, Atlanta, Memphis and other Southern cities and aren’t going home. This is particularly bad news for Sen. Mary Landrieu, the two-term Democratic senator who must run for re-election next year. She was first elected in 1996 in an extremely close race, fraught with the usual Louisiana ‘irregularities,’ and was saved by the New Orleans ATM. Next year could be a year of Democratic reckoning and Republican redemption.” —Wesley Pruden

FOR THE RECORD

“I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism… I should know. I live in Jena [Louisiana]. My wife has taught at Jena High School for many years. And most important, I am probably the only reporter who has covered these events from the very beginning… According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of ‘Lonesome Dove.’) The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history… As with the Duke Lacrosse case, the truth about Jena will eventually be known. But the town of Jena isn’t expecting any apologies from the media. They will probably never admit their error and have already moved on to the next ‘big’ story.” —Craig Franklin, assistant editor of The Jena Times