The Foundation

“They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare…. [G]iving 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. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.” –Thomas Jefferson

For the Record

“Last Saturday [Nov. 7], at 11 o'clock in the evening, the House of Representatives voted by a five vote margin to have the federal government manage the health care of every American at a cost of $1 trillion dollars over the next ten years. For the first time in American history, if this bill becomes law, the Feds will force you to buy insurance you might not want, or may not need, or cannot afford. If you don’t purchase what the government tells you to buy, if you don’t do so when they tell you to do it, and if you don’t buy just what they say is right for you, the government may fine you, prosecute you, and even put you in jail. Freedom of choice and control over your own body will be lost. The privacy of your communications and medical decision making with your physician will be gone. More of your hard earned dollars will be at the disposal of federal bureaucrats. It was not supposed to be this way. We elect the government. It works for us. How did it get so removed, so unbridled, so arrogant that it can tell us how to live our personal lives? Evil rarely comes upon us all at once, and liberty is rarely lost in one stroke. It happens gradually, over the years and decades and even centuries. A little stretch here, a cave in there, powers are slowly taken from the states and the people and before you know it, we have one big monster government that recognizes no restraint on its ability to tell us how to live.” –Judge Andrew Napolitano

Liberty

“Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi’s constitutional contempt, perhaps ignorance, is representative of the majority of members of both the House and the Senate. Their comfort in that ignorance and constitutional contempt, and how readily they articulate it, should be worrisome for every single American. It’s not a matter of whether you are for or against Congress’ health care proposals. It’s not a matter of whether you’re liberal or conservative, black or white, male or female, Democrat or Republican or member of any other group. It’s a matter of whether we are going to remain a relatively free people or permit the insidious encroachment on our liberties to continue. … In each new session of Congress since 1995, John Shadegg, R-Ariz.,) has introduced the Enumerated Powers Act, a measure ‘To require Congress to specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws, and for other purposes.’ The highest number of co-sponsors it has ever had in the House of Representatives is 54 and it has never had co-sponsors in the Senate until this year, when 22 senators signed up. The fact that less than 15 percent of the Congress supports such a measure demonstrates the kind of contempt our elected representatives have for the rules of the game – our Constitution. If you asked the questions: Which way is our nation heading, tiny steps at a time? Are we headed toward more liberty, or are we headed toward greater government control over our lives? I think the answer is unambiguously the latter – more government control over our lives.” –economist Walter E. Williams

The Gipper

“The difference between the path toward greater freedom or bigger government is the difference between success and failure; between opportunity and coercion; between faith in a glorious future and fear of mediocrity and despair; between respecting people as adults, each with a spark of greatness, and treating them as helpless children to be forever dependent; between a drab, materialistic world where Big Brother rules by promises to special interest groups, and a world of adventure where everyday people set their sights on impossible dreams, distant stars, and the Kingdom of God. We have the true message of hope for America.” –Ronald Reagan

Political Futures

“Barack Obama told the House Democratic Caucus before the roll call vote on health care on Nov. 7 that they would be better off politically if they passed the bill than if they let it fail. Bill Clinton speaking to the Senate Democrats’ lunch on Nov. 10 cited his party’s big losses in 1994 after Congress failed to pass his health care legislation as evidence that Democrats would suffer more from failure to pass a bill than from disaffection with a bill that was signed into law. These were closed meetings, but we can safely assume that the two Democratic presidents also assured their fellow partisans that health care legislation would do all sorts of good things for the American people. We know Obama did say that Democrats should ‘answer the call of history,’ even though America has gotten along pretty well without government-run health insurance for some 220 years. But political calculations are always on politicians’ minds. The two presidents were urging passage of legislation that has become increasingly unpopular as its provisions become more widely known. They were speaking at a time when Gallup tells us that only 47 percent of Americans think providing health insurance is a government responsibility, down from 69 percent just two years ago. So despite their assurances, it’s unclear whether Democrats will be better off passing a bill or seeing one fail. In political discourse, it’s often assumed that there is some clear path to a favorable outcome. But sometimes both paths lead down.” –political analyst Michael Barone

Government

“As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of Representatives has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully centrally plan the medical and insurance industries. I’m embarrassed that my representatives think that government can subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free choice. It’s a triumph of mindless wishful thinking over logic and experience. The 1,990-page bill is breathtaking in its bone-headed audacity. The notion that a small group of politicians can know enough to design something so complex and so personal is astounding. That they were advised by ‘experts’ means nothing since no one is expert enough to do that. There are too many tradeoffs faced by unique individuals with infinitely varying needs. Government cannot do simple things efficiently. The bureaucrats struggle to count votes correctly. They give subsidized loans to ‘homeowners’ who turn out to be 4-year-olds. Yet congressmen want government to manage our medicine and insurance.” –columnist John Stossel

Re: The Left

“In the late 1930s, the noted economist Friedrich Von Hayek wrote his landmark pamphlet ‘Road to Serfdom,’ laying bare the diseased skeleton of socialist/utopian thought that had permeated academia and the salons of his day. With an economy of words that showcased the significance of his conclusion, he pointed out the Achilles heel of collectivist dogma: for a planned economy to succeed, there must be central planners, who by necessity will insist on universal commitment to their plan. How do you attain total commitment to a goal from a free people? Well, you don’t. Some percentage will always disagree, even if only for the sake of being contrary or out of a desire to be left alone. When considering a program as comprehensive as a government-planned economy, there are undoubtedly countless points of contention, such as how we will choose the planners, how we will order our priorities when assigning them importance within the plan, how we will allocate resources when competing interests have legitimate claims, who will make these decisions, and perhaps more pertinent to our discussion, how those decisions will be enforced. A rift forming on even one of these issues is enough to bring the gears of this progressive endeavor grinding to a halt. This fatal flaw in the collectivist design cannot be reengineered. It is an error so critical that the entire ideology must be scrapped.” –columnist Joe Herring

We Depend on You

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Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander
Publisher

Opinion in Brief

“One word aptly describes Ft. Hood mass murderer Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan: traitor. Traitor is a tough word. It doesn’t smudge and squish. ‘Traitor’ draws a hard line, one that sharply divides essential life-determining values and marks a defining personal choice between the profound and the profane. There is no question that the accusation of treason, like accusations involving its kin terms sedition and betrayal, has been grossly abused. Self-styled mainstream journalists with no regard for the awful moral weight and terrible consequences of the actual act of sedition heedlessly employ the accusation as a word weapon to thwart discomfiting political criticism. … With Hasan, however, we move well beyond accusation. Hasan committed an act of treason. Count the bodies, dead and wounded, for they are harsh facts, and they are the consequences. … Since Hasan survived, we may hear from him about his journey from medical officer to jihadi. His own explanations – whether glandular, psychological, theological or political theatrical – will intrigue many, particularly in the chitchat media already fretting over his identity crisis, but they will not raise the dead, comfort the grieving or satisfy fellow soldiers he betrayed.” –columnist Austin Bay

Culture

“Nidal Malik Hasan, was unimpressed by our diversity. In fact, it may have been diversity that set him off. Hasan and other Muslim extremists don’t practice diversity. They mostly practice Sharia law, which backlashes against anyone who won’t submit to their fundamentalist view of the world. … Why do so many American leaders seem ashamed and apologetic about America? Holding to the view that America is unexceptional and that no idea, policy, belief, or practice is to be preferred over any other is not diversity. Rather, it is thin gruel; unappealing and unappetizing, and it robs us of our strength. Did diversity build and sustain America through world wars and economic challenges? No, it was a firm set of principles held by patriots of many races who were willing to pay the price in money and blood. These days, we seem to be increasingly confronted with people who are the political equivalent of shoplifters: they want the benefits without paying the price. … I grow weary of having to tolerate everything when none of those making such demands seem willing to tolerate much of what I believe. Shouldn’t diversity be a two-way street instead of a roadblock?” –columnist Cal Thomas

Reader Comments

“It is not Islamaphobia if they really are trying to kill you.” –Brian

“With the passage of the health care legislation I will finally get my health care for free. President Eisenhower explained it clearly: If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking … is freedom. I will willingly turn myself in to the authorities and go to jail. Free housing, free food, free clothes, free health care. I’ll just read The Patriot Post all day! Is there a provision in the legislation to build more jails and prisons? In a Ghandi-inspired protest, we should simply overwhelm our law enforcement agencies, courts and prison systems by saying, ‘I am not buying your required health insurance and I am here to turn myself in!’” –Neal

“It is with pride and honor to once again contribute as a patriot to fellow patriots who keep the flame of freedom alive. I am proud to be counted among those who have protected America with our hands and service. I am equally proud to be able to continue to serve with the financial gifts that living as a FREE American has allowed me to earn.” –Mark from Akron, Ohio

“I know there is a team behind The Patriot Post because all I see and read here cannot be done without a very strong team and a leader that cares. My blood flows Red, White and Blue. I’ve never had the honor of serving my country but I love the men and women who fight for and defend a free America. Thanks for allowing me to help behind the scenes. May God continue to allow The Patriot voice to be heard and read for a very long time.” –A fellow American Patriot

The Last Word

“The American people are hearing a call to arms – not literal arms, for our system can self correct. But we have to out-organize and out-pressure the Left. They have called us ‘the enemy’ ever since Alinsky’s little book radicalized the revolutionaries of the Boomer Left after the violent revolutionary groups were readily suppressed. When somebody really considers you their enemy you have no choice. Either you return the compliment, or you get overwhelmed by the new Chicago Mob in D.C. The Left has shown how to fight from a position of the minority and win. American conservatives by a recent poll have a two-to-one majority. They are constantly undermined by the political Left: Ridiculed in the media, demeaned in the schools and universities, out-maneuvered in politics at the state and national level by Leftists who are far nastier and far more ruthless than ordinary, decent Americans. This is a struggle for the country. We need to toughen up.” –columnist James Lewis