The Foundation

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.” –James Madison

Liberty

“[O]ne reason the Founding Fathers decided to break with England was their dismay with England’s mercantilist system, which generally required colonists to purchase manufactured goods from, or through, England rather than produce them in the colonies. Hatred for this system inspired a Virginia farmer named George Washington to try to convert his colonial farm into a self-sufficient unit – where … he could produce and consume what he wanted without trading with others, especially those in England. The Framers, who had not forgotten English mercantilism, wrote the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to create a free-trade zone among the American states. Their aim was to facilitate freedom, not restrict it. … [Judge Henry] Hudson, while carefully staying within the Supreme Court precedent of Wickard v. Filburn, correctly understood that the issue raised by Obamacare’s individual mandate … is freedom itself. ‘The unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers,’ Hudson wrote in his opinion. … And you thought liberals believed in freedom of choice?” –columnist Terence Jeffrey

Opinion in Brief

“The implicit argument for the legality of Obamacare is that the country hasn’t taken the Constitution seriously in decades. So why start now? Since all branches of the federal government have colluded in ignoring and violating the Constitution for this or that ‘good’ cause over the years, why insist on returning to it? Nancy Pelosi relied on this implicit argument when she sputtered ‘Are you serious?’ to a question last year about Obamacare’s constitutionality. Her scoff meant that the matter isn’t even debatable anymore; America’s de facto new Constitution – the ‘living’ one that resides in the wills of modern pols and judges – permits Congress to do anything it pleases in the name of the ‘general welfare.’ … That Congress can establish whatever tax it pleases in the name of the ‘general welfare’ or ludicrously stretch the Commerce Clause to mean that nonactivity counts as regulatable ‘interstate commerce’ was rejected over 220 years ago. Forcing every person in every state into purchasing health insurance was not one of the enumerated powers of Congress.” –columnist George Neumayr

Government

“Fighting government intrusion into our lives is becoming increasingly difficult for at least two reasons. The first reason is that educators at the primary, secondary and university levels have been successful in teaching our youngsters to despise the values of our Constitution and the founders of our nation – ‘those dead, old, racist white men.’ Their success in that arena might explain why educators have been unable to get our youngsters to read, write and compute on a level comparable with other developed nations; they are too busy proselytizing students. The second reason is we’ve become a nation of thieves, accustomed to living at the expense of one another and to accommodate that we’re obliged to support tyrannical and overreaching government. Adolf Hitler had it right when he said, ‘How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.’” –economist Walter E. Williams

Re: The Left

“In the midst of a colossal global concern for the economic stability of our great nation, Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri’s 5th Congressional District representative, has one small earmark on his wish list that deserves some attention. Cleaver has listed a new earmark – one of several – and he promises to ‘fight for every one.’ But this is a whopping $48 billion package that must go down as the grandaddy of all earmarks. Proposed by a gentleman named Lamar Mickens, president of the not-for-profit Quality Day Campus, the $48 billion earmark would funnel money into the inner cities to give money to the poor and thereby produce a much larger consumer class to buy the goods and services produced in this country. Just call this redistribution on steroids. Cleaver’s office says this of the proposal: ‘The Epicenter is a proposed estimated $48 billion (Phase One) mass scale urban reclamation project for combating, reducing, reversing and/or eliminating poverty within under served communities by utilizing mass scale economic redevelopment to bring about stability and self reliance.’ … If you truly believe that fairness involves this massive shift of money, then why mess with a paltry $48 billion. Wait. I forgot. This is just Phase One.” –columnist Mike Jensen

Political Futures

“A new analysis by a group of federal-spending watchdogs shows a striking imbalance between the parties when it comes to earmark requests. Democrats remain raging spenders, while Republicans have made enormous strides in cleaning up their act. … In the 2011 House budget, the groups found that House Democrats requested 18,189 earmarks, which would cost the taxpayers a total of $51.7 billion, while House Republicans requested just 241 earmarks, for a total of $1 billion. Where did those GOP earmark requests come from? Just four Republican lawmakers…. The Senate is a different story. But even though some Republicans are still seeking earmarks, Democrats are by far the bigger spenders. The watchdog groups found that Democrats requested 15,133 earmarks for 2011, for a total of $54.9 billion, while Republicans requested 5,352 earmarks, for a total of $22 billion. … The story of earmarks in the past year is one of Republican self-improvement. The party that wallowed in earmark spending in the past decade is trying to reform itself. … Perhaps the reforms will be temporary – beginning next year, Republicans will control the House and feel all the temptations of power – but so far, it’s a remarkable accomplishment.” –columnist Byron York

The Gift of Liberty

For last-minute shoppers, there is no better gift than the gift of Liberty. Help ensure that your loved ones will continue to enjoy the blessings of Liberty that our Creator has bestowed upon us. So that we may effectively battle the enemies of what you hold dear, make a secure online donation today to The Patriot Post‘s 2010 Year-End Campaign. If you prefer to support us by mail, please use our printable donor form.

Thank you and God bless!

Nate Jackson
Managing Editor

Reader Comments

“It is a great honor and privilege to be able to renew our support for The Patriot Post once again. I realize that a small quarterly donation is still, well, small. But with the combined efforts of Patriots across the country, I pray it will be enough to support your efforts to keep the fires of liberty burning – and stoke more as you go. Thank you for all that you do.” –Heidianne

“I was so humbled by my family’s request to take whatever I was going to spend on more stuff and donate to The Patriot Post in recognition of their excellent work in 2010. Thank you doesn’t seem adequate for the sacrifices of our military. We will always remember what you have done and are doing to secure the liberty and freedom we all enjoy. You are in our prayers every day. May God continue to bless this great country, and to Him be all the Glory as we celebrate His Son’s birth.” –Dean

For the Record

“The Obama administration has an impeccable track record of caving in to Russian demands, as part of its controversial 'reset’ policy. Last year, it threw key US allies Poland and the Czech Republic under the bus, ditching plans for Third Site missile defenses in deference to Russian opposition. It is now planning another surrender to Moscow, by pressing for Senate ratification of the new START Treaty in the lame duck session of Congress. … As part of its campaign to woo opponents of the Treaty, the Democratic White House has claimed that Ronald Reagan would have backed it, a simply ludicrous assertion. As Reagan’s attorney general Ed Meese, and Assistant Secretary of Defense, Richard Perle noted in The Wall Street Journal, the Gipper would never have backed an arms control agreement that encumbered ‘the pursuit of advanced ballistic missile defense technology…’ Simply put, the New START Treaty is a staggeringly bad deal for the United States, and an extraordinarily good one for Vladimir Putin’s increasingly hostile and authoritarian Russia. … The White House is pressing for another monumental surrender to Moscow which will only strengthen the hand of a key US adversary.” –columnist Nile Gardiner

Faith & Family

“Just go to church on any given Sunday and count the number of ladies in the pews versus the number of men. The result? Well, you’re suddenly slapped in the face with the cheap whiskey-like reality that men are avoiding church like [Nancy] Pelosi avoids reason. … [C]hurch, for most men, has not only become irrelevant – it has also become effeminate. … The current lack of strong men within the Church … has crippled our churches and has helped devastate our nation. … If the Church and our nation want to recover their losses, we’ve got to draw men back to church. … Toss in reason, competition, initiation, struggle, fun and a problem to spiritually throttle, and we’ll be there… Blow off, suppress, and spiritually emasculate the environment of these holy testicular necessities and your church, as far as men go, will be more empty… If concerned Christians want to improve our nation biblically, then the Church has got to eliminate its effeminate drift and re-establish a masculine bent. Our times demand strong men; the Church must produce them, not repel them. The Church needs men who are not afraid of the secular thugs who try to keep Christians marginalized in a religious ghetto.” –columnist Doug Giles

Culture

“Serious Christians have long complained about the commercialization of Christmas. … But exuberant gift giving is sewn into the national psyche now. … The challenge for parents who don’t want to spoil their children, it seems to me, is to inculcate gratitude. … We have taken wrapped new presents to a women’s shelter – though to my disappointment, we were asked to remove the wrapping before the presents could be offered to the kids (a lamentable sign of the times perhaps). And while we weren’t serenaded by angelic towheads … we did accomplish the basic mission. In fact, instilling gratitude should be a year-round activity. Even in the midst of economic hard times for many, we cannot lose sight of the incredible bounty this country has bestowed on all of us. While we shouldn’t teach history as an exercise in chauvinism, we can and should nevertheless convey to every American child that one of the most precious gifts anyone can receive is to be born in the United States of America.” –columnist Mona Charen

Insight

“Just a hurried line … to tell a story which puts the contrast between our feast of the Nativity and all this ghastly ‘Xmas’ racket at its lowest. My brother heard a woman on a bus say, as the bus passed a church with a Crib outside it, ‘Oh lor’! They bring religion into everything. Look – they’re dragging it even into Christmas now!‘” –writer and lay theologian C. S. Lewis

The Gipper

“Christmas means so much because of one special child. But Christmas also reminds us that all children are special, that they are gifts from God, gifts beyond price that mean more than any presents money can buy. In their love and laughter, in our hopes for their future, lies the true meaning of Christmas.” –Ronald Reagan

The Last Word

“You’ve got to give Barack Obama credit. His learning curve gets steeper and steeper, but he continues to climb. 'I’m going to let him speak very briefly,’ Obama said … before making the fateful decision to allow a smirking Bill Clinton a none-too-brief moment in front of the cameras. … You have to think Obama is wondering where he took a wrong turn. The obvious answer: his stimulus bill, which is so unpopular now that Bill Clinton joked…, ‘I guess we’re not supposed to use that word anymore.’ … I think the initial appeal of the stimulus for many liberals, Obama included, is that it dovetailed with progressive hubris and Democratic resentment, the two defining characteristics of Obama’s base. The experts … insisted that all of the answers were obvious for the smart set. Meanwhile, the partisans insisted they deserved unfettered rule after enduring the Bush captivity. Obama was elected by exploiting and exemplifying both sentiments. In his arrogance, he even disparaged the Clinton presidency as too mincing and modest. Then … Obama recruited Clinton to help save his more ambitious presidency from ruin. Bill, like everyone else, recognized Obama’s comeuppance. Indeed, you could see it in Bill’s smile.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg