The Foundation

“Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression.” –James Wilson

Essential Liberty

“Over the past half-century, Washington has insinuated itself into a thousand-and-one decisions that individuals or local governments are more than capable of making for themselves. Which medicines can you buy? How efficient should your light bulbs be? Can your children’s school day begin with a prayer? Who qualifies for a mortgage? When do unemployment benefits run out? Can you pay an employee $5 an hour if that’s what his labor is worth? Should abortions be restricted? Is health insurance optional? Do artists or farmers or broadcasters require subsidies? Are you in charge of your retirement income? In Federalist No. 45, James Madison emphasized that, under the Constitution, the powers of the federal government ‘are few and defined,’ while those left to state and local communities ‘are numerous and indefinite.’ For the first 150 years or so of US history that was largely the case. But New Deal and Great Society liberalism has turned the framers’ careful arrangement inside out. Today, there is almost nothing in American life that Washington does not consider itself fit to regulate, control, ban, tax, or mandate. … Has the staggering growth of the federal establishment made America a better, more humane, more optimistic place to live? Obviously it is possible to single out this or that law or regulation or expenditure and show that it has been beneficial. Not even the most ardent libertarian disputes the need for federal governance of inherently national matters – and the Constitution itself makes clear that Washington has a role to play in guaranteeing civic equality and political liberty. Yet in crucial ways, the flow of power upward to the federal government has impoverished American culture and weakened civic society.” –columnist Jeff Jacoby

Insight

“[G]overnment can, instead of extending freedom, restrict freedom. And note … that the ‘can’ quickly becomes ‘will’ the moment the holders of government power are left to their own devices. This is because of the corrupting influence of power, the natural tendency of men who possess some power to take unto themselves more power. The tendency leads eventually to the acquisition of all power – whether in the hands of one or many makes little difference to the freedom of those left on the outside.” –U. S. Senator Barry Goldwater (1909-1998)

For the Record

“Before President Obama headed off to his rented 28-acre retreat in Martha’s Vineyard, he spent a few days campaigning around the Midwest in his new million-dollar, Canadian-made campaign bus, paid for at government expense. He even unveiled what many believe will be his new re-election theme: ‘Country first.’ According to his new stump speech, if you oppose his agenda, then you don’t care about America as much as he does. ‘There is no shortage of ideas to put people to work right now. What is needed is action on the part of Congress, a willingness to put the partisan games aside and say we’re going to do what’s right for the country, not what we think is going to score some political points for the next election,’ Obama explained in Cannon Falls, Minn., in an event the White House insisted had nothing to do with campaigning. … In news that will no doubt rekindle the hopes of the unemployed, the White House says Obama has an idea for how to get even more Americans working. Of course, it will depend on that ‘America first’ spirit, which will really separate the patriotic from the petty. And what is his big new plan for putting country first? Well, you’ll just have to wait until September to find out. For now, his policy is Martha’s Vineyard first.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg

Government

“The president is planning to unveil his new jobs proposals – in September. Why wait until after Labor Day? Wouldn’t it be neat to think, as we approach Labor Day, that the administration had a forward-looking plan in place right now? I think the 25 million unemployed or underemployed Americans would be especially excited to hear of a plan before they have to shell out for the kids’ new school shoes. One of the trial balloons currently being floated is that the president will announce a new Department of Jobs. This has got to be a joke. … If the function of the U.S. Secretary of Commerce is to promote job creation and economic growth, it sure seems that – how can I say this charitably? – this distinguished public servant has been falling down on the job of late. Like the last two and a half years. If I were Mr. Obama’s Commerce Secretary, I’d want to get out of town, and fast. In fact, that’s exactly what Sec. Gary Locke did. Having done such yeoman’s work in promoting job creation and economic growth here, Gary Locke was recently sworn in as our Ambassador to China. Now, there’s a jobs plan! If you can’t beat ‘em, join 'em. … Maybe he can persuade them to buy more American flounder. We have entirely too much American floundering here and on Martha’s Vineyard.” –columnist Ken Blackwell

The Gipper

“Deficits, as I’ve often said, aren’t caused by too little taxing, they’re caused by too much spending. Presidents can’t appropriate a dollar of tax payers money, only Congressmen can; and Congress is susceptible to all sorts of influences that have nothing to do with good government.” –Ronald Reagan

Re: The Left

“Barry Goldwater was an honest man and a politician of the highest standards. … And yet, when he ran for president in 1964, the entire liberal establishment cut loose with an unmatched campaign of slander. Goldwater was a Nazi, an extremist, a paranoid schizophrenic, a maniac out to trigger a nuclear war. … To this day, children in America’s schools are taught that the deranged Ronald Reagan tried to start WWIII and was halted only by the actions of the heroic Mikhail Gorbachev. … George W. Bush was forced to fight an international war while the loyal opposition derided him as a Nazi, a subnormal, a mass murderer, and we could go for several pages. One novel, an award-winning film, and at least two plays calling for his assassination were written, produced, and released. Anyone suggesting the same as regards Barack Obama would wind up (at the very least) explaining himself in detail and at length to large men in dark suits, and possibly worse. … The point is that it was the liberals who tore up the rule book, flouted tradition, and violated every established tenet of behavior. … Perhaps we may see a rebirth of politesse and manners at some point to come. Nothing is impossible, and the social world often shifts between extremes. But I can tell you this: it will never happen if this country’s liberals continue getting their way.” –American Thinker editor J. R. Dunn

Opinion in Brief

“Was it Socrates or 'Dirty’ Harry Callahan who said, ‘A man’s gotta know his limitations’? Well, Harry learned that lesson from life experiences – experiences that we must assume Obama missed. From what we know of his scandalously sketchy background and what we observe of his behavior in office, it would seem that Obama had no life experiences following adolescence other than academics and politics in their various forms. He appears to have no idea why things don’t happen automatically as they did on the professors’ chalkboards. As an academically indoctrinated central planner whose tutors trained him to believe the government can create economic growth by using borrowed federal money to pay people to dig ditches and fill them back up again, it’s no wonder he is mystified that his stimulus package didn’t create jobs. But he’s more than mystified. He’s frustrated, because he believes he ought to have carte blanche authority … to inaugurate round two, with the building of high-speed rail, more infrastructure and anything else he darn well pleases. I trust you know I’m not fabricating this. Just the other day, he repeated his lament that he has to work within this messy system called ‘democracy.’ He believes that if he just had sole control, he could match in the real world the economic results the professors produced in the classroom. Meanwhile, Obama is conducting his government-subsidized campaign bus tour as if everything were just wonderful, except for the refusal of American businesses to do as he says.” –columnist David Limbaugh

Political Futures

“We must step out of our proud-of-America-worldview and examine Obama’s actions from a different focal point. Otherwise, we rationalize his decisions as acts of inexperience and foolishness. … In essence, his hope and change are to destroy the American way of life. … [I]f the American people continue to engage in a suspension of reason, can we blame Obama for doing exactly what he promised he would do? It is we who would be ‘stupid’ if we keep rationalizing that ‘the president’s policies [are] innocent missteps of a man who is 'in over his head.’ The president is not in over his head; he knows precisely what he is doing: rushing America down the path toward socialism.” –columnist Eileen F. Toplansky

Culture

“Although much of the media have their antennae out to pick up anything that might be construed as racism against blacks, they resolutely ignore even the most blatant racism by blacks against others. That includes a pattern of violent attacks on whites in public places in Chicago, Denver, New York, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Kansas City, as well as blacks in schools beating up Asian classmates – for years – in New York and Philadelphia. … Remarkably similar things are being done by lower-class whites in England. … A recent study in England found 352,000 households in which nobody had ever worked. Moreover, two-thirds of the adults in those households said that they didn’t want to work. As in America, such people feel both ‘entitled’ and aggrieved. In both countries, those who have achieved less have been taught by the educational system, by the media and by politicians on the left that they have a grievance against those who have achieved more. … What is different today is that there has been – for decades – a steady drumbeat of media and political hype about differences in income, education and other outcomes, blaming these differences on oppression against those with fewer achievements or lesser prosperity. Moreover, there has been a growing tolerance of lawlessness and a growing intolerance toward the idea that people who are lagging need to take steps to raise themselves up, instead of trying to pull others down.” –economist Thomas Sowell

The Last Word

“Speaking of voters … if I had my druthers, I would raise the voting age to 26. If you’re still covered by your parents’ insurance policies, you’re not an adult. The only exceptions to the rule would be young people serving in the military. I would also require those people who aren’t old enough to collect Social Security to prove they pay income taxes. If there is a screwier notion than allowing those who pay no income taxes to vote for those in a position to force those of us who do pay them to pay even more for the benefit of those who don’t pay any, I don’t want to hear about it. … Finally, I would insist that anyone who wishes to cast a ballot prove he can read English by passing a basic civics exam. If you don’t know who George Washington was and you have no idea what the Bill of Rights is, you have no God-given right to cancel out the vote of someone who does. I mean, for crying out loud, you have to pass a written test and prove you can parallel park to get a driver’s license. In order to vote for our political leaders, shouldn’t you have to prove anything beyond the fact that you’re still alive and breathing – or, in the case of Chicago elections, that you were ever alive and breathing?” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
The Patriot Post Editorial Team