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We Are at a Turning Point
Townhall.com ^ | July 12, 2012 | Judge Andrew Napolitano

Posted on 07/12/2012 5:46:00 AM PDT by Kaslin

Presently in America, nearly half of all households receive either a salary or substantial benefits from the government. Presently in America, nearly half of all adults pay no federal income taxes. Presently in America, the half that pay no income taxes receive the bulk of their income courtesy of the government, but ultimately from the half that do. This money is extracted involuntarily from the paying half by a permanent bureaucracy that extracts and gives away more each year no matter who is running the government. The recipients of these transfer payments rely upon them for subsistence, so they have a vested financial interest in sending to Washington those who will continue to take your money and give it to them.

It is no wonder that we are now saddled with the micromanagement of health care by the same bureaucratic mindset that mismanages the Post Office and everything else the federal government runs. It should not be surprising to know that presently in America, half of the people actually want the government to take care of their needs. The same was the case under Communist regimes, but here those folks vote.

Hence, we have laws that force us to be charitable to those whom the government designates as worthy of our charity, that limit the amount of salt that restaurants can put into our food, that permit the government to watch us on street corners and subways and in the lobbies of buildings, that let the president fight wars of opportunity, that permit the Federal Reserve to print money with no value and inflate prices and destroy savings, that allow the government to listen to us on our cellphones and use those phones to follow us wherever we go, and, according to CIA Director David Petraeus, that let the government anticipate our movements inside our homes.

And as of the last week in June, the government has a vast new power that was brought to us by the Supreme Court's latest attack on personal freedom. Congress can now lawfully command any behavior of individuals that it pleases -- whether or not the subject of the behavior is a power granted to Congress by the Constitution -- and it may punish noncompliance with that command, so long as the punishment is called a tax.

Justice Antonin Scalia's whimsical query during the Supreme Court oral argument on the health care law about whether Congress could make him eat broccoli suddenly isn't as funny as it was when he asked it, because the answer is: It can fine him for not eating broccoli, so long as it calls that fine a tax.

Quick: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Answer: Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make a tail a leg.

How did we get here?

We got here because voters and the government we elected, and even the courts the popular branches appointed and confirmed, have lost sight of first principles. When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are a part of our humanity, and when we fought and won the Revolution under that premise, and when the first Congress enacted that language as the first federal law, this became the irrevocable recognition of the Natural Law as the basis for our personal freedom and limited government. Since our rights come from our humanity, they don't come from the government.

But you would never know that from looking at the government. In New York City, where I work at Fox News Channel, we are all embroiled in two disputes this summer over the constitutional role of the government in our lives. The mayor, a self-made billionaire who likes donuts and has bodyguards but wants to tell others how to live in private and in public, is trying to ban soda pop in containers larger than 16 ounces and wants the police to be able to stop and frisk anyone on a whim -- and all in the name of health and safety. He is actually banning freedom.

Imagine Jefferson being told what to eat or stopped and frisked on a whim. And then imagine the Supreme Court telling him that he must pay a tax if he fails to comport his personal private behavior as Congress -- which doesn't believe in privacy or personal freedom -- commands.

Here is how you can tell that these are bad days for freedom: Does the government need your permission to violate your rights, or do you need the government's permission to exercise them? The answer is painfully obvious.

Presently in America, what are we going to do about it?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
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1 posted on 07/12/2012 5:46:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Voting for Romney in November may be the best bet — but the real question is: four years from today, if we’re still on this same path (and we will be) then what do we do? In 2016 will we once again vote for the least worst candidate? Or will we eventually realize that the electoral process is no solution at all?


2 posted on 07/12/2012 5:54:55 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Roger Taney? Not a bad Chief Justice. John Roberts? A really awful Chief Justice.)
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To: Kaslin

“If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?” - At Harvard, the correct response is to check “Native American”.


3 posted on 07/12/2012 5:58:30 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: ClearCase_guy
Voting for Romney in November may be the best bet — but the real question is: four years from today, if we’re still on this same path (and we will be) then what do we do? In 2016 will we once again vote for the least worst candidate? Or will we eventually realize that the electoral process is no solution at all?

That's why we need to also elect conservatives at the local, state and federal level. If they are real conservatives, they won't allow Romney to push anything through. That is the best way to hold him accountable.

4 posted on 07/12/2012 6:00:15 AM PDT by justice14 ("stand up defend or lay down and die")
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To: Kaslin

the proverbial sleeping giant/drunk may as well just roll over and slumber on...while the politicians are always undercover.....real Americans are too few and far between...nuff said...

semper watching!


5 posted on 07/12/2012 6:01:22 AM PDT by gunnyg ("A Constitution changed from Freedom, can never be restored; Liberty, once lost, is lost forever...)
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To: Kaslin
Presently in America, what are we going to do about it?

Precisely what put us in this position ... NOTHING.

6 posted on 07/12/2012 6:07:46 AM PDT by dartuser ("If you are ... what you were ... then you're not.")
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To: ClearCase_guy
Voting for Willard is at best a holding measure, and then only if he gets good support from Congress.

He's another "read my lips"/"Brady Bill Bob" type and not what we need to really FIX things.

7 posted on 07/12/2012 6:08:29 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (I will not comply.)
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To: justice14

Why are we even talking about voting for a guy we KNOW will stab us in the back at the worst possible moment?


8 posted on 07/12/2012 6:13:17 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (I will not comply.)
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To: justice14

That’s why we need to also elect conservatives at the local, state and federal level.

That will also give us a deep bench from which to pick future candidates.


9 posted on 07/12/2012 6:13:34 AM PDT by csmusaret (I will give Obama credit for one thing- he is living proof that familiarity breeds contempt.)
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To: Dead Corpse

Because as much as we all hate to admit it, He is our choice against Obama. I wish it was someone else, but it isn’t. We have to slow the bleeding.


10 posted on 07/12/2012 6:19:31 AM PDT by justice14 ("stand up defend or lay down and die")
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To: ClearCase_guy
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man-
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:-
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Reality, ie, "the gods of the copybook headings", will dictate that the whole thing come crashing down. It cannot be sustained. Be prepared to rebuild, that's what you do.

11 posted on 07/12/2012 6:19:47 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working for)
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To: csmusaret

Exactly. A deep bench is exactly what we need.


12 posted on 07/12/2012 6:19:55 AM PDT by justice14 ("stand up defend or lay down and die")
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To: justice14

You don’t slow the bleeding by voting for a doctor whose treatment seems limited to not cutting you more than the other guy...


13 posted on 07/12/2012 6:21:05 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (I will not comply.)
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To: Dead Corpse

What’s Romney going to do when a Republican (Tea Party) congress passes laws for him to sign?

He’s going to sign them, that’s what.


14 posted on 07/12/2012 6:21:45 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working for)
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To: MrB
Making assumptions not in evidence. We heard similar rhetoric prior to the last election.

Sen. Reid laughs at your prediction...

15 posted on 07/12/2012 6:23:59 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (I will not comply.)
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To: AngieGal

ping


16 posted on 07/12/2012 6:29:27 AM PDT by PetroniusMaximus
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To: Dead Corpse
Good morning.

Voting for Willard is at best a holding measure,...

IMHO, with 0bama we are heading toward the fiscal cliff and tyranny at warp speed. With Romney, we will be heading toward the fiscal cliff and tyranny at impulse speed.

We have deviated a long way from our founding.

5.56mm

17 posted on 07/12/2012 6:31:02 AM PDT by M Kehoe
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To: Dead Corpse

I disagree that it’s the same as Obama. His record is close, but it’s not the same. He said, just yesterday, that he would repeal Obamacare. Of course you think He’s lying and he might not do it, but He is saying it. Obama is not. Another instance, I don’t see Romney refusing to enforce DOMA. So again, It’s not the same cuts.

I didn’t say it would STOP the bleeding. I said it would slow the bleeding.


18 posted on 07/12/2012 6:33:51 AM PDT by justice14 ("stand up defend or lay down and die")
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To: M Kehoe
We have deviated a long way from our founding.

Agreed. Too far for some milquetoast RINO to be more than a cartoon character downhill from a speeding boulder.

"If voting could change things, they would have outlawed it already."

19 posted on 07/12/2012 6:33:59 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (I will not comply.)
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To: justice14
I didn't say they were the same.

Obama is pulling a Jack the Ripper on us. We are dying a death of a million cuts.

Romney on the other hand thinks we're bleeding out just fine as we are and that we don't really need stitches...

We need major surgery, some amputation, and quite a bit of cauterizing.

20 posted on 07/12/2012 6:36:33 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (I will not comply.)
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