Posted on 04/04/2013 9:43:57 AM PDT by IbJensen
In his pursuit of overarching gun control legislation in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, President Barack Obama has been dogged. He's been relentless. He's been demagogic, too, whether flanking himself with schoolchildren (the implication being that his political opponents don't care about dead kids) or suggesting that if just one life can be saved by his legislation, we ought to buy into it wholeheartedly (a proposition that would justify almost any sort of government overreach).
But on Wednesday, President Obama took his gun control push a step further: He admitted that only the Constitution stands between him and full gun confiscation. Rejecting concerns that new background checks might be a prelude to gun seizures, Obama suggested that worries about gun seizures were empty, and were only designed to feed "into fears about government. You hear some of these folks: 'I need a gun to protect myself from the government. We can't do background checks because the government's going to come take my guns away.' The government's us. These officials are elected by you. ... I am constrained as they are constrained by the system that our founders put in place."
This is deeply frightening language. The notion that government tyranny is impossible in an elective republic is insanity of the first order. Hitler was elected chancellor. Mussolini manipulated his way into power through constitutional means. Hamas was elected in the Gaza Strip. Mohammed Morsi and his thuggish Muslim Brotherhood were elected in Egypt. If rights are dependent on votes -- if we only have a right to bear arms because a majority of the population elects politicians who say we have a right to bear arms -- then we have no rights at all.
The point of rights is to guarantee them against government. That is why the founders stated that rights descend not from government -- not from "us," as Obama would have it -- but from God or nature. And in truth, Obama feels the same way about rights he thinks are universal, including the so-called right to same-sex marriage or the right to abortion. Reverse Obama's argument by stating that radical feminists worry about a complete ban on abortion, but that feeds into fears about government, which after all, is only "us." Would Obama agree with this? Or would he say that true rights cannot be violated, even by a majority vote?
Government is not us. Government is a group of people elected by us, who then use their own judgment. If government were us, we would be a pure democracy. And even if we were a pure democracy, that would not give us the right to violate the rights of others. The logic Obama uses with regard to gun control is the root of fascism and oppression. Liberalism is reliant on the concept of rights that supersede popular whim. And the greatest right -- the right that protects all other rights, especially when popular whims turn against human liberties -- is the right to bear arms.
If Americans weren't afraid of government violation of rights before Obama spoke about guns this week, they should be now. This is a president who cannot understand or willfully ignores the notion of tyrannical government. And if he refuses to see that possibility, then American rights are very much in jeopardy.
Obama and his minions are rather like bottom feeding carp!
That’s the entire point of the Constitution. If this puke was a professor of Constitutional law (or whatever it is he calims to be) then he’d know this.
You may be amazed at how some can support such unconstitutional activities. The answer is the snake has laid its scales over the eyes of those that have CHOSEN to harbor close to it.
To attempt to confuse "the People" in such a manner requires a calculated attempt to turn the Founders' ideas upside down.
On another thread today on the same subject, Freeper Slyfox, correctly observed that one should read those comments several times in order to place them in proper historical perspective and to distinguish what he is saying from statements of early Presidents such as those quoted below:
By the Founders' formula, "the People's" written Constitution was the anchor of our liberties, binding government to the "People's" limitations on its power.Today's so-called "progressive" philosophy, in effect, undoes all the monumental work accomplished by the Founders on behalf of liberty and leaves the law afloat and without anchor, relying, as of old, on mere men and women who wish to operate outside the "constraints" of the document they are sworn to honor and uphold.
From Page xv of "Our Ageless Constitution," allow me to include here excerpted words from President Andrew Jackson's Proclamation of December 10, 1832:
"We have received it [the Constitution] as the work of the assembled wisdom of the nation. We have trusted to it as to the sheet anchor of our safety in the stormy times of conflict with a foreign or domestic foe. We have looked to it with sacred awe as the palladium of our liberties, and with all the solemnities of religion have pledged to each other our lives and fortunes here and our hopes of happiness hereafter in its defense and support. Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attaching this importance to the Constitution . . .? No. We were not mistaken. The letter of this great instrument is free from this radical fault. . . . No, we did not err! . . . The sages . . . have given us a practical and, as they hoped, a permanent* Constitutional compact. . . . The Constitution is still the object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, our defense in danger, the source of our prosperity in peace: it shall descend, as we have received it, uncorrupted by sophistical construction, to our posterity. . . ."
*Underlining added for emphasis
And, it was Thomas Jefferson who used another metaphor with reference to the Constitution when he indicated that "the People" must "bind them (government) by the chains of the Constitution." In another instance, he declared: "It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers. . . ."
Thomas Jefferson did not confuse his identity as citizen, when not in public office, with his role as President when being a servant of "the People." The Preamble's phrase, "We, the People," applies to what Justice Story, in his "Commentaries on the Constitution . . . ." called "the only keepers of the Constitution." Further, Justice Story warned us of our duties and responsibilities in that "keeper" role in his final paragraphs of that volume:
". . . Let the history of the Grecian and Italian republics warn us of our dangers. The national constitution is our last, and our only security. United we stand; divided we fall."If these Commentaries shall but inspire in the rising generation a more ardent love of their country, an unquenchable thirst for liberty, and a profound reverence for the constitution and the Union, then they will have accomplished all, that their author ought to desire. Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." - Justice Joseph Story - "Commentaries on the Constitution"
It is only through unalienable rights and the Constitution which prevents the Congress from being a marauding bunch of thieves.
Considering Jimmy, Billy, Lyndon Bird, FDR and a plethora of other incompetent power grabbers, this miserable excuse for a president is absolutely the worst specimen.
This jackass couldn’t function as a professor of waste management, which should be surprising since he’s crawled out of the Chicago sewer system.
The question arises: what possible good could this unknown piece of human debris be to anything?
The answer comes through loud and clear: NOTHING!
So why is he allowed to ruin our nation, our lives, our savings and our society? Because the first four mentioned above were elected by a duped, or complicit, electorate.
Well then....if he has the courage of his convictions he should hold a presser tomorrow and renounce the oath of office he took. Ummmm....Sorry....I should have left out the part about the courage of his convictions. The rest works fine.
Comment Removed
I thought I would save forum moderaters the trouble as nothing I can say in response to Obama is acceptable in any society.
The guy is incredibly transparent. How any times has he complained of being limited by that bad ol’ US Constitution?
Obama and his minions are rather like bottom feeding cRAp!
That’s the point, D***head!
I fear that Obama’s lust for power will cause him to try to overthrow the Constitution and become “president” for life much like Caesar Chavez did.
I’m glad he’s constrained by Constitutional Law, but I’d prefer he be constrained by cuffs and small jail cell.
Other than confiscation of our guns, what would be the point of this comprehensive registry?
The same amount of times that the media has decided not to call him out on it.
Cesar Chavez or Hugo Chavez? :)
Obama and DC lawmakers cannot afford for the Constitution’s Article V, the Constitution’s procedure for amending the Constitution, to be put into the limelight. This is because Constitution-ignorant voters would not only find out that only the states, not the federal government, have the Article V power to ratify proposed amendments to the Constitution, but that by being able to uniquely control what the Constitution says, the states have absolute control over the federal government, not vice-versa as many patriots seem to think.
Widespread knowledge of Article V would mean that the tax party is over in DC.
Documentation File on the negative impact of the Obamanation Counterculture on America.
“...I’d prefer he be constrained by cuffs and small jail cell.”
Or a length of stout rope.
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