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Michael Barone: Ivory-tower Obama can't abide views he doesn't share
Washington Examiner ^ | January 14, 2013 | Michael Barone

Posted on 01/17/2013 8:36:05 AM PST by greyfoxx39

To judge from his surly demeanor and defiant words at his press conference Monday, Barack Obama begins his second term with a strategy to defeat and humiliate Republicans rather than a strategy to govern.

-SNIP-

The push for gun control is more a symbolic gesture than a serious attempt at governing.

Something better can be said about Obama's call for immigration law changes. The need for some change is clear.

That was also true in Obama's first two years, when he did nothing to advance legislation on the subject when Democrats had a solid majorities in Congress.

The question is whether Obama wants legislation or to stick it to the opposition. Many Republicans, like Sen. Marco Rubio, are ready to support legalization of those brought here as children but not immediate legalization for all 11 million illegals.

Negotiations and compromises will be needed to get a bill through Congress. A president interested in governing would not insist on getting his way 100 percent. Whether Obama is such a president is far from clear.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: banglist; childishtantrum; constrains; constraint; constraits; thanksmitt; zero

1 posted on 01/17/2013 8:36:15 AM PST by greyfoxx39
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To: greyfoxx39
YO' Barone...

[...pppsssstt.....]

We can't abide his views either....

2 posted on 01/17/2013 8:47:23 AM PST by Wings-n-Wind (The main things are the plain things!)
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To: greyfoxx39

The Emperor wants all gun owners to be put thru Hell before being licensed.

Does anyone have access to statistics summarizing how many mass murderers in the U.S. in the past 50 years (you pick the #) were licensed?

I bet the number of mass murderers licensed is pretty low.

Net, the Emperor’s efforts will miss the mark completely!


3 posted on 01/17/2013 8:47:52 AM PST by Rembrandt (Part of the 51% who pay Federal taxes)
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To: Rembrandt
To put that the other way around -- does anyone have statistics summarizing how many mass murderers in the US in the past 50 years were people who had no reluctance to break the law?

'Cause I'm thinking it's 100%. More laws do not stop law-breakers. More laws simply constrain the actions of the law-abiding. Gun control is not about violence -- it's about control of the population.

4 posted on 01/17/2013 8:52:29 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (Nothing will change until after the war.)
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To: greyfoxx39

Considering what I’ve seen of the Obamadork’s laughable attempts at “intellect,” I’d say that the tower he stands on is composed of the type of stuff that dung beetles love.

Face it, folks, the quota baby has to work out daily to get his IQ up to room temp.


5 posted on 01/17/2013 9:01:02 AM PST by Da Coyote
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To: greyfoxx39
legalization of those brought here as children but not immediate legalization for all 11 million illegals.

Legalization of all 11 million would set off a population flow south to north like the world has not seen since the partition of India and could well include the violence that characterized it on the subcontinent.

6 posted on 01/17/2013 9:02:41 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINE www.fee.org/library/books/economics-in-one-lesson)
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To: Wings-n-Wind; SkyPilot; MamaDearest; unkus; gonzo; 2ndDivisionVet; Lumper20; Kathy in Alaska; ...

A friend refers to the Dictator In Chief as OBayMe! How fitting don’t ya think?


7 posted on 01/17/2013 9:28:08 AM PST by ExTexasRedhead
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To: ExTexasRedhead
A friend refers to the Dictator In Chief as OBayMe! How fitting don’t ya think?

I'm stealing that!

8 posted on 01/17/2013 9:33:21 AM PST by greyfoxx39 (Thanks Mitt.)
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To: greyfoxx39
Seen @Twitter: "In moments, President @BarackObama will sign some more executive orders, surrounded by the Americans he's protecting: imaginary girlfriends."
9 posted on 01/17/2013 9:38:02 AM PST by greyfoxx39 (Thanks Mitt.)
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To: greyfoxx39
An arrogant man who trusts his own judgment, largely informed by late-19th Century ideologues and the university professors and "progressives" who influenced his thinking, is no match for the wisdom and genius of the Framers of the United States Constitution.

The words of America's Founders, its Supreme Court Justices, its early Presidents and Statesmen attest to the wisdom of its structuring of the coercive powers of all who might serve under its authority. The following essay, quoted with permission, originally published in the Constitution's Bicentennial Year - 1987 - may be downloaded here.

Our Ageless Constitution

"The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its components are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order...."
-Justice Joseph Story

Justice Story's words pay tribute to the United States Constitution and its Framers. Shortly before the 100th year of the Constitution, in his "History of the United States of America," written in 1886, historian George Bancroft said:

"The Constitution is to the American people a possession for the ages."

He went on to say:

"In America, a new people had risen up without king, or princes, or nobles....By calm meditation and friendly councils they had prepared a constitution which, in the union of freedom with strength and order, excelled every one known before; and which secured itself against violence and revolution by providing a peaceful method for every needed reform. In the happy morning of their existence as one of the powers of the world, they had chosen Justice as their guide."

And two hundred years after the adoption of this singularly-important document, praised by Justice Story in one century and Historian Bancroft in the next and said by Sir William Gladstone to be "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given moment by the brain and purpose of man," the Constitution of 1787 - with its Bill of Rights - remains. . . a bulwark for liberty, an ageless formula for the government of a free people.

In what sense can any document prepared by human hands be said to be ageless? What are the qualities or attributes which give it permanence?

The Qualities of Agelessness

America's Constitution had its roots in the nature, experience, and habits of humankind, in the experience of the American people themselves - their beliefs, customs, and traditions, and in the practical aspects of politics and government. It was based on the experience of the ages. Its provisions were designed in recognition of principles which do not change with time and circumstance, because they are inherent in human nature.

"The foundation of every government," said John Adams, "is some principle or passion in the minds of the people." The founding generation, aware of its unique place in the ongoing human struggle for liberty, were willing to risk everything for its attainment. Roger Sherman stated that as government is "instituted for those who live under it ... it ought, therefore, to be so constituted as not to be dangerous to liberty." And the American government was structured with that primary purpose in mind - the protection of the peoples liberty.

Of their historic role, in framing a government to secure liberty, the Framers believed that the degree of wisdom and foresight brought to the task at hand might well determine whether future generations would live in liberty or tyranny. As President Washington so aptly put it, "the sacred fire of liberty" might depend "on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people" That experiment, they hoped, would serve as a beacon of liberty throughout the world.

The Framers of America's Constitution were guided by the wisdom of previous generations and the lessons of history for guidance in structuring a government to secure for untold millions in the future the unalienable rights of individuals. As Jefferson wisely observed:

"History, by apprising the people of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views."(Underlining added for emphasis)

The Constitution, it has been said, was "not formed upon abstraction," but upon practicality. Its philosophy and prin­ciples, among others, incorporated these practical aspects:

The Constitution of the United States of America structured a government for what the Founders called a "virtuous people - that is, a people who would be able, as Burke put it, to "put chains on their own appetites" and, without the coercive hand of government, to live peaceably without violating the rights of others. Such a society would need no standing armies to insure internal order, for the moral beliefs, customs, and love for liberty motivating the actions of the people and their representatives in government - the "unwritten" constitution - would be in keeping with their written constitution.

George Washington, in a speech to the State Governors, shared his own sense of the deep roots and foundations of the new nation:

"The foundation of our empire was not laid in the gloomy age of ignorance and superstition; but at an epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period.... the treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labors of philosophers, sages, and legislators, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collective wisdom may be happily applied in the establishment of our forms of government."

And Abraham Lincoln, in the mid-1800's, in celebrating the blessings of liberty, challenged Americans to transmit the "political edifice of liberty and equal rights" of their constitutional government to future generations:

"In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American people, find our account running ... We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth....We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them - They are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic...race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights, 'tis ours only, to transmit these...to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know...."

Because it rests on sound philosophical foundations and is rooted in enduring principles, the United States Constitution can, indeed, properly be described as "ageless," for it provides the formula for securing the blessings of liberty, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquillity, promoting the general welfare, and providing for the common defense of a free people who understand its philosophy and principles and who will, with dedication, see that its integrity and vigor are preserved.

Justice Joseph Story was quoted in the caption of this essay as attesting to the skill and fidelity of the architects of the Constitution, its solid foundations, the practical aspects of its features, and its wisdom and order. The closing words of his statement, however, were reserved for use here; for in his 1789 remarks, he recognized the "ageless" quality of the magnificent document, and at the same time, issued a grave warning for Americans of all centuries. He concluded his statement with these words:

"...and its defenses 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 virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens."

Our ageless constitution can be shared with the world and passed on to generations far distant if its formula is not altered in violation of principle through the neglect of its keepers - THE PEOPLE.


Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part VII:  ISBN 0-937047-01-5

10 posted on 01/17/2013 9:38:21 AM PST by loveliberty2 ( -)
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To: arthurus

Rubio has said that any legalization can only occur after the border is much more secure than it is today, for precisely the reason you point out. (Still not sure I favor legalization, but I concur that any such proposals are complete non-starters until it is much harder to enter the USA illegally than it is today.)


11 posted on 01/17/2013 11:40:53 AM PST by pogo101
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To: ExTexasRedhead
A friend refers to the Dictator In Chief as OBayMe! How fitting don’t ya think?

************

OBayMe.... very a` propos

I know.....
I know...
We shouldn't refer to OBayMe as The Arrogant B*st*rd...
....prolly bad form...

But it's a tempting title for the high-n-mighty one...

jmo... no offense plz...

12 posted on 01/17/2013 11:58:55 AM PST by Wings-n-Wind (The main things are the plain things!)
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