Tough Days for Freedom

Our theme for today comes from George W Bush: “Freedom is the desire of every human heart.”

When the president uses the phrase, he’s invariably applying it to various benighted parts of the Muslim world. There would seem to be quite a bit of evidence to suggest that freedom is not the principal desire of every human heart in, say, Gaza or Waziristan. But why start there? If you look in, say, Brussels or London or New Orleans, do you come away with the overwhelming impression that “freedom is the desire of every human heart”? A year ago, I wrote that “the story of the western world since 1945 is that, invited to choose between freedom and government ‘security,' large numbers of people vote to dump freedom — the freedom to make your own decisions about health care, education, property rights, seat belts and a ton of other stuff.

This week freedom took another hit. Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled her new health-care plan. Unlike her old health-care plan, which took longer to read than most cancers do to kill you, this one’s instant and painless — just a spoonful of government sugar to help the medicine go down. From now on, everyone in America will have to have health insurance.

Great article. I would love this election be about loss of freedoms and our enslavement by the Dems, but I fear that the RINOs are signing onto this plan.

I would bet, too, that the numbers Steyn cites also leave out another big chunk of the voluntarily insured. That would be self-employed people whose spouse works and provides the family insurance. I was in this category for four years recently as I ran my own one-person business. Given the huge growth in small business, I would expect there are lot of people in this situation.

Something about the concenpt of liberty and the pursuit of happiness that appears to be incompatable with “And, if you don’t, it will be illegal for you to hold a job.”

She draws an analogy between requiring insurance to drive on public highways (privilege) with requiring insurance to work. So is a citizen working now a conditional privilege?

In Powell v. Com. of Pennsylvania, 127 U.S. 678 (1888), Justice Field in his dissenting opinion gave a classical definition of the notion of “liberty”:

“It is the clause declaring that no state shall ‘deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,’ which applies to the present case. This provision is found in the constitutions of nearly all the states, and was designed to prevent the arbitrary deprivation of life and liberty, and the arbitrary spoliation of property. As I said on a former occasion, it means that neither can be taken, or the enjoyment thereof impaired, except in the course of the regular administration of the law in the established tribunals. It has always been supposed to secure to every person the essential conditions for the pursuit of happiness, and is therefore not to be construed in a narrow or restricted sense. Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 366. By ‘liberty,’ as thus used, is meant something more than freedom from physical restraint or imprisonment. It means freedom, not merely to go wherever one may choose, but to do such acts as he may judge best for his interest not inconsistent with the equal rights of others; that is, to follow such pursuits as may be best adapted to his faculties, and which will give to him the highest enjoyment....”

The American people have lost all respect for the politicians who are running this country into the ground. We have a bunch of treasonous cowards on the left and a bunch of corrupt wimps on the right. People will only vote for the lesser of two evils so many times before they give up in total disgust. The republicans can regain power if they move to the right, replace the rhino scum with real conservatives and never forget or ignore the people who put them where they are.

Freedom is besieged on many fronts: political speech, the culture, big government and in our belief in the exceptional nature of our country. Inch by inch, ground has been given. Freedom comes from God not from the hand of the state. But the state can destroy it so our proud birthright is transformed into a mere privilege. We are on the verge of losing America - maybe not in this generation but in the next one. What we will we do to defend freedom? More to the point, we cannot hope to win it abroad if we are unwilling to stand up for it at home.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

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