Free Republic

President Barack Obama made a major gaffe when he recently said that we are owned, or "belong to", government. In the United States the government is supposed to "belong to" the people instead of the other way around as he suggests. We the people are supposed to own the government and tell it what to do. Obama and other elitists believe that government exists to control our personal lives and even tell us how much we can eat or drink. Some government controls are necessary to prevent people from harming others. Government needs to restrict sale of some substances that...

Revealing Politics asked DNC attendees and delegates in Charlotte what they thought of one of the themes of the DNC promotional video that played in the arena last night— “The government is the only thing we all belong to.” The Obama campaign is backing away from the video, but DNC attendees sure aren’t. “Regardless of where you live, you’re gonna be owned by someone at some point. I think the American government so far has been a fair government and I don’t necessarily hate that I’m OWNED by them at this point.”

Yes, rest assured, Romney and the GOP are already working on ads about this. It’s the GOP that cut the clip and circulated it, in fact. Mitt himself evidently can’t wait to get started: People are going to follow Romney’s lead and seize on the word “belong” but that’s only half the problem. Even if Democrats had chosen a phrase that didn’t connote ownership, like “participate in” (Obama’s preferred turn of phrase when pushing this idea is “doing things together”), this is still a creepy, spurious justification for expanding government.

ELDORADO — Mothers separated from their children as part of a wide-ranging abuse investigation within a polygamist retreat accuse state officials of misleading them before taking their offspring into custody. Authorities raided the sect's ranch more than a week ago in response to allegations that underage girls were forced to marry older men. Women and children from the secretive community were taken to a West Texas fort-turned-museum and a rodeo pavilion, but on Monday officials began separating women and some of their offspring without warning, members of the sect said. While some women and children were taken from the shelters...