One of the sad things about Ed Brayton is that, although a very talented and entertaining blogger, and a fantastic defender of evolution and science, he routinely pulls his punches with regard to Democrats and jumps at even frivolous opportunities to castigate Republicans. For a man who professes to be a libertarian rather than either of these, this is an unfortunate habit, due, no doubt, to his somewhat exaggerated sense that the Republican party is the home of religious crackpots and the Democratic party the home of sensible humanists. I’ll have more to say on that dangerous assumption later, but now is the time to ask Ed if he will start applying the same principled scrutiny toward the Obama Administration that he zealously applied to Bush.
President Obama has promised people the moon, more or less, probably two moons, and it’s all to be paid for with money stolen either from the productive people of this country or from their grandchildren. This is on top of the bewildering amount of money his predecessor took from them. And he has already started to break these promises. Although he has halted prosecutions at Guantanamo Bay, he has yet to announce any specific plans for closing the camp. Word on that is expected to come today. But there is very good reason to believe that it will not actually happen for years yet. Are we not to hold his feet to the fire? This morning, news comes that Obama is proposing to expand gun control in some rather intrusive ways. His “stimulus” plan is basically massive, Bush-style spending for massive, FDR-style make-work projects that waste time and divert resources from where they are needed. He is a strong proponent of socialized medicine. He appointed a totally unqualified secretary of state for political reasons. He nominated a tax evader to run the IRS.
And Ed? Well, he cried at the inauguration, because Obama spoke of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—two documents he uses only for rhetorical advantage. In the Declaration, the founders spoke of the right to pursue happiness, free from government interference. But for Obama, “the question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works—whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.” Those things, you see, are inalienable human rights. President Obama rather frankly does not believe in the institutions of American freedom: he wants, he says, to “begin again the work of remaking America.” Not restoring America; not returning America to its proper course of constitutional government—remaking America.
Like everyone else, I am lightheaded with the relief of no longer having George Bush in office. But I think we do our freedom a great disservice allowing that relief to blind us to the extremely serious violations of our liberty that are not only ongoing at this moment, but are very likely to expand over the next four years.
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