It has come to this. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, the supreme arbiters of all things constitutional have once again told us that the rule of law is a sham. Every time I am tempted to believe I think too cynically about the state, one of its bodies does something to reveal that, to the contrary, I am not cynical enough.
With yesterday's Judicial affirming of President Obama’s healthcare socialization scheme, we are reminded once again that we truly live in a nation much more totalitarian than we think. We have embraced the age of the Pharaoh and kissed it full on the mouth. Once again we must face the dismal fact that there is no such thing as truly inviolable private property. If the state wants to take anything from anyone, it merely has to invent a right, pass a law, and there it is. “So let it be written. So let it be done.” The only right to private property we enjoy is very fleeting and only exists until the government decides it needs some more of what is ours.
I feel like Charlie Brown at the beginning of A Charlie Brown Christmas. He tells Linus that he knows he should be happy, but he always ends up feeling depressed. I increasingly get the same feeling this time of year as people gear up for 4th of July celebrations. Independence Day used to be my favorite holiday when I was a boy. I spent a lot of my childhood reading about the Colonial era, the lives of people like Sam Adams, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington. I learned all about our American forebears struggle for liberty against a King who merely treated them as revenue generating pawns. I was nine years old when the U.S. celebrated its bi-centennial and my mother wallpapered my room with a red, white, and blue colonial American themed paper.
Now, much older and, I think wiser, when I hear the popular media talking about our freedoms, the Declaration of Independence, the Liberty Bell, Celebrate America concerts, and all the rest on the Fourth of July, instead of being happy, I am filled with sadness. They clearly have no idea what they are talking about. Most seem to not even know what liberty really is. The only politician at the national level who spoke about freedom and the Constitution with actual conviction was Ron Paul and they laughed him off the stage. The talking heads try to make us believe that we are free because we are allowed to have other people vote away our liberties.
That it is wrong and even unconstitutional to force people to buy a product they do not want from a business they do not intend to support merely because they are citizens should not even need to be disputed. Addressing the nation after Obamacare was upheld by the Supreme Court, the President said his law was much needed reform that benefited all Americans. Since when is forcing people to buy things they do not want beneficial? Such a state mandate is a clear act of coercion separating man from his property. It is legalized theft. If I was to hold my neighbor at gun point until he bought a product I thought he should buy, I would rightly be arrested and put in jail for assault with a deadly weapon. When our current rulers do the same thing to us, it is championed as enlightened social policy, and we are expected to just lie back and enjoy it. Orwell would be proud. Marx and Lenin would congratulate us on our deft use of a bit of the old dialectic.
Meditate on such corruption of liberty when you hear Lee Greenwood sing he’s proud to live “where at least I know I’m free.” To sing that with sincerity is to sing under server delusion. Think about the joys of socialized health care, socialized education and our socialized monetary system the next time you hear someone thank military personnel for defending our freedoms. If radical Muslims really do hate us because we are free, someone should tell them what is still dirty, but is no longer our little secret,—We are not that free!
That is all I have today. A lament for our society. Over a decade ago I remember the venerable Paul Harvey quipping that Madison Avenue has been busy selling homemade taste to a generation that does not even know what homemade tastes like. Similarly, our rulers and their propagandists always busy themselves this time of year selling liberty to a people who do not even know what liberty is. I know I should be happy with all the fireworks, family gatherings, and patriotic songs, but I end up being depressed. Nevertheless, Tu ne Cede Malis. As the Apostle Paul exhorted the Corinthians, “Quit you like men.”
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