Subtitled: How the Marxist freak show known as Barack Obama will turn this country into a communistic hell-hole in less time than it takes to let the survivor of an abortion die on an operating room table.

I’m assuming y’all have seen this, but, if not, check out The Obamessiah’s radio speech in 2001:

(Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.)

Ann Althouse declares that this is just normal constitutional law prof talk.  With all respect for Prof. Althouse, the quote in question says:

“Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.”

While one could interpret this to mean that the “tragedy” of the civil rights movement is that the movers and shakers focused more on the Supreme Court and less upon traditional political processes, the more natural reading of the statement is that “tragedy” is connected to what comes immediately before it (i.e. no radical reshaping of our Constitutional framework); the words after them indicate other means to bring about “redistributive change.”  The only way that Prof. Althouse’s interpretation works is if Obama has the mental focus of a hummingbird on crack, flitting from the non-radicalism of the Warren Court to the tragedy of the lack of community organising and then straight back to “redistributive change.”

While Obama’s candence and discussion of negative rights make this whole thing sound like the legal version of quantum mechanics, this is actually an issue that affects Americans in the most fundamental way.  A negative right is the right to be left alone, to make one’s own decisions, determine the course of one’s own life - in short, to give the government the middle finger.  (This is a right that liberals only believe in when it comes to pregnancy.) When we subtitute negative rights - for example, the right to decide where to live without the government interfering - for positive rights - e.g. the right to have the government give you a home - we lose the corresponding negative right.  We cannot retain the right to non-interference when we give the government a carte blance to tell us how to run our lives.

Snark about Obama’s opposition to protecting newborns aside, it is nothing short of amazing that the same people who believe that the government has no place in abortion - in which two human beings are involved, and only one is capable of making a choice - believe that government ought to run our health care system.  For those opposed to 24-hour waiting periods for abortion, why would you beg for a system that would place waiting periods on every single aspect of medical treatment, from ultrasounds to visits with specialists?   At least now, people with lousy health insurance can pay out of pocket; those who are unfairly denied coverage can sue; and those who want better care can find a health plan which will give it to them.  If the government runs most health care, access to that which is not run by the government will be almost non-existent, and available only to the rich; lawsuits against the government for failure to pay will be barred by sovereign immunity; and people will lack any other options for improved care.  It is every caricatured daemon of the conservative movement that liberals use to frighten others, but brought to you by progressives - the very same people who have made a fortune off of suinig doctors and health insurance companies.

The mindlessness does not end with socialised health care.  As anyone who has read Anthem or The Handmaid’s Tale, has a passing knowledge of the events leading up to WWII in Europe, or has seen the destruction in Russia following the imposition of communism can tell you, the greatest harm to society often arises out of an attempt to create a utopia. In the cost-benefit analysis, utopists forget the costs - the loss of negative rights being the easiest to ignore and the most frightening in reality.  This business of wanting to state that the Constitution should guarantee a home, a job, and health care eviscerates our most fundamental freedoms.  As James Madison said,

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

The government is not one of angels, and no amounts of PhotoShopped halos above Obama’s head will change that reality.  (One wonders how someone who calls himself a Christian is not ashamed and humiliated by such treatment.)  Government is neither beneficient nor omniscient; at best, it can stop other countries from harming us, and police our actions internally.  (Heaven knows that governments, and the people who run them, have enough problems sticking within those parameters as it is.)  There is no reason to think that government - run by human beings - will suddenly turn into Cinderella’s fairy godmother if we put the right person in the White House, close the right “tax loopholes,” or redistribute wealth just a little bit more.  Far more likely is a descent back into oppression and tyranny - the default government of human existence.  America - and other free countries - do not exist as a matter of right or of the course of nature, but by terrific struggle against oppressive regimes.  Begging for oppression in the name of “redistributive justice” is madness.