United Liberty

Here is the situation: A man in Oklahoma City gets pulled over by the police. Reason? He has a sign on the back of his truck that reads “Abort Obama, not the Unborn.” The police tell the man that this sign could be construed to be threatening the president’s life!

Wait a minute… I thought all abortion does is remove a blob of tissue from a woman’s uterus. Seems like the Oklahoma City Police know better… But I digress.

The police confiscate the sign and then call the Secret Service, who show up at the man’s home and search it to make sure he wasn’t a part of some “hate group.” After politely interviewing the man for 30 minutes, the Secret Service leaves.

And the crickets start chirping from the Left.

I believed, long before election day, that Barack Obama would be our next President, but I didn’t despair as many other Republicans did.  In fact, I often said that he would be the best thing that could happen to the Republican Party (providing, of course, that our country survives his socialist agenda), because I believe his presidency will provide the impetus we need to once again become the fiscally conservative party.

One thing I did not foresee, however, is how Obama would spur states into affirming the sovereignty guaranteed to them by the Tenth Amendment.  The recently passed “spendulous bill”, full of unfunded mandates that will ultimately demand funds from already beleaguered state budgets, has caused state governments across the nation to finally say, “Enough!”.

The Tenth Amendment states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

James Madison reiterated this ideology in The Federalist Papers:

The powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, [such] as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people.

According to an Associated Press report on Friday, President Obama has rejected the recommendation of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (who, by the way, is a Republican) to consider seeking a vehicle miles-traveled (VMT) tax as a replacement for the federal gasoline tax. A VMT tax would be levied based on the number of miles driven per vehicle, as opposed to the amount of gasoline purchased. A number of factors are said to be behind such an idea. According to the AP report:

Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation’s transportation system moving, LaHood told the AP.

I have searched for a term to describe my political ideology and have come to use the term “minarchist” as the best descriptor. According to Wikipedia, minarchism is the belief that the only proper role of government is to protect individuals from aggression. I would classify my beliefs to be generally consistent with this view; however, like some minarchists, I do believe that there is a proper role for government to deliver some additional services and infrastructure beyond merely a system of laws and defense. For more on this, please read my previous article on government spending - “To Spend or Not To Spend”.

It looks as if Obama is taking the position against re-instatement of the Fairness Doctrine (which mandated that radio stations give alloted time towards differing viewpoints), according to Politico:

Until now, the Obama administration has remained mum when it comes to the Fairness Doctrine.

But now, White House spokesperson Ben LaBolt tells Fox News that “as the president stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated.”

Indeed, that was candidate Obama’s position last June.

The article also mentions a very strange development:

Patrick J. Deneen at the American Conservative magazine has an article on the resurgent patriotism among the American Left, a quality largely absent on their side since the Vietnam war:

First, let me lay out a couple things. I have no problem with giving back to our country. I am completely for supporting our country, for volunteering in the community, and for sacrificing my time for the betterment of our society and I encourage others to do so as well.

But the problem with Obama’s mandatory service proposal is that it is exactly that: mandatory. The 13th amendment clearly states:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

As a citizen of the United States and the world, I am very concerned with the trends I am seeing in Venezuela. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez seems to be belligering the public into giving him more power:

In honor of Presidents Day, CSPAN released the results of their poll asking who is the best president in American history.  Not surprisingly, Abraham Lincoln (once again) topped the chart, but the regular last place finisher, Andrew Johnson, was replaced today by the last president born in the 18th century, James Buchanan.

Why is he considered the worst president?  Reading through several sources, it appears that President Buchanan is seen as the man who could have stopped the War Between the States (or Mr. Lincoln’s War, as it’s known here in the South).  His “lack of action” is what earns him last place.

Another of President Obama’s nominations has sunk like a rock:

ANOTHER day, another blow for Barack Obama’s hopes for a “new politics”. On Thursday February 12th, Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire announced that he had withdrawn as Mr Obama’s proposed secretary of commerce. Mr Gregg is a Republican—and one, to boot, who once voted for the Commerce Department to be abolished. Bringing him into the cabinet had been billed by the Obama team as an important sign of Mr Obama’s commitment to government from the centre. Mr Gregg would have been the third of Mr Obama’s “post-partisan” appointments: his transport secretary, Ray LaHood is a Republican, and his defence secretary, Robert Gates, served in the same job under George Bush (though he does not describe himself as a Republican).