The Patriot Post Chronicle 2-2-2011

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 2-2-2011
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation

"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." --James Madison, Federalist No. 51

Editorial Exegesis

"Federal Judge Roger Vinson opens his decision declaring ObamaCare unconstitutional with that citation from Federalist No. 51, written by James Madison in 1788. His exhaustive and erudite opinion is an important moment for American liberty, and [Monday] may well stand as the moment the political branches were obliged to return to the government of limited and enumerated powers that the framers envisioned. As Judge Vinson took pains to emphasize, the case is not really about health care at all, or the wisdom -- we would argue the destructiveness -- of the newest entitlement. Rather, the Florida case goes to the core of the architecture of the American system, and whether there are any remaining limits on federal control. Judge Vinson's 78-page ruling in favor of 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business, among others, is by far the best legal vindication to date of Constitutional principles that form the outer boundaries of federal power. At the heart of the states' lawsuit is the individual mandate, which requires everyone to purchase health insurance or be penalized for not doing so. 'Never before has Congress required that everyone buy a product from a private company (essentially for life) just for being alive and residing in the United States,' Judge Vinson writes. ... Unlike Judge Henry Hudson in Virginia, who also found ObamaCare to be unconstitutional, Judge Vinson addresses the Administration's fallback argument that the Constitution's Necessary and Proper Clause justifies the law even if the Commerce Clause doesn't. He writes that this clause 'is not an independent source of federal power' and 'would vitiate the enumerated powers principle.' In other words, the clause can't justify inherently unconstitutional actions. ... Judge Vinson's learned opinion has put down a Constitutional argument that will reverberate all the way to the Supreme Court." --The Wall Street Journal1

Insight

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over a member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant." --British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

Upright

"Regardless of how laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals [of universal health care] in passing the [Affordable Care] Act, Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution. ... [T]his case is not about whether the Act is wise or unwise legislation, or whether it will solve or exacerbate the myriad problems in our health care system. In fact, it is not really about our health care system at all. It is principally about our federalist system, and it raises very important issues regarding the Constitutional role of the federal government." --Reagan-appointed U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson in striking down ObamaCare in its entirety

"This case involves a majority of the states (26), and the National Federation of Independent Business. If not completely unprecedented, the very fact that more than half the states marched into federal court on behalf of themselves and their citizens to challenge an unconstitutional federal program falls into the category of 'beyond any recent memory.' The sheer magnitude of the parties involved guarantees that the courts on appeal will pay particular attention to this case." --Heritage Foundation's Robert Alt

"Disregard Barack Obama's rhetorical cotton candy about aspiring to be transformative. He is just another practitioner of reactionary liberalism and champion of a government unchastened by its multiplying failures. The word 'entitlements' was absent from his nearly 7,000-word State of the Union address -- a $183 million speech that meandered for 61 minutes as the nation's debt grew $3 million a minute." --columnist George Will

"To this day, the [Muslim] Brotherhood's motto remains, 'Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu akbar!' Still, our see-no-Islamic-evil foreign-policy establishment blathers on about the Brotherhood's purported renunciation of violence — and never you mind that, with or without violence, its commitment is ... to 'conquer America' and 'conquer Europe.' It is necessary to whitewash the Ikhwan's brutal legacy and its tyrannical designs in order to fit it into the experts' paradigm: history for simpletons." --columnist Andrew McCarthy

"No one can tell where this [the situation in Egypt] will all end, but it is already clear that President Obama, who was so eager to re-set America's relationships with the rest of the world is finding out that (a) it is tougher to be President than to run for President and (b) Bush's policies made more sense than Obama thought they did." --political analyst Rich Galen

Dezinformatsia

Constitutional ignorance: "Let's turn now to health care. Major court ruling. Federal judge down in Florida targeted individual mandates, said that the President Obama health care reform is unconstitutional.... But, what he was talking about, specifically, was this requirement that people buy health insurance and you had exactly that same requirement in Massachusetts. Why is it right for a state to impose that kind of mandate and not the federal government?" --ABC's George Stephanopoulos, who apparently has never heard of 10th Amendment federalism

Gun grabbers: "There's talk this week about a word that wasn't in the [SOTU] speech at all: guns. ... Given all the recent headlines and calls for better enforcement of laws to keep guns out of the wrong hands -- that missing word has generated a cloud of its own." --CBS's Katie Couric

Blame global warming: "Energy insecurity and climate instability have now become key factors in food insecurity, which in turn has become a key factor in toppling governments. ... Those who think that the serious impacts of climate change -- and our inane energy policies -- on the world economy and U.S. national security are decades away are simply not paying attention." --MSNBC's Joe Romm

Blame Bush: "Unrest in Egypt. Proving the Iraq war wasn't needed, these protests in Egypt, as well as in Yemen and Tunisia, are all aimed at dictators supported by the U.S. The demonstrations have not yet turned anti-American, but they could. These are the events the Bush administration hoped to encourage by lying about weapons of mass destruction and invading Iraq." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews

Pot, meet kettle: "I think the effect of Fox News on American public life has been to create a level of cynicism about the news in general. It has contributed to the sense that they are all just out there with a political agenda, but Fox is just more overt about it. And I think that's unhealthy. ... But it is true that the national discourse is more polarized and strident than it has been in the past, and to some extent, I would lay that at the feet of Rupert Murdoch." --New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller