Dartblog

“[Earl Warren’s Supreme Court] wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do…what the Federal government can’t do…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…”

This quotation, from the Barack Obama interview now going around, crowns, in my opinion, the long list of evidences that the man is a hopeless, thoughtless radical weaned on and addicted to the horrible old ideas. Most of the coverage of the video focuses on the portion after this quotation, where Mr. Obama goes on to support the forcible redistribution of wealth by the government.

To my mind the revelation is in what I quote above. Obama says that the Constitution describes only what the government cannot do, not what it must do. He considers this a tragedy. It is in fact a pretty serious falsehood—shows just how radical are his views, his philosophies. What the Constitution describes is not what the government cannot do but what it can do. The government has no rights not ascribed to it in that document. This point, you will understand, has been something like our salvation for more than two hundred years. It’s part of the genius of our republic. Mr. Obama finds it distasteful and meddlesome. He is of the opinion that the founders’ focus on personal liberty gets in his way. He said this this more or less outright.

Barack Obama isn’t running for President on his own views and plans. But they’re out there, flitting, awaiting the butterfly net of one honest journalist. Is there one?