A Great Week for We the People ... We'll Get the Government We Deserve

Pogo says we're our own worst enemy and challenges us to take charge of our own affairs.

He's all about the power and responsibility of We the People all the way. So am I.

In essence, that's exactly what Chief Justice Roberts said to us in the ObamaCare ruling this week as well.  If we don't like the law, get rid of those who voted for the law.

And it's not about ObamaCare any longer. It's much bigger than that. Now it's about the choice between (1) the big government knows best approach and (2) the individual knows best approach.

In other words, will we trust in government to do the right thing for us or will we instead retain the individual freedoms to make our own choices concerning how we will best take care of ourselves and each other? That's pretty serious stuff.

The ObamaCare Election lays out the broader political context outlined by the Court in its instructions to We the People:

"ObamaCare is alive. And now we have us an election.

Politically, here's what the Supreme Court provided in upholding the president's health legislation: clarity. Ever since the March oral arguments, with their tantalizing hints the court might strike down the law, the politics of health care has been a muddle.

With this week's decision, the debate refocuses. This election is now about ObamaCare—not just in its own right, but as proxy for a generational debate over liberty. Chief Justice John Roberts, in legitimizing sweeping federal powers, has left it to the U.S. electorate to serve as the check on government intrusion—and thus dramatically elevated the November stakes. . . .

(In the case of) Mr. Romney, the decision gives him (the opening) to elevate ObamaCare into a far larger, more powerful debate. The former governor is adept at citing the laundry list of ObamaCare ills, and on Thursday he did so again, including a vague reference to the law's many "taxes." Yet the significance of the Roberts ruling was in fact the finding of a specific new and frightening taxation power—the government right to levy a tax on any American behavior it deems inappropriate.

That is enormous. The Roberts majority didn't just legitimize ObamaCare—it provided Democrats a road map, and the tools, for the party's ambitions to turn us into a European-style entitlement state.

Mr. Romney's challenge is to explain that ObamaCare is only the beginning. This new court-granted power is Mr. Romney's most powerful warning regarding a second Obama term.

It's also an opening to make his own appeal. If the court will not stop government, then only the American people can—by electing a president and a Congress that promise respect for American liberties. The more Mr. Romney can articulate his own limiting principles for governance, the more voters will appreciate the contrast with today's president.

This election is now about ObamaCare. Which is, in turn, about everything else."

Summary

So here are the two relevant questions for We the People to decide: (1) Do we choose big government knows best entitlements and pretend that our elected elitist politicians will somehow be able to provide security and abundance for one and all? (2) Or do we instead choose the path of individual liberties in providing both security and abundance for ourselves and those in need of assistance?

And that, my friends, is a mouthful.

The debate between who's best capable of deciding on behalf of We the People --- government elitists or common individuals --- goes back to ancient times --- even much before Plato.

At our nation's founding, we chose to base our society's future well being on the common man's good judgment. The founders did that by recognizing the inherent God given blessings of liberty, aka individual freedoms.


My own super strong belief is very much on the side of the ordinary individual and not on the side of the elitist government knows best officials. All of us are smarter than any few of us. And individual morality and general prosperity align totally with free people acting in free markets as they so choose from time to time.

Now we'll see how the rest of our fellow Americans see these things come this Novermber.

And regardless of how this year's particular voting turns out, there will be another one soon thereafter. We've had lots of elections these past 236 years, and we'll have lots more in the decades and centuries to come. That's what self governing free people do.

The forces of freedom, individualism, free markets and equal opportunities are going to permeate each and every corner of the world these next few years and decades.

And in the U.S. we'll continue to lead the way, as we have since our nation's inception, and as we always will. At least that's my take.

Thanks. Bob.