Guns and the President
Here is an uncomfortable
pop quiz: Who has killed more children, Adam Lanza or Barack Obama? We'll hold
off on the answer for a few paragraphs while we look at the state of
governmental excess – including killing – in America. But you can probably guess
the correct answer from the manner in which I have posed the
question.
We all know that the sheet
anchor of our liberties is the Declaration of Independence. The president
himself quoted Thomas Jefferson's most famous line in his inaugural address
earlier this week. He recognized that all men and women are created equal and
endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The president would no
doubt like to modify the word "created" to read "shall be maintained," since his
presidency seems dedicated to keeping us equal, not in terms of equality of
rights and opportunity but of outcome. He has dedicated himself to using the
coercive power of the federal government to take from those who have and give to
those who don't. Under the Constitution, charity is a decision for individuals
to make, not the government.
This forced egalitarianism
was never the purpose of government in America. When the people in the original
13 states gave up some of their personal liberties to create their state
governments so they could perform the services that governments in the West do,
and when the states themselves gave up some of their liberties to create the
federal government of limited powers to address the issues of nationhood, they
never authorized government to impose taxes to transfer wealth to those who lack
it or need it.
This may sound harsh, but
there is simply no authority in the Constitution for the feds to tax Americans
or to borrow money in their names to rebuild private homes in New Orleans or at
the Jersey Shore. And there is no moral authority for that, either. If folks
want to give money to those whose properties were damaged by natural disasters
and lacked adequate insurance coverage, they are free to do so, but nowhere does
government have the authority to compel us to do so.
Read the entire article
