America stands at the crossroads

Editorials

April 10, 2012

America stands at the crossroads

Anonymous The Ada News The Ada Evening News Fri Apr 13, 2012, 02:57 PM CDT

Ada —

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell took exception last week to President Barack Obama’s remarks regarding what the U.S. Supreme Court should and should not do regarding his signature accomplishment — passage of the Affordable Healthcare Act.

Obama said he is “confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

McConnell said the President had “crossed a dangerous line” in addressing Supreme Court justices in this manner.

We may set aside for a moment that what Pres. Obama calls a “strong majority” included no Republicans and 13 of those in his own party who voted against it, or that at the time, Democrats controlled the House of Representatives but it still only passed by just seven votes.

We might also set aside the fact that a newly elected Republican majority House of Representatives voted to repeal it.

These things pale in comparison to the real issuewhich is that to liberals, whether or not Obamacare is Constitutional, is not germane. The point is best illustrated by a recent statement by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg on a visit to Egypt. “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012,” Ginsberg said in addressing a gathering in Cairo. We can be sure Mr. Obama agrees.

They think it is outdated because our Founders were too much concerned about liberty. Our Founders’ document focuses on what government cannot do. Their concern was liberalism in the classical sense, which is to say as much freedom from government interference as possible.

Ginsberg and Obama are liberals in the modern sense of the word. They want a constitution that says what government will do, specifically what it will do for people. This is totally counter to what our Founders had in mind.

Whether or not the Supreme Court decides all or part of the Affordable Healthcare Act meets constitutional muster is still up in the air. No matter what they decide, America is at a crossroads. In November voters will ultimately decide at the ballot box whether we cling to liberalism in the classical sense or tilt full bore toward the slippery slope that is the more modern definition.

—The Ada News

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