KUHNER: End of the Constitution

[Harry Riley]

Obamacare birth-control mandate would defeat the First Amendment

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/10/end-of-the-constitu...

Is America sliding toward autocratic rule? This is the essential question of Barack Obama’s presidency. Mr. Obama vowed to “fundamentally transform” the United States. Despite his incompetence and economic failure, the president is making good on his central promise: the destruction of our constitutional republic. He is trying - piece by painful piece - to reverse the legacy of the Founding Fathers. Conservatives have underestimated him at their peril. For Mr. Obama is not simply an inept, liberal president in the mold of Jimmy Carter. He is an ideological revolutionary who seeks to sweep away traditional America.

The American war of independence did not just overthrow British imperial domination. The Founders forged something almost unique in history: a nation devoted to individual liberty, Christian civilization and federalism. The rule of men was replaced bythe rule of law. The linchpin was constitutional government based on the separation of powers and checks and balances. The American system is entirely predicated on the Constitution. Once the Constitution becomes meaningless or just an inconvenient piece of paper, the American experiment is over. The republic is dead.

This is what’s at stake. Mr. Obama is acting like an arbitrary tyrant. He is running roughshod over the Constitution, egregiously, repeatedly and deliberately violating its restraints and clear limits on federal power. He has publicly admitted that he finds Congress a nuisance, an “obstacle” to his secular socialist project. He has said that he often thinks about “going it alone.” In fact, this is what he has done - so far, largely with impunity.

He waged an illegal war in Libya. The last time Congress officially declared war was in December 1941. Yet Mr. Obama went one step further, something his predecessors - Lyndon B. Johnson, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush - never did: He refused even to ask Congress for authorization. Mr. Obama ignored the War Powers Act, flagrantly circumventing congressional authority.

Moreover, late last year, the massive National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was signed into law, which potentially allows for the military - not domestic courts - to indefinitely detain American citizens suspected of ties to terrorism. The vaguely worded NDAA undermines the rule of law and due process, enabling the government to abrogate the fundamental right to trial. It lends itself to abuse of state power - the very thing our Founders warned against. In the wrong hands, the NDAA could be used as a weapon to persecute - and imprison - political opponents under the guise of fighting terrorism. This is the same administration that has lumped anti-abortion and anti-illegal-immigration activists with radical Islamists as possible “threats” to national security.

Yet it is not just national security. Mr. Obama has created countless policy czars possessing Cabinet-like powers without the approval or consent of the Senate. Recently, he appointed Richard Cordray to be the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - despite the fact that he lacked needed support in the Senate. Mr. Obama’s response: Take a hike. He parachuted in Mr. Cordray as a recess appointment even though Congress was not in recess. The president has usurped congressional oversight - a clear and dangerous violation of the Constitution.

His greatest assault, however, is on religious freedom. Fortunately, his latest effort sparked a rebellion. Mr. Obama had declared war not just on the Catholic Church, but on the First Amendment. The administration ordered almost all religious organizations to provide health insurance coverage that includes free birth control and sterilization procedures - even the morning-after pill, which can induce abortions. Otherwise, under Obamacare, Catholic hospitals, charities and universities would face major fines totaling millions of dollars. The choice was clear: Catholic institutions must either abandon their fundamental tenets or go bankrupt. The contraceptive mandate denied the conscience rights of the church. It was state-sanctioned coercion of private entities to act against their explicit religious beliefs. This is why it triggered such furor among Catholics and non-Catholics alike. If such basic liberties could be trampled on, then nothing - and no one - is safe from big government’s crushing grip. Fortunately, a three-week outcry forced him to back off.

Like many on the radical left, Mr. Obama is an anti-Christian, anti-religious bigot. His goal is to purge Christianity from civil society, to marginalize religion from the public square. He essentially told the church that Washington, not the Vatican, will dictate how it must run its affairs and administer its social services. He demanded that Catholics sacrifice their beliefs on the altar of secular liberalism. The state - with him at its helm - is the new pagan church. Women’s “reproductive health care” trumps Catholic positions on birth control and abortion. The fact that most health insurers already cover contraception and that it is widely available and accessible to women - just go to your local Walgreens - means nothing to feminists or the powerful abortion lobby. The real aim is to smash the Catholic Church as a bulwark against the sexual revolution, reducing it to a quisling of the liberal regime.

Catholic leaders rightly stood up. The Church understood it was under siege. That may not be over. Mr. Obama could win a second term. Hence, Obamacare - along with its contraceptive mandate - might not be repealed and may even expand. If so, he will have succeeded in giving birth to his Frankenstein monster: a post-constitutional, post-American soft tyranny.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute.

[28vb8b9rkqmij]

yea, that's probably what Tibor Rubin's sergeant said to Tibor, just before he sent him where himself he was afraid to enter.

[Scott Eric VanBoskirk]

The minimal that needs to happen is to, once and for all, prove the term "natural born citizen" in the current courts of law.  It should not be hard, but it is.

 

The historical precedence, SCOTUS rulings and the Congressional record all prove that the term NBC means "born of two citizen parents", however the current courts (i.e. judge Malihi's ruling earlier this month) are upholding an Ammendment 14 citizen as a natural-born citizen.  But if you look at the Congressional record in regards to the passage of this bill, the notion that is flitting about the courts is in direct violation of the recorded intet on passage of said ammendment.

 

If you research the record, first off, this ammendment was created for the sole purpose, and no other purpose, to ensure that the newly freed slaves did not lose citizenship rights.  It was also clearly stated that this ammendment does not overrule other rules for citizenship, i.e. the natural born citizen.

Also, it was not intended to be used to grant citizenship willy-nilly just because someone broke the law and popped out a baby.  An illegal immigrant is in this country as a person willfully living outside the laws, not within the laws as required by the 14th ammendment.

 

After this term is solidified (again and again and again.....), it will be proven that all of Congress has abbrogated their oath of office and most are also chargeable with Treason.  At a minimum, the entirety of Congress needs to be brought up on charges and summarilly dismissed and sent to jail.  Let the Governors appoint a new Congress to serve until special elections can be held.  If the newly appointed Congress are found to be in violation of their Oath of Office, they will only be seated in a jail cell rather than in the Houses of Congress.  The simple fact remains that every single elected and apointed politician/Gov't official; Federal, state and local, is currently in violation of their Oath of Office except for a very few of them (maybe 12-20 in the whole nation)  The rest are unfit to serve within Congress.  If this minimum is not done, we will see a postponed death to the ideals of the United States of America and our freedoms themselves!

 

BTW, there do not remain enough patriotic Americans who will sacrifice their all to see this country survive.  Apathy and ignorance abound; integrity, ethics and morals are the scarcest of resources today.

[Bob Russell]

Bob, past sins are covered by the blood of Jesus if one accepts the sacrifice. I am covered and thankful.

[robert baker]

"The Lord helps those who help themselves"..."Vengeance is Mine says the Lord", yea but why does he get to have all the fun?

[Journal of Constitutional Reset]

Our forefathers let dueling be outlawed that than regulated - bad idea. Well-protocoled smooth bore pistol duel leaves room for "Vengeance is Mine says the Lord" while we get to participate.

[Scott Eric VanBoskirk]

But he doesn't get to have all the fun.  The Lord's vengeance is metered out by those he chooses!

 

I picture myself as Donkey asking him, "PICK ME!!!  PICK ME!!!!"

[Robert James Burkholder]

to our selected Officials OUR Constitution has been an inconvenience at least as long as I have been alive. No matter who gets sent to Washington --like that Hollywood movie Mr.Smith. they end up being molded by Washington into someone their own electors would NEVER recognize. I liked Scott McInnis--but Washington changed him--and not for the better. I could Never  trust him enough to vote for him again. And he seems typical. Until/ or unless we get a Freshman class rooted and grounded in the written Constitution -and more importantly men who will rule in FEAR of God as Noah Webster  advised.And until/unless we are awake enough and remind those we send often enough the intended  purpose of government and civil union(And I am not talking Sodomite  fraud -but Good government. )  And unless/until we remind them The Constitution begins with"we the people" And we intend not only to have good government but will punish--or reward in this life those who do not  produce  the government we desire.But we the people must do our  part as well as insisting our Government  act in kind.But we the people must decide if we wish to honor and support the Constitution--or if we choose to follow the despotic rule of ambitious men  drunk with power granted over us.I have but one lamp by which to guide my feet.... As Patrick Henry once declared.

[PHILIP BERG]

As the politition said from { I believe} Illinios THEY DON"T CARE WHAT THE CONSTITUTION SAYS! They are all above any and all laws.

[Harry Riley]

What about the attack on religious liberty...it goes on and on........

A monumental scourge to our national identity and national security is in our face by an enemy in the White House...Obama gives the court, the legislature, and "we the people" the finger nearly every day as he stands in front of his teleprompter hawking socialism, communism, and his Marxist ideology. He points his finger and says in effect, "I'm the emperor, bow down, and worship me". The slug from the Chicago slums has lost it. .  What do the leaders in the United States Senate and US House of Representatives do?  They slink to the fartherest, darkest corner of the US Capitol,  hoping no one will ask them why they remain complicit in the biggest threat to the United States since the founding of our Nation?

Anyone ever notice the similiarity between the leadership style of Amadidijahn(msp) of Iran and Barack Obama of America?

Obama wants to dispose of our nuclear weapons putting us at risk while Iran develops nuclear weapons putting the world at risk.  Obama is more worried about Israel taking out Iranian nucs than Iran getting nuclear weapons......tell me the White House isn't nuts.......or purposefully destroying our nation before our eyes....

 

[Ed Watts]

The tyranny may well not be "soft" at all.