It Is All About Liberty

Nicely dovetailing with the previous post, here's a motivating piece from Robert Allen Bonelli at Big Government.

... We are burdened with crushing debt and even heavier unfunded liabilities necessary to support an expanding central government that is attempting to control every aspect of the lives of the American people.  Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, the environment, health care and business regulation are not found in the Constitution as powers of our central government.  However, liberal interpretation – false interpretation if one reads the Federalist Papers – of the Commerce Clause and the Social Welfare Clause of the Constitution opened a back door for the central government to assume powers well beyond the seventeen outlined in the enumerated powers specifically granted therein.  Each time a new power was taken, it was in return for some form of entitlement or relief from self-reliance.  It has reached a point today where it is difficult to distinguish who has the greater hand, the central government or the people.

As the lame duck 111^th Congress (lovingly called the Sh*t House Congress by yours truly) meets this week to conclude before its permanent adjournment, many issues are on its agenda ranging from extension of the current income tax rates, to a number of social and foreign policy issues.  These matters need to be addressed but the continuing debate going into the 112^thCongress, as demanded by the American people in the recent Midterm Election, needs to be focused on the continuation of individual liberty in our country.  Those who believe in more central government control over our lives and those who still hold dear the principle of individual liberty, need to demand an open and direct debate by our elected representatives on the role of the central government and the future of liberty in our nation.

If the American people still believe that American Exceptionalism is defined by a government that is empowered by the people and which governs according to a system of individual liberties, then the debate will be won by those who believe in self-reliance and a smaller central government. This victory will establish the framework necessary to intelligently address entitlements, education, housing, welfare, the environment and especially health care. It will redefine where the central government’s power ends and where the authority of states and the people begins. ...