Barack Obama's Poor Understanding of the Constitution
The Founding Fathers were correct in the way they set up the
Constitution.
By Heather Higgins US News and World Report
|Nov. 3, 2008, at 11:08 a.m.
This is interesting since Obama may actually be the one running the country.
Obama Would
Radically Rework the Constitution
A 2001 interview of Sen. Barack Obama saying some pretty
remarkable things about what he sees as the inadequacy of our Constitution has
recently come to light. They go to the core of what this election is about and,
even more fundamentally, what America is and may be.
It's perhaps good to remember first what makes America different
from other countries. Unlike in other places that are defined by geography and
ancestry, to be an American comes from subscribing to a particular set of ideas
that are very, very different from those held in much of the rest of the world.
It doesn't matter where you are born or what race or ethnicity
you are—anyone can become an American.
At the root of the American idea are the truths that our
founders described as "self-evident" but that many people first take
for granted and then fail to defend: that this country is based on faith in the
uniqueness and capacity for self-determination of each individual.
That central idea came from a certainty that we were created by
"nature's God" and that God—not government—had endowed each of us
with rights, first among which were life, liberty, and property, the
combination of which allowed the pursuit—but no guarantee—of happiness. (It is
precisely because the power of this argument was understood that those who
advocated slavery denied the full humanity of slaves.)
That understanding led them to create for the first time in
history a government built out of and respecting these universal rights of man,
a government that was "of, by, and for" the people, not the other way
around. And it also led them to craft our Bill of Rights.
Obama in his interview disparages the Constitution as merely
"a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you.
Says what the federal government can't do to you but doesn't say what the
federal government or state government must do on your behalf." He
believes—and he's right—that changing this is the way to bring about
"redistributive change."
But the founders were deeply purposeful and intellectually
coherent in their definition of rights. Classically, rights are the lowest,
most basic universal claims. Think of them as the ground rules for everyone,
weak and strong, to respect each other and get on.
Their important characteristics are these: First, they exist
outside of us, coming from God or nature, not government, and so are
independent of the whims of government and cannot be either manufactured or, of
even greater concern, extinguished when they get in the way of someone
powerful. No one has to give us the ability to pursue happiness; it comes from
within ourselves.
Second, they are timeless, applying regardless of whether it's
200 years ago or a thousand years in the future—governments can't use the
excuse "well, that was then, but times have changed."
Third, they are universal, applying to everyone, not just some
preferred subset.
And fourth, they are noncoercive, or negative: They delineate
what others cannot deprive you of without due process of law. And they prevent
you from being coerced.
The founders were not coldhearted. The very understanding of rights
as the lowest obligation means that there are also higher obligations: You
can't force someone to be a good Samaritan, but you can expect it of anyone
decent. Those who give, give of their free will and consensually, not because
the government forces it.
Rights don't exist in a vacuum; they carry corollary
responsibilities that fall on the citizens who enjoy those rights. That
understanding is precisely why volunteerism has such a strong tradition in this
country; we knew caring for our neighbor was our responsibility as citizens,
not the government's.
But Obama, like many leftists before him, is unhappy with the
constraints of our Constitution. He wants to turn voluntary responsibilities
and moral obligations that citizens choose to undertake into so-called
affirmative rights. That idea is sugarcoated as "what the government must
do on your behalf." But that sort of thinking—that government should do
it—is precisely what saps volunteerism and helps explain why both the Obamas'
and the Bidens' charitable contributions are so pitiful.
It's also important to remember that if the government is doing
something for one person—"redistributive change" as Obama wants, it
must do something to someone else—which is exactly what our Constitution
specifically precludes.
But even more radically undermining of the American idea is
Obama's idea that government can create new "rights." If Obama
believes government can create rights, then that means he thinks governments
can also take them away.
Of course, this is at the heart of the two philosophies between
which we are being asked to choose in this election. Do you think as our
founders did that rights—including to your own property earned by your own
labor—come from the inherent value of individual persons (not government) and
must be protected from government? Or do you reject that foundational American
idea and instead think rights can be manufactured (and removed) by government
for whatever it deems to be the greater good? No less than the American Idea is
at stake.
Heather Higgins is a member of the board of directors for the
Independent Women's Voice.
Tags: Barack Obama, 2008 presidential
election, Constitution
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