The Constitution is Too Inconvenient

Saturday 28 January 2012 - Filed under Uncategorized

A very short opinion column on how Progressives in the White House, using “martial language” mold society for dictatorship out of desire for legislative “convenience”. WaPo:

Obama, an unfettered executive wielding a swollen state, began and ended his address by celebrating the armed forces. They are not “consumed with personal ambition,” they “work together” and “focus on the mission at hand” and do not “obsess over their differences.” Americans should emulate troops “marching into battle,” who “rise or fall as one unit.”

Well. The armed services’ ethos, although noble, is not a template for civilian society, unless the aspiration is to extinguish politics. People marching in serried ranks, fused into a solid mass by the heat of martial ardor, proceeding in lock step, shoulder to shoulder, obedient to orders from a commanding officer — this is a recurring dream of progressives eager to dispense with tiresome persuasion and untidy dissension in a free, tumultuous society.

Progressive presidents use martial language as a way of encouraging Americans to confuse civilian politics with military exertions, thereby circumventing an impediment to progressive aspirations — the Constitution and the patience it demands.

What progressives of all stripes fail to understand (or at least recognize), is that it’s purposefully difficult to write legislation and get it passed. This should be seen as a feature of American constitutionalism, not a bug.

2012-01-28  »  madlibertarianguy