If You Want It Bad…

A couple of thoughts about the recent behavior of our government that calls to mind the old adage “You want it bad, you’ll get it bad.”

Here at Secure Freedom Radio, we are really big on the representative, accountable government that is mandated by our Constitution.  After all, if the people making the laws that govern us are not accountable, they will likely not long faithfully represent us. This is why we are so adamantly opposed to transnational “world governments” like that Al Gore says will be advanced if the new “Cap and Trade” energy tax bill becomes law.  This is why we worry so much about steps that insinuate authoritative Islam’s Shariah theocratic program into the United States.  By their nature, such arrangements are anti-Constitutional and incompatible with the securing, let alone the practice, of freedom.

So when we witness legislative initiatives that have these traits – initiatives that either have already been adopted or are about to be at the behest of the Obama administration and at the hands of the Democrat-controlled Congress – we have grounds for real concern.  Worse yet, these bills are all being rushed through in a way that is so hasty as to make quality control on Capitol Hill, or even public awareness of what’s afoot, essentially impossible.

Take for example four recent examples of legislation that will have significant implications for our sovereignty and freedoms:
•    First, there was the insertion of $108 billion bail-out for the International Monetary Fund into a totally unrelated emergency war supplemental.  The only way it got done over adamant Republican opposition was through, as the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner’s “begging” of Democrats like Rep. Brad Sherman to go along.  Congressman Sherman has been a leader in opposing Iran’s nuclear buildup and terrorism and wanted assurances from President Obama that the money would not be used by the IMF to help Iran.

Mr. Sherman got the assurance he sought and was one of those swing Democrats who then voted to approve the IMF bailout.  The Journal notes, however, that Team Obama has reneged on that and a number of other promises in the President’s signing statement – a practice that drove Democrats (including Barack Obama) to distraction when President Bush did it.  Call it a bait-and-switch as Iran will surely get more of YOUR money to perpetuate the mullahs’ control and to pursue their dangerous agendas.

•    Then, there was Mr. Gore’s unprecedented energy tax. A 300-page amendment to the bill was distributed around 3:00 a.m. the morning before Members of Congress were to vote on legislation that threatens, by some estimates – and hard experience in Europe – to impose a 30% hit to our economy.  No member could have read what they were approving.  Certainly, you couldn’t before they passed the bill. As they say, you want it bad, you’ll get it bad.

•    How about the health care bills that we are being breathlessly told will be enacted, as President Obama demands, by Congress’ August recess – just two weeks away?  I don’t hold myself out as an expert on health care but I can discern a train wreck when I see it coming.  More thousand-page bills, which no Senator or Congressman troubles to read in their entirety, and which they are being forced by the Democratic leadership to gavel through by some arbitrary deadline – one whose only purpose seems to be to present the public with another far-reaching and unimaginably expensive retooling of our economy and society in favor of big government and at the expense of freedom.

•    Most recently, there is the Hate Crimes legislation that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is determined to see tacked on to the Defense Department authorization bill.  This legislation is ostensibly designed to prevent violent acts motivated by hatred of homosexuals and other designated minorities. While it purports to recognize the Constitution’s protection of free speech, in practice, this legislation is likely to be used to suppress speech that a protected minority – say, adherents to Shariah in America – deem offensive and claim to be an inducement to violence against them or their co-religionists.

In short, it seems that, time and again, the deliberative process by which our elected representatives are supposed to do their jobs – namely, protecting the Constitution and the inalienable rights and freedoms it recognizes – seems to be breaking down.

Let Freedom Ring led by Colin Hanna, (LetFreedomRing.org) has introduced an idea that could help – a pledge by which legislators promise to read the entire health care bill before they vote for it and to have it posted on the web for at least 72 hours before they do so – so the rest of us can find out what they are voting for before it’s too late.

These are sensible steps and it is high time we take them – not just on health care but on every major piece of legislation and most especially those that would circumscribe our freedoms or otherwise empower those who seek to do so.