The conservative blogosphere is having a “kids on Christmas morning” day today with this video of Illinois Representative Phil Hare summarily dismissing the United States Constitution.
So much has been said on Hot Air. Big Government, Gateway Pundit, and others that there isn’t really all that much left to say.
That’s never stopped me before, though.
What we’ve got here really is nothing short of fascinating. It’s a genuine peek into the Leftist mindset that is usually hidden from prying eyes. Bless the You Tube generation, folks, because there are millions of tiny portable cameras out there ready to catch the Left unguarded.
For a quick history lesson, this is what’s known as the “Supremacy Clause”:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Translated, the United States is a nation of laws, and the U.S. Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. There can be no laws that circumvent, overrule, or ignore the Constitution and all Senators, Justices, Representatives, and Presidents have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution.
Yet when asked a simple question: “Where does the Constitution give you the power to create this health care bill?” Phil Hare responds: “I don’t worry about the Constitution.”
While this is really not surprising, in many ways it is nothing short of staggering. Rep. Hare goes on to talk about the “right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” as if it were in the Constitution, and when told that this phrase is from the Declaration of Independence (not a legal document), Hare responds, “It doesn’t matter to me.”
This is the mindset of the Left. Specifically enumerated laws are unimportant. Anecdotes about poor children and bankrupt families are worth more than the legal document on which this country was founded. The law is unimportant. Gefühl ist alles, said Goethe. “Feeling is everything.”
There is a very telling line that Hare uses that isn’t getting much play anywhere else: “I’m the dreamer,” he says when asked about his convictions. The unintended consequences, the crippling of business, the enforced mandates on private citizens, the sick engorgement of government, the thousands of pages of new rules and regulations, of taxes and penalties…all of it in the pursuit of a Leftist dream.
Of course, morning arrives as it always must. When those who are awake find that the law and government policy is based on anecdotes, emotion, and the dream of a perfect society, then one realizes that there are no longer any limits on what government can do and the descent into tyranny will be swift and sure. It won’t be the brutal tyranny of a Nazi regime, but it is fascism nonetheless.
And Congressmen like Phil Hare are wearing the jackboots you hear sneaking up behind you under cover of doing something for “the people.”
The Clampdown 