You don’t trust President Barack Obama?
No faith in the massive federal bureaucracy? Do you lack confidence in Congress representing your interests? How much do you trust the federal courts that handle secret requests from the Department of Justice . . .and then issue secret decisions based on the judge’s secret interpretation of the law?
Be advised: President Obama finds “your lack of faith disturbing.”
“If people can’t trust not only the executive branch, but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process, and rule of law,” Obama told reporters in response to the public uproar to a leak of classified information suggesting that the detailed phone records of every American have been seized by the National Security Agency, “then we’re going to have some problems here.”
Agreed. Problems galore. The morning paper reads like a dystopian novel.
Are we really supposed to feel protected by a federal judge in a secret court wherein only the government is represented?
Or represented by Congress, for goodness sake?! Only a few congressmen are told, and those sworn to secrecy.
The Obama Administration incredibly calls this set-up “an unprecedented degree of accountability and transparency.”
There are compelling national security interests, upon which our rights must be balanced, the president explains. But in our constitutional system, as I argued at Townhall.com yesterday, there is no more compelling national interest than that the government fully obey the Fourth Amendment — and the entire document, please.
Thank you.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
People speak of “the public interest.” But what is the public interest? Strictly speaking, there is no such thing. There is only the interest of each individual human being. There are interests that many or all people share, but these are still the interests of individuals. When politicians say that something is “to the public interest,” they usually mean it serves the interests of some people but goes against the interests of others — and usually the interests of the people with the most political pull win out. Is it to the public interest for some to be forced to die so that others may be saved? Is it to the public interest for a hundred crazed men to lynch one man in the public square? Is it to the public interest for all the citizens of the nation to be taxed to pay for a federal dam in one section of it? In Sweden it takes a couple eight years on the average before they can obtain an apartment of their own (owned by the government, rented by them); but they are not supposed to complain, because “it’s in the public interest.” Just as there are only individual rights, so there are only individual interests.
The constitution ought to secure a genuine militia and guard against a select militia… all regulations tending to render this general militia useless and defenseless, by establishing select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men, not having permanent interests and attachments to the community ought to be avoided.
Everything is what it is: liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or culture, or human happiness or a quiet conscience.