Like Taking Constitutional Rights from a Baby

Back in 2008 at the beginning of this Presidential Administration, Rush Limbaugh famously stated, “I hope Obama fails.”  Hope has failed and Obama has succeeded beyond our deepest fears. America has been fundamentally transformed through an underreported and bloodless coup. Every day it seems our individual liberties are slip sliding away. Where have our rights gone and why do we give them up so easily?

A short five years ago it would have seemed impossible to believe that our federal government would have taken over an automobile industry, nationalized college loans, grown the national debt to over sixteen trillion, lost billions of taxpayer dollars through “investments” in impractical green industries, seized the American healthcare system, further infringed upon Second Amendment rights, employed various government agencies to target political opponents, and spied upon ordinary citizens without their knowledge by gathering every kind of digital information. We may have thought this could never happen in America because we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights. However, we have learned to our dismay that the protection of our rights is only as strong as the character of those entrusted with upholding the Constitution. Too many elected officials raise one hand to pledge fealty to the Constitution while with the other hand they grasp for more power.

It has been said we get the government we deserve. Benjamin Franklin announced our new government would be “a Republic, if you can keep it.” We have kept it for nearly two and a half centuries, but now rightly fear we are on the verge of losing it. Our Constitutional rights are not just under attack, they are thoughtlessly being given away by our fellow citizens who do not seem to realize that the abandoning of one right will result in losing all of them. How did we let this happen?

Have you ever let a baby play with your car keys? They will have more fun than you would ever think could be humanly possible shaking them and squealing with delight. There’s no telling how long the euphoria could continue. No one has ever gotten to the end of this “game” because sooner or later you have to leave and that means you have to get the car keys back. Now, you could take the direct approach and just rip the precious bauble from the child’s chubby little fingers, but no adult wants to endure the meltdown that would surely ensue. The shocked look of betrayal, the pooling puddles of tears in the little cherub’s eyes, and the spine shattering scream of outrage must be avoided at all costs. So how do you get the keys? Every politician knows the answer: you trade the kid for something of lesser value.  You can’t just say, “Hey kid, how about trading me those precious shiny jangly keys for this ratty old toy?” No, you’ve got to negotiate. You have to downgrade the value of the keys and inflate the value of the stuffed animal or whatever object you seek to trade. You have to dangle the object of lesser value in front of the child’s eyes until you get his full attention. Then you have to make it look like this worthless bag of stuffing is the most valuable possession on earth. You have to make the kid want it more than what they already have, and you have to avoid tipping him off as to your true intentions. Once you’ve got him focused it’s as easy as, well, taking car keys from a baby.

So how do we lose our rights? They are not often stolen outright because that would result in open revolt by the citizenry. We lose our rights because a majority of our fellow citizens voluntarily trade them for something of lesser value. The empty values most commonly championed by politicians are those done “for the children,” “for the greater good,” or “for fairness.” Whenever one of these phrases is being trumpeted we must be aware and draw attention to what is really at stake or we will continue to experience just how easy to take Constitutional Rights from a baby.