CNN’s John King did his best the other night, producing a question from one of his viewers:
“Since birth control is the latest hot topic, which candidate believes in birth control, and if not, why?”
To their credit, no Republican candidate was inclined to accept the premise of the question. King might have done better to put the issue to Danica Patrick. For some reason, Michelle Fields of the Daily Caller sought the views of the NASCAR driver and Sports Illustrated swimwear model about “the Obama administration’s dictate that religious employers provide health-care plans that cover contraceptives.” Miss Patrick, a practicing Catholic, gave the perfect citizen’s response for the Age of Obama:
“I leave it up to the government to make good decisions for Americans.”
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That’s the real “hot topic” here — whether a majority of citizens, in America as elsewhere in the West, is willing to “leave it up to the government” to make decisions on everything that matters. On the face of it, the choice between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church should not be a tough one. On the one hand, we have the plain language of the First Amendment as stated in the U.S. Constitution since 1791: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
On the other, we have a regulation invented by executive order under the vast powers given to Kathleen Sebelius under a 2,500-page catalogue of statist enforcement passed into law by a government party that didn’t even bother to read it.
Commissar Sebelius says that she is trying to “strike the appropriate balance.” But these two things — a core, bedrock, constitutional principle, and Section 47(e)viii of Micro-Regulation Four Bazillion and One issued by Leviathan’s Bureau of Compliance — are not equal, and you can only “balance” them by massively increasing state power and massively diminishing the citizen’s. Or, to put it more benignly, by “leaving it up to the government to make good decisions.”
Some of us have been here before. For most of the last five years, I’ve been battling Canada’s so-called “human rights” commissions, and similar thought police in Britain, Europe, and elsewhere. As I write this, I’m in Australia, to talk up the cause of free speech, which is, alas, endangered even in that great land. In that sense, the “latest hot topic” — the clash between Obama and American Catholics — is, in fact, a perfect distillation of the broader struggle in the West today. When it comes to human rights, I go back to 1215 and Magna Carta — or, to give it its full name, Magna Carta Libertatum. My italics: I don’t think they had them back in 1215. But they understood that “libertatum” is the word that matters. Back then, “human rights” were rights of humans, of individuals — and restraints upon the king: They’re the rights that matter: limitations upon kingly power. Eight centuries later, we have entirely inverted the principle: “Rights” are now gifts that a benign king graciously showers upon his subjects — the right to “free” health care, to affordable housing, the “right of access to a free placement service” (to quote the European Constitution’s “rights” for workers). The Democratic National Committee understands the new school of rights very well: In its recent video, Obama’s bureaucratic edict is upgraded into the “right to contraception coverage at no additional cost.” And, up against a “human right” as basic as that, how can such peripheral rights as freedom of conscience possibly compete?
The transformation of “human rights” from restraints upon state power into a pretext for state power is nicely encapsulated in the language of Article 14 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which states that everyone has the right “to receive free compulsory education.” Got that? You have the human right to be forced to do something by the government.
She should have STAYED in formula one and OUT of NASCAR. She is now the "Racer formerly known as a hottie." I'm taking the Hot Wheel mini of her Formula One car that was going to my little cousin to the range and blasting it with my .45ACP.
Thank you Mr Steyn for bringing to light how the basic liberties of individuals whether in the US or Europe are being taken away surreptitiously by in unsuspecting populace putting their complete trust in politicians whose ends are not in keeping with their duty bound representation and respect for the sacred documents that they are sworn to uphold. Their job is not to reinvent liberty but to secure it from one genreration to the next. Obama and his minions have turned freedom on its' ear and nobody in DC has enough backbone to stand up to these insolent thugs of socialism and tyranny. To paraphrase Newt, he is right in saying that Obama is the most dangerous man in DC. The populace should be constantly reminded of this fact if this Nation is to become one again and to reverse course before they bring us to the point of no return.
Obama and his fellow travelers on the Big State, Central Command Left are not believers in individual rights (or responsibilities, for that matter). Instead they dream of the Great Collective, a two-tiered system of the overlords and the slavish drones. For the Left, rights come from the State, which gets to define what those rights are.
Axelrod's latest marketing slogan for the Obama run is adequate evidence that the collective, not the individual, is supreme.
When one of our own Supreme Court Justices wouldn't look to the US Constitution as a model for modern day constitutions, you know we have crossed the Rubicon.The idea that I pay for my stuff and you pay for yours is now radical.
"...we have crossed the Rubicon." I can't think that I've ever witnessed this phrase applied more aptly. In many Obama is the American Julius Caesar (for those who don't bother themselves with history, I do not intended that as a compliment).
Mr. Steyn is right. One right we'll all have in the future is the right to be servants for our Chinese overlords. That will happen once we have feminized our military enough and once we have grown too cowardly and ignorant to die for anything. And the way we are going, such a future will happen within a generation.
Maybe then we'll begin to learn anew the value of individual liberty.
Mr. Steyn makes trenchant and apt observations about the weak, transitory, and illusory nature of so-called "rights" that are granted by governments, at their pleasure and sufferance.
Accepting government benefits and privileges is not a matter of just taking the benefits and privileges without accepting the conditions and obligations attached to them. The problem of accepting patronage leading to obligations and burdens being placed on the recipient goes back to the days of the ancient Roman Republic (and probably earlier). The opening scene of the movie The Godfather illustrates the problem: At the wedding of his daughter, the Godfather grants wishes to those people who ask for them. But, it is understood that the Godfather expects the recipients of his "generosity" will repay the favor when and how the Godfather chooses, not when or how the recipients choose. Anyone who accepts the "generosity" of government benefits and privileges may find himself or herself later stuck with strings attached, and the expectation that the recipient will vote for the politician or party that grants the government benefits and privileges. A cynical version of the Golden Rule applies: The person giving the money makes the rules that control the person who gets the money. The same applies with so-called "rights" and "privileges" dispensed by the government.
Someone (President Harry Truman?) once said a government big enough to give you a job is big enough to take it away. If Americans foolishly accept the idea that their "rights" come from the government, then they will suffer the inevitable consequence of having to accept that the government can decide to withhold or take away those so-called "rights." Such a distortion of the concept of "rights" would rival the cruel perversion of language practiced by the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's novel 1984.
What can you expect. She works for an execrable company (godaddy) that was more than willing to allow the government to make "good" decision about our other 1st amendment rights, why not just surrender them all? Are NASCAR fans in the mood to be made to pay for abortions? Doubtful. She should go back to Indy cars.
I agree, because of our history and traditions that we are more resilient to abdicating our responsibilities to the government. But that history has been manipulated for over a generation, and those traditions have been largely obliterated.
Re: "Miss Patrick, a practicing Catholic, gave the perfect citizen’s response for the Age of Obama:"
No, Miss Patrick gave the perfect race car driver's response so as not to politicize herself or her sport. It's not her job to fight the culture wars on TV.
Steyn's arguments may make sense, but dragging Danica Patrick into them doesn't.
Point taken, but don't forget that it was CNN's John King who attempted to drag her down into the swill. Good for her for not taking the bait, but it was CNN doing the fishing.
That was not a good response for someone not wanting to be political. It was idiotic. Beyond idiotic..."I'll leave it up to the government to make my decisions". What she did was side with Obama without saying it straight up. You suppose us "fans" to be morons?
Would she leave her career choices up to the government? The woman also said she didn't understand why she was considered a "sex symbol" and some of the men not, simply because she was a woman. How stupid is that for someone who poses in bikinis and thongs regularly to attract male attention, in commercials and ads, no less.
What did you expect, a spontaneous policy treatise from Patrick? She was hit with a political question that came out of left field from her PoV. And she simply issued an ad hoc response no doubt meant to be apolitical.
It's not her responsibility as a race car driver to play in the political muck. Give her a break.
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