Where Will Washington Stop?

Making Sense, by Michael Reagan

When Chief Justice John Roberts upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare, he didn’t just betray conservatives.

His twisted legal logic also betrayed the American people by opening the door to the largest expansion of federal power since Social Security was enacted.

Roberts and his new liberal soul-mates decided it’s OK for the federal government to tax us if we don’t do what Washington’s bullies and nannies want us to do — or think is good for us.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

Lord knows, the feds have already taxed us to death — and after death, too — on everything from capital gains to booze. If they can “penalize” us for not buying health care insurance, what’s next?

Tax us if we don’t buy a smaller house? If we don’t buy an electric car? How about if we don’t buy exercise equipment? Or eat broccoli? Or wear Earth Shoes or condoms? There’ll be no end to it.

The principle of limited government — now there’s a quaint 18th-century idea — in Washington has been passe since Calvin Coolidge left town. But as my libertarian friend, Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News said this week, the Obamacare decision has created a new opportunity for unlimited government.

You don’t have to be a constitutional scholar like the judge to know that the Supreme Court has set a horrible precedent. But that judicial train wreck has left Union Station. It’s time to stop whining and get to work.

The only way we can derail Obamacare and the Even Bigger Government Express is by firing the engineer in chief and electing a Congress that will legislatively undo the damage the Supreme Court has done to individual liberty.

It won’t be easy. But the Fourth of July holiday is the perfect time for voters to start another revolution to win back the freedoms our Founding Fathers fought for 236 years ago.

They risked their lives and fortunes to secure liberty for the individual and put government in its place. They knew the only way people can be free is when their government is kept small, weak and fragmented. And when it takes orders from the people instead of the other way around.

We hear precious little praise for the principle of limited government in 2012 America. I’m sorry to say that the last president who had a deep understanding of the proper relationship between government and a free people was my father, Ronald Reagan.

He knew the spirit of freedom had to be kept alive by the people. In a 1961, when his earliest political speeches were arguing against the legislation that eventually created Medicare, he warned us that freedom is not in the DNA of Americans, it is in our hearts and minds.

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

On this Independence Day we need to get fired up about freedom and start fighting for it — at home. Every single American who’s outraged by the Obamacare decision should be energized to show up and vote this fall. And the next dozen falls. If we don’t starting fighting for our freedom now, we deserve to lose it.

©2012 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder and chairman of The Reagan Group and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his website at www.reagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Cari Dawson Bartley at cari@cagle.com or call 800-696-7561.