Necessity is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves.

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February 19, 2012
Obamacare is liberty’s enemy
By NOLAN FINLEY
Obamacare is the third major assault on civil liberties in the past half-century, and may be the one that erases the space carved out by the Constitution where an individual can stand beyond the reach of an intrusive government.

The well-meaning efforts of both parties and all persuasions, acting in the name of the public good, have done more damage to the American promise than those of evil intent ever could.

In reaching for a drug free society, we've made hash of due process and search and seizure protections. The government can confiscate our property on the mere suspicion of a crime.

The war on terror made privacy such an obsolete expectation that there's no point drawing our window curtains. The government is on the verge of deploying drone spycraft in domestic airspace to constantly surveil its citizens.

And here comes Obamacare, which will make criminals out of anyone who refuses to buy health insurance.

Even before the Supreme Court could decide the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the Obama administration tested its ability to expand federal power by ordering church-run institutions to include coverage of contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs in their employee health insurance policies.

Religious leaders decried the mandate as a violation of their freedom of conscience, and a president worried about losing Catholic votes backed down. But the compromise he crafted is even more offensive to those who still believe government should be subservient to the governed, and not the other way around.

Obama arbitrarily commanded insurance companies to provide without charge the contraceptive benefit to employees of religious agencies.

Asked from where the president derives the authority to compel private businesses to give away their products for free, the administration said, "From the health care law."

If that's true, Obamacare is a most powerful weapon of subjugation. A government that can force individuals to buy a service and coerce businesses to give away their goods is a government that can compel its citizens to do anything.

The freedoms stripped by the drug war were supposed to give us a sober society. The liberties lost to the terror war were billed as an exchange for the right to live serenely.

The latest hijacking is cast as being about access to contraceptives, as if the $9 a month Walmart charges for birth control pills is too high a barrier for employees of religious organization.

As usual, power grabbers fall back on the defense that a majority of the public favors the outcome sought by the government. But the Bill of Rights was not designed to be reshaped by opinion polls. It exists precisely to shield the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

None of the benefits promised by the sacrifice of liberty are worth a tinker's damn if they come at the expense of the inalienable rights that Americans are born with.

nfinley@detnews.com

(313) 222-2064

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Read his recent columns and blog at detnews.com/finley and watch him at 7:30 p.m. Fridays on “Am I Right?” on Detroit Public TV, Channel 56

Iam going to have to Wate till I get home to read all of this eye phone to small , read first part very interesting to say the least

I can't lie to you Bpaul he is