Thomas Sowell: America at the Crossroads

The great Thomas Sowell, one of the best writers and clearest thinkers in America today, thinks that Nov. 2 is a crossroads election for America and that nothing less than freedom itself is at stake. He gives specific examples of what he means. First, on health care:

For all its sweeping and scary provisions, ObamaCare is not nearly as important as the way it was passed. If legislation can become laws passed without either the public or the Congress knowing what is in those laws, then the fundamental principle of a free, self-governing people is completely undermined.

Some members of Congress who voted for ObamaCare, and who are now telling us that they realize this legislation has flaws which they intend to correct, are missing the point.

The very reason for holding hearings on pending legislation, listening to witnesses on all sides of the issue, and having Congressional debates that will be reported and commented on in the media, is so that problems can be explored and alternatives considered before the legislation is voted into law.

Rushing ObamaCare into law too fast for anyone to have read it served no other purpose than to prevent this very process from taking place. The rush to pass this law that would not take effect until after the next two elections simply cut the voters out of the loop-- and that is painfully close to ruling by decree.

Did you catch that? "Ruling by decree" - yes, that is what he said and he is not kidding. A vote for the Democrats in this election is literally a vote against democracy.

A second example is the Obama administration's attack on free speech. There are many examples Sowell could have pointed to such as the administration's attack on Fox News or its attempt to regulate the Internet. But he uses this one:

Other actions and proposals by this administration likewise represent moves in the direction of arbitrary rule, worthy of a banana republic, with only a mocking facade of freedom.

These include threats against people who simply choose to express opinions counter to administration policy, such as a warning to an insurance company that there would be "zero tolerance" for "misinformation" when the insurance company said that ObamaCare would create costs that force up premiums.

Zero tolerance for the right of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution?

A third example is the way the Obama administration has tried to muzzle business opposition to its policies:

Those who are constantly telling us that our economic problems are caused by not enough "regulation" never distinguish between regulation which simply enforces known rules, as contrasted with regulation that gives arbitrary powers to the government to force others to knuckle under to demands that have nothing to do with the ostensible purposes of the regulation.

As more businesses reveal that they are considering no longer buying health insurance for their employees, as a result of higher costs resulting from ObamaCare legislation, the administration has announced that it can grant waivers that reduce these costs.

But the power to grant waivers is the power to withhold waivers-- an arbitrary power that can impose millions of dollars in costs on businesses that the administration doesn't like.

Recent proposals from the Obama administration to force disclosure of the names of people who sponsor election ads would likewise open all who disagree with Obama to retaliation by the government itself, as well as by community activists and others.

Regulation which seeks to hold businesses accountable to general rules that are known in advance and applicable to all are fine. But regulations that are open-ended, impossible to predict and flexible enough to enable bureaucrats to act arbitrarily violate the rule of law.

Read it all here. There is a time and place for hyperbole and exaggeration. If only Sowell were engaging in such things today. The problem is that he is not.