Government Without Limits

You don't have to fantasize about what it would be like. You can see it in action all over the world today, including and especially in one of the world's biggest economic powers.

Chen Guangcheng case puts pressure on Chinese activists

 "I think that after the Chen Guangcheng incident, the situation for us will just become worse and worse, because in today's society government power has no limits," said Liu Yi, an artist and supporter of Chen.

"Government power has no limits." If only there was a country that had a constitution the put strict, defined limits on government power, to protect its people. If only we could compare life there with life under governments with unlimited power.

I wonder what Chen Guangcheng and Lui Yi would think of Tom Friedman's wish to have the U.S. have China's form government for a day. The totalitarian urge is alive and well in the U.S. Thanks Tom, and all your fellow travelers.

I'm being sarcastic, but this is not idle snark or exercise. In the case of Obamacare's individual mandate, now before the Supreme Court, one thing that struck both justices and observer's was the administration's lawyer's inability to articulate a limiting principle for government authority. Basically, once the government can force you to buy products, there's very little it can't force you to do, no area of human existence, from cradle to grave, that doesn't fall within government's sphere.

The modern leftist interpretation of the Constitution is of a government with expansive powers over people with a limited number of protected rights.

Contrast that to the founder's vision, of a government with limited, defined powers and citizens with a vast, expansive assumption of rights and retained powers (See the Federalist Papers and the Constitution itself, Article I, section 8, and the ninth and tenth amendments).

The farther we drift from that original foundation, the more like China we become. And that isn't a good thing, in case you weren't paying attention.

UPDATE: I just read an article where a Harvard biology professor recommends government-mandated exercise. Harvard is a trend-setter in legal and social thought. So, the fact that statements like this are originating there is very troubling. It means senior faculty there have abandoned any respect for limited government:

Lieberman, who chairs the Human Evolutionary Biology Department, said the cascading effects on human health and medical costs are so catastrophic that government should require exercise just as it mandates vaccinations and other public health measures.

Men and women live longer now than ever before. We are larger and live healthier later in life than ever, but still any perceived defect in our health regimens is treated as "catastrophic." Never let a crisis go to waste, right?