A Government By, Of And For Ed Schultz

posted at 1:53 pm on June 22, 2010 by Mitch Berg

Last week, in his video tongue-kiss to Obama before his (disastrous) “We Have Nothing To Fear But Oil Itself” speech, Fast Eddie Schultz wrote:

“Mr. PresIdent, I want to see the boot on the neck of BP tonight… it’s OK tonight to act kind of like a dictator and call the shots saying this is the way it’s going to be.”

Granted, Schultz is one of very few talk show hosts who actually is as stupid as conservative talk radio is supposed to be.

But according to Thomas Sowell, who daily excretes more intelligence than Ed Schultz ever had, Schultz may be  getting his tingly-legged wish:

Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.

And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In other words, the Republicans who “apologized” to BP – over the perversion of US law, as opposed to over accountability – were right?  Hmm.

Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP’s oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated.

But our government is supposed to be “a government of laws and not of men.”

If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it.

But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without “due process of law.”

Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.

Because the problem is the next victim of government overreach won’t be a big bad capitalist like a BP.

With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.

If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don’t believe in constitutional government.

Of course, like Ed Schultz, too many liberals don’t.

Cross-posted at Shot In The Dark

Blowback