Obama’s remarks resonated because I’ve been bristling recently at conservatives’ dual hijacking: morality and the Constitution as the domain of small-government conservatives.
I’d like them back.
The tea party-infused national conversation revolves around government as tyrant, or at least government as bully. Government, in this view, is the out-of-control institution that instructs citizens what light bulbs they can buy and what food they should eat. As Obama described the debate, “one side’s version of compassion and community may be interpreted by the other side as an oppressive and irresponsible expansion of the state or an unacceptable restriction on individual freedom.”
Except that the positive case for government — indeed, the lasting necessity of government as a moral matter — goes largely unmentioned. Ceding morality to the anti-government forces is a dangerous omission, and it was useful for the president to fill the void on his side of the argument.
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