Obama wants to shift the boundaries of democratic debate to exclude much of what American liberty once was and to embrace a redistributionist, social democratic model. There are two problems I have with that.

One is that Obama’s model does not work. Big government is almost never “smart, effective government,” as Obamacare is proving. And fixing big government has almost always meant making it smaller while expanding freedom.

The other problem is that I do not wish to live in a society where individuals feel they exist at government’s pleasure–that we ought to be grateful for “the air we breathe,” as Obama put it.