North Star Writers Group

President Bush's State of the Union address had a very Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde feel to it for me. The half that dealt with the war on terror was beautiful, poignant and right on the money. The half that dealt with domestic issues, however, would have our founders wondering what on Earth happened to the Constitution that ostensibly limited government. To wit:

"Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are commitments of conscience – and so it is our duty to keep them permanently sound."

Can someone please show me where in the Constitution federal pension and health care entitlement programs are authorized? I see nothing of the sort in my copy. The government’s duty is to uphold the Constitution as written – and abolish programs that exceed government's true authority, leaving to individuals the responsibilities that are rightfully theirs alone.

"Spreading opportunity and hope in America also requires public schools that give children the knowledge and character they need in life."

Silly me, I thought parents were required to give children the knowledge and character they need in life! Little did I know that was a government bureaucrat's job. How Abraham Lincoln managed to get educated in that log cabin, I guess we'll never know. According to today's socialist thinking, he didn't. And, for the record, the word "education" appears exactly nowhere in the Constitution. This tends to suggest that our founders meant the federal government's real responsibility toward it to be butting out entirely.

"When it comes to health care, government has an obligation to care for the elderly, the disabled and poor children."

James Madison would beg to differ: "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." But what did Madison know? The Father of the Constitution only wrote the majority of the document! I guess he didn't know what he really meant when he took quill pen to parchment, but we somehow do. And he apparently meant the exact opposite of what he wrote.

"We should establish a legal and orderly path for foreign workers to enter our country to work on a temporary basis. As a result, they won’t have to try to sneak in – and that will leave border agents free to chase down drug smugglers and criminals and terrorists."

Last time I checked, a big old wall would stop them all - workers and criminals alike. And leave border agents even freer to perform other tasks. Not to mention that it's constitutionally required. To quote Article IV, Section 4: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion..." This may be rather informal, in that there are no uniforms or flag-bearers or organized military, but when that many people illegally enter a country, it qualifies as an invasion. And the federal government is openly betraying its constitutional duty to repel it.

This isn't to say that some form of temporary worker program isn't a good and necessary idea, but so long as the border is completely unprotected, both it and criminal enforcement efforts will be completely undermined. The only way one can reasonably expect to be successful (and to keep terrorists out, which is the most vital aspect of all) is to first truly secure the border. Would you try to fix a leaky bucket while leaving it hanging under a wide-open spigot?

"For too long our Nation has been dependent on foreign oil. [...] Let us build on the work we have done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years. [...] At the same time, we need to reform and modernize fuel economy standards for cars the way we did for light trucks – and conserve up to eight and a half billion more gallons of gasoline by 2017. [...]These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment – and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change."

I could write a whole column on just these canards alone. First of all, you can't conserve your way out of a shortage. But rather than drilling for the oil we already have (which is only artificially off-limits due to radical environmentalist regulations not letting anyone drill for and refine it) and going to nuclear power instead of coal/natural gas for electricity (every nuclear power plant is a Chernobyl-in-waiting to the greenies), Bush combines the worst of Jimmy Carter and Al Gore. He applies Carter's "put on a sweater and lump it" approach on home heating to gasoline, and helps perpetuate Gore's Oscar-nominated con artistry (in the same week the California citrus crop froze and Tucson got snowed on). The only reason we're using oil and natural gas from abroad in the first place is bad government policy here. The solution is to repeal those policies, not to pass ones that are even worse on top of them.

Even though I completely support President Bush in the war on terror, I am forced to wonder just what sort of America we're trying to keep the terrorists from destroying. I wonder what the point is in the effort if we're just going to wreck the place anyway with unconstitutional, Marxist-inspired ideas and policies. Do we really want to keep someone from murdering us only to turn around and commit suicide?

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This is Column # DKK45. Request permission to publish here.