It is plainly evident that President Barack Obama doesn’t respect the Constitution of the United States. He’s content to sidestep Congress in order to illegally appoint people to Cabinet positions, change existing laws on his latest whim, and completely ignore laws with which he doesn’t agree.

Why is he setting so many dangerous precedents? Even if you favor his policies, it should concern all of us that he’s being so brazen in overstepping his Constitutional authority to implement them.

What will it take to make Americans wake up and see that this isn’t about partisanship, but about the fundamental Rule of Law? If such things as drone strikes against U.S. citizens, the Federal Government spying on its citizens phone calls, and the IRS’ targeting of Americans for their beliefs aren’t enough to show how our freedoms are being butchered, then perhaps nothing is.

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Thomas Jefferson’s famous words in the Declaration of Independence are a good benchmark to understand Obama’s beliefs:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Jefferson didn’t mention government in connection to the origin of these rights at all; they were given to us by God. The Government was merely instituted to protect these rights.

However, Obama believes something vastly different from the Founding Fathers on each of the three points: (1) Life, (2) Liberty and (3) the Pursuit of Happiness. With that in mind, let’s look at three specific statements made by either the President or his Press Secretary which demonstrate just how twisted his ideas are about these important concepts:

Life –

On the 2014 anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, Obama issued an official statement praising the decision’s legacy. It ended with these words:

“…because this is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams…”

What about the more than 54 million babies that have been killed since 1973? Did they not deserve to fulfill their dreams? Whose dream is it to kill their own flesh and blood? Abortion advocates like to say abortion is all about a woman’s reproductive choice and health, but they never talk about the unborn child’s choice and health. To have such a callous view toward life and death is not becoming of anyone wielding such power.

Liberty –

Late last year, Obama gave a speech in Kansas where he said:

“…There is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. ‘The market will take care of everything,’ they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes–especially for the wealthy–our economy will grow stronger…

But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked…”

It’s never worked? Really? Obama is flat wrong on this point. The country faced enormous economic downturns on several occasions in its history. Throughout the 19th century, the Federal Government’s response to depressions and bank collapses was to cut spending and mostly stay out-of-the-way of the free market. And those economic problems cleared up quickly when compared to the Great Depression, or to our most recent recession where we still haven’t come close to recovering all of the jobs lost.

What’s the difference between those quick recoveries and the more recent slow ones? The government has started taking extraordinary efforts to control markets and keep things stable. But central planning is always less efficient as regarding freedom and prosperity than is a free market (see: Venezuela). What do we have to show for trillions of dollars of debt and a bloated federal government? Other than a significant loss of liberty, not too much.

The Pursuit of Happiness –

Obama’s Press Secretary Jay Carney recently responded to the Congressional Budget Office’s report that Obamacare will result in at least 2.5 million fewer Americans in the workforce by 2024. In a written statement, Carney said:

“…At the beginning of this year, we noted that as part of this new day in health care, Americans would no longer be trapped in a job just to provide coverage for their families, and would have the opportunity to pursue their dreams…”

Without jobs, people certainly have more free time, but that doesn’t necessarily enable them to pursue their dreams.

After losing my job four years ago, I found myself in a situation where I had to take part-time employment. The more my hours increased, the less money I actually made because of the bizarre way the welfare system works. That didn’t deter me from striving to become a full-time employee again (which I did), but it was easy to see how detrimental it can be. And it most certainly didn’t afford me more time to pursue my dreams, since all of my newly found “spare time” was spent trying to find full-time work.

The fact that the equivalent of 2.5 million people are expected to leave their jobs and not look for new ones means something terrible is happening to our work ethic. Hard workers increasingly look like saps, when staying home and letting the government take care of their needs would be so much easier.

Our government is funded by our taxpayers, so it should be in the interest of government officials to have as many employed citizens as possible.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are everyone’s birthright. No one should have the right to kill innocent victims or take away any group’s liberty, simply because they hold different beliefs than those in power. Nor should they encourage laziness as a way of life.

These things simply ought not to exist in a free nation.

Unless we elect good people who believe in Constitutional restraints on power and are willing to fight for those beliefs, I fear we will not enjoy life, liberty, or happiness much longer.

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***Robert Lockard has been a lover of writing from a young age. He especially enjoys writing about movies, and can be found over at his movie-review website: ‘The Deja Reviewer’.

Robert lives in Utah with his wife and three children. He enjoys running, biking, reading, and watching movies with his family.