Most elections are about particular policies, particular scandals or
particular personalities. But these issues don’t mean as much this
year– not because they are not important, but because this election
is a crossroads election, one that can decide what path this country
will take for many years to come.

Runaway "stimulus" spending, high unemployment and ObamaCare are all
legitimate and important issues. It is just that freedom and survival
are more important.

For all its sweeping and scary provisions, ObamaCare is not nearly as
important as the way it was passed. If legislation can become laws
passed without either the public or the Congress knowing what is in
those laws, then the fundamental principle of a free, self-governing
people is completely undermined.

Some members of Congress who voted for ObamaCare, and who are now
telling us that they realize this legislation has flaws which they
intend to correct, are missing the point.

The very reason for holding hearings on pending legislation, listening
to witnesses on all sides of the issue, and having Congressional
debates that will be reported and commented on in the media, is so
that problems can be explored and alternatives considered before the
legislation is voted into law.

Rushing ObamaCare into law too fast for anyone to have read it served
no other purpose than to prevent this very process from taking place.
The rush to pass this law that would not take effect until after the
next two elections simply cut the voters out of the loop– and that is
painfully close to ruling by decree.

Other actions and proposals by this administration likewise represent
moves in the direction of arbitrary rule, worthy of a banana republic,
with only a mocking facade of freedom.

These include threats against people who simply choose to express
opinions counter to administration policy, such as a warning to an
insurance company that there would be "zero tolerance" for
"misinformation" when the insurance company said that ObamaCare would
create costs that force up premiums.

Zero tolerance for the right of free speech guaranteed by the
Constitution?

This warning comes from an administration with arbitrary powers that
can impose ruinous costs on a given business.

Those who are constantly telling us that our economic problems are
caused by not enough "regulation" never distinguish between regulation
which simply enforces known rules, as contrasted with regulation that
gives arbitrary powers to the government to force others to knuckle
under to demands that have nothing to do with the ostensible purposes
of the regulation.

As more businesses reveal that they are considering no longer buying
health insurance for their employees, as a result of higher costs
resulting from ObamaCare legislation, the administration has announced
that it can grant waivers that reduce these costs.

But the power to grant waivers is the power to withhold waivers– an
arbitrary power that can impose millions of dollars in costs on
businesses that the administration doesn’t like.

Recent proposals from the Obama administration to force disclosure of
the names of people who sponsor election ads would likewise open all
who disagree with Obama to retaliation by the government itself, as
well as by community activists and others.

History tells us where giving government one arbitrary power after
another leads. It is like going into a Venus fly-trap, which is easy
to enter and nearly impossible to get out of.

The headstrong, know-it-all willfulness of this administration, which
threatens our freedom at home, also threatens our survival in the
international jungle, because Obama seems determined to do nothing
that will stop Iran from going nuclear.

The Obama administration goes through all sorts of charades at the
U.N. and signs international agreements on sanctions that have been
watered down to the point where they are not about to bring Iran’s
nuclear weapons program to a halt. The purpose is not to stop Iran but
to stop the American people from realizing what Obama is doing or not
doing.

We have a strange man in the White House. This election is a
crossroads, because either his power will be curbed by depriving him
of his huge Congressional majorities or he will continue on a road
that jeopardizes both our freedom and our survival.

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/10/29/a_crossroads_e…

http://www.tsowell.com