Ater the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, comedian Chris Rock made headlines.
Emotions were running high, and he spoke in favor of President Obama’s call for more gun control:
I am just here to support the President of the United States. The President of the United States is, you know, our boss. He’s also, you know, the president and the first lady are kinda like the mom and the dad of the country and when your dad says something, you listen.
He went on to say that when you don’t listen to your dad, there are consequences. Rock’s comments — so obviously ignorant — even drew laughs from other speakers standing behind him.
Of course, he’s a comedian, not a political pundit. But what’s not funny is that many people seem to think this way. “If the President said it’s the best thing to do, we’d better go along with it…” or face ridicule and fines. But who knows what is best for a country’s citizens, one man living in the White House or the citizens themselves? A single person dictating how millions of people should live their daily lives sounds less like a father and more like a king.
Fortunately, our president is not the country’s dad. Whatever he might wish, he doesn’t have the power to tell us what to do and punish us if we don’t listen to him.
As Sarah Palin has said, “We had a revolution back in 1776 because we don’t do kings.”
In the United States, the President is a public servant, like all other elected government officials. He is not our boss; we are his boss, and he answers to us. We need more elected officials who understand this. Maybe the election this week gave us a few more, but I’m not overly optimistic that our current set-up can fight back against a bureaucracy ever hungry for more power and control.
Click here to read more from the American Spectator.
If, as Mark says, our current set-up can't fight a power-hungry federal government, what can we do?
The answer lies in the Constitution itself. By calling an Article V Convention of States, the people -- acting through their state legislatures -- can limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government once and for all. Click here to learn more.
