Liberty Minute July 22 2013

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina of Michigan?s Ingham County Circuit Court has voided Detroit?s bankruptcy decree, claiming that it violated the state constitution. To buttress that dubious claim, Judge Aquilina, a former aide to a Democratic state senator, offered the remarkable objection that the city?s effort to liquidate its unsustainable debts was an affront to what she considers the majesty of President Obama. According to Aquinlina, by filing for bankruptcy the City of Detroit is ?not honoring the President, who took [Detroit?s auto companies] out of bankruptcy.? In the mental universe this silly little judge inhabits, Mr. Obama is clothed with the sovereign power to change the laws of arithmetic and economics.

Aquilina?s partner in foolishness is MSNBC commentator Melissa Harris-Perry, who claims that Detroit?s woes are a product of inadequate government intervention. In a July 19 panel discussion, Harris-Perry declared: ?This is what it looks like when government is small enough to drown it in your bathtub, and it is not a pretty picture.? In fact, as Detroit?s fatally overfed government withers away, private initiatives are increasingly providing basic services without imposing fees inflated by the need to pay extravagant union pensions and benefits. For civic life to flourish, the redistributionist state must die.

 Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.