Thomas Sowell: Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny?

Be it a soft tyranny as Mark Levin suggests, or tyranny in the traditional sense, yes, I would say we have been on that road for a long time now. You could say since the begining of the 20th century with a few detours here and there. There can be no question that government's size and grasp has been in steady rise for many decades. And the greater it becomes, the smaller our freedoms, whether that be in the form of regulations and laws, or simply demanding cash from we the people to fund its endless projects.

I am not giving the Obama administration a pass and lumping him in as just another big spending politician. But I do want to be fair stating that nearly all all modern-era administrations have given in to the progressive agenda and grown too much. Obama's team is in fact the pinnacle of abuse of power and exploding government expansion—the sort we have seen since since the Wilson/FDR administrations.

Today Thomas Sowell has a strong piece that is frank with the facts, and no, I don't believe the headline does not go too far.

Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.

And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP's oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated.

But our government is supposed to be "a government of laws and not of men."

If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it.

But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law."

Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.

With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.

If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in constitutional government.

Read the rest at IBD.