When those that want to govern wish to do so extrajudicially.

Many of our issues today seem products of the earlier Obama Administration.  To the point that some critics refer to this as Obama's third term with Biden cast as a puppet under the control of all the old Obama retreads in the current administration.  Maybe.

Regardless of that argument, I do keep recalling some words spoken by Michelle Obama right at the beginning, perhaps during the run up to Obama's election.  She was a clarion call for the central planner and coercive governance.  It was alarming then and is alarming now as we witness an administration more and more willing to curtail civil rights and imprison those with whom they disagree.  Less and less committed to freedom of speech and more antagonistic to equality before the law.

Something I read today made passing reference to Michelle's speech and I finally went out to find it.  From “Barack Will Never Allow You to Go Back to Your Lives as Usual.” by Jim Geraghty.

Last night I appeared on Hugh’s show, and his producer Duane mentioned a Michelle Obama speech at UCLA. Captain Ed talked about this a bit, but I hadn’t seen anyone transcribe the part of the speech where it gets a little… unnerving. It starts at about 8:41 in the audio.

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

I’m sorry, nowhere in the Constitution does it authorize the President of the United States to demand anyone shed their cynicism. And I’m all for people pushing themselves to be better, but I don’t think the President demanding it is the way to go about it.

And what if we kind of like our lives as usual? What about Americans’ freedom to be uninvolved and uninformed?

The links to the original Michelle Obama speech are in the article.