Lest this be unclear, the drafters of the Constitution put it in writing.  The Ninth Amendment says, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

And the Tenth Amendment goes further, stating explicitly that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.”

Obama is engaging in dangerous demagoguery when he suggests that we the people of the United States need him – or the government he wants in place – to give us rights we don’t already have.

This deceitful view was echoed when he was introduced by Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur in Ohio earlier this week, who said that Americans “needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education, and a fair playing field for business and farmers.” This is no “bill of rights,” it is a bill of attainder (look it up).  Those found “guilty” would be anyone wealthier, more successful, or more prosperous than any other.  And the punishment?  The very things Obama and the Democrats are already pushing for: high taxes, and even seizure and redistribution of all American’s private property.

I am stunned beyond belief that these blunt admissions do not give otherwise patriotic Obama supporters (and this describes the vast majority of them) serious pause.  But those voting for him seem to fall into two groups.  The first group says, “Oh well, Bush has trashed the Constitution, too.”  Even assuming that this were true, it is hardly a ringing endorsement for your candidate.  Worse, it displays a surprising ignorance that the procedural protections Obama is determined to dismantle won’t be there to protect you against the next right-wing fascist you guys are always running in terror from.  What – you think Obama will give those rights back right before (if) he leaves office?

The second group consists of disgruntled so-called “conservatives” like Kathleen Parker, Colin Powell, Peggy Noonan, and Christopher Buckley, who hear what Obama is saying, but choose not to believe him.  I’m not sure what to say to these people, except that their refusal to learn from history suggests that there may be something to those claims that there’s no such thing as evolution.

Those who drafted the Constitution knew that persuasive orators who promised beneficence in exchange for liberty would come along.  This is why George Washington admonished that “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master.”  And it is why Thomas Jefferson said, "In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

Every President, upon taking office, takes an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."   A President should be willing to die to defend our Constitution.  Obama is dying to destroy it.