Watch out for the Obama Commune

PARIS -- Freedom is a birthright. It is non-negotiable. It is fragile.

Several times in history, liberty disappeared in this city, sometimes by acquiescence (the Nazi occupation during World War II) and sometimes by mindless devotion gone wild (the Paris Commune). It's a lesson the United States may need to re-learn as politicians of the 21st century seek to subtly barter individual liberty and justice for the warm and numbing embrace of group fairness and security.

Behind the so-called "reasonable" erosion of individual freedom waits a mob with pitchforks, ready to strip the dignity of a person in the name of the people.

Elihu Washburne witnessed it firsthand in Paris more than 100 years ago. As the head of the U.S. diplomatic mission to France from 1869 to 1877, he witnessed the siege of Paris by a mob called the Commune. Followers wore red scarves as they chased the police, courts and the government from the city. Washburne said: "Thus the Paris Commune was now in charge of Paris and, ideally, devoted to politics more representative of the will of the people of Paris."

But it immediately devolved into hate and class warfare in what Washburne called a "culmination of every horror." There was "no law, no protection, no authority except that of an unorganized mob."

The first right to go was public meetings. In David McCullough's 2011 book "The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris," the mob government declared "that the deliberations of all representative bodies would no longer be public, and there would be no further reports of the sessions. Only decrees would be issued."

The mob government "searched houses, made arrests on the orders of the new chief of police, Raoul Rigault, a twenty-something former journalist." Neighbors were encouraged to turn in neighbors suspected of "complicity" with the former French government.

While all other diplomats fled, Washburne remained and became an important American eyewitness to the brutality that followed: executions of those deemed to be "rich," the sacking of museums, the desecration of churches and the jailing and subsequent execution of the bishop of Paris and some 50 of his priests.

It was a warning for how easily France -- America's kindred spirit in liberty -- so easily succumbed to the excesses of lawless tyranny.

And it's a clarion call relevant today as the current stripe of political intellectual elite in America pit what they name the "haves" against the "have nots." The so-called rich must pay more and more, while the middle class pays less and the poor pay nothing. The idea of "fairness" gets turned on its head and, more alarmingly, substitutes for a day's hard work and the sublime liberty to enjoy the fruits of one's own labor.

It comes from no less than America's "Little Napoleon," President Barack Obama. He ramps up his rhetoric as his crowning legislative achievement of nationalized health care comes closer to being struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Not necessarily unconstitutional in concept, but unconstitutional in the way he and our gutless Congress constructed it -- not as a tax, but as a mandate.

Probably working off of an inside tip that the court leans against him on a 5-4 vote, last week he fired Paris Commune-style criticism at the court.

"Unelected!" cried he.

"No right!" he whispered.

As a constitutional scholar, the president knows the court exists to review laws for constitutionality. Yet the president utters statements like that? Unconscionable.

While prevailing wisdom says there is a better than even chance ObamaCare will not pass constitutional muster, no one knows for sure until the court rules. And when the court rules, it will be a lawful decision for this time and this place.

Unless we want to go the way of the Obama Commune. In which case, count me out.

Sherman Frederick, former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and a member of the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame, writes a column for Stephens Media. Read his blog at www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm.