In "Faith-Based Government," the Augusta Chronicle editorializes that there is

No doubt . . . the federal government will do for our health care what it is doing for the oily birds of the Gulf. And [Obama] continues to believe government spending is the magic bullet to jump-starting the economy. His "spread the wealth around" comment during the 2008 campaign was shorthand for, "I believe government can make life fair." His advocacy of health care reform that a vast majority of the American people oppose is a clear statement he believes government knows our wants and needs better than we do.

His core mistake is his abject belief in the nobility, efficacy and morality of a strong, attentive federal government.

The human being, of course, enjoys a calling to reject cults -- whether religious or political. The free-thinking and freedom-affirming biblical emphasis, for example, is that of embracing a way of life based on verifiable and rationally accessible truth about God, man, and the cosmos. And it brilliantly reveals the limitations and weakness of human government.

This spirit is what undergirds and energizes the Founders' vision of a polity that recognizes unalienable rights and responsibilities from a real Creator who acts into real human history, such that questions can be asked of God and, of course, of human beings created in his image and who wish to enter public service. And who may, for example, by hook or crook, find themselves in the White House.

The cult of "hope" and "change" that Obama asks us to join, and involuntarily fund with an oppressive tax burden that disempowers individuals and families, is one that requires intellectual and political suicide, for it goes against not just the content and norms of the Declaration and U.S. Constitution, but also against the data of history. Just look at the ravages of consistently applied principles of national socialism, communism, and secular liberalism.

Why any free-thinking person would want to join this cult, or allow his life and that of his family to be swept away (along with pristine beaches, quality healthcare, a sound economy, and all the rest) by its political hatreds and enthusiasms and idolatries, is a mystery to me. Cheap faith betrays the human spirit.