Michael Moore Speaks

... and removes all doubt.

The Daily Caller posts a video by Mary Katherine Ham in which she takes Michael Moore apart for advocating the seizure of the wealth of the Forbes 400 as a cure for our governments fiscal woes. Ham correctly notes that the sum of that wealth does not even equal this year's federal deficit, and therefore could not be applied to the national debt.

Ham also lambasts Moore for his economic idiocy in assuming that the jobs created by the efforts of the 400 using their wealth will still be there, post seizure.

Of course, Moore's rant was so well thought out that he assumed that the seized assets would be converted to cash. Just how that would happen is a mystery, since, once we seized, say, the Sands Hotel & Casino from Sheldon Adelson, who in their right mind would buy it from us? Wouldn't any potential buyer be quite reasonably concerned that we would eventually do to them what we did to Adelson?

Fortunately, both for Mr. Adelson and the rest of us, Michael Moore is considerably less intelligent than the people who wrote the Constitution. It seems that there's this addendum at the end of the thing. It has twenty seven parts, the first ten of which are thought by a lot of people to be really really important. The fifth part of the addendum says:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Yes, that's right, boys and girls, the Fifth Amendment. In addition to giving us the right to remain silent, it gives us the right to be compensated if the government seizes our property.

The best part of the Bill of Rights, though, is the First Amendment right to free expression, because it enables people like Moore to tell us over and over and over again precisely how foolish they are.