“The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It has only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican. But their virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more fiction; they have been the dupes of artful maneuvres, and made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves. But time and truth have dissipated the delusion, and opened their eyes.”
-Thomas Jefferson, In a letter to Thomas Lomax, March 1799
The United States of America is undoubtedly the greatest country in the history of the world. However, it seems that many of us have abandoned the conservative principles upon which the foundations of this great country were laid.
In the midst of a depression, we have endeavored to preserve economic prosperity for our country and ourselves. Yet in doing so we have made great sacrifices to liberty. Have we forgotten that a republic cannot survive if the people do not have liberty? Have we forgotten that without liberty there is despotism, and under despotism there is no prosperity? We have asked for benefits that we did not earn, nor have the means to fund. We must earn our prosperity. We are not entitled to it. We must remember that in exchange for these benefits our government acquires greater authority over us. Our future generations will suffer the consequences of these irresponsible actions. They will toil under the tyranny of an excessively powerful federal government in an endless effort to pay off our debts. They will scorn us for our fiscally irresponsible decisions. They will despise us for our un-American actions.
The principles of our founding fathers’ are being dismissed by a disproportionately left-wing media, an ever-growing mass of misinformed citizens, and by the administrations that they are placing in power. We must not let an unrestrained government implement socialist policies under the guise of “leveling the playing field” and “social justice”. In truth these policies are nothing more than an instrument used to further the power of the federal government and render the population managable. We can no longer sit idly by, waiting for the issues at hand to work out naturally. Americans have too often taken their liberties for granted. Liberty is woven into the very fabric of our lives, so much so that it is hard for us to imagine that it could be lost. Make no mistake, our freedom can be lost. And if we do not speak up, it will be. We must wake up! We must speak out!
“What can I do about all of this, I am just one person?” That is the question that burns in the hearts and minds of so many Americans today. Many of us feel helpless against such a powerful government. We feel as if we are powerless to influence the direction of the country. How could we feel any different? We have been taught to be submissive. However, if we would take the time to study the Charters of Freedom, we would know what our founding fathers knew:
“….governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ” – The Declaration Of Independence
The government derives its power from our consent. They do not govern with unbounded control.
One of the most important things that any citizen can do is to arm himself with knowledge. Study the history of our country, and of our founding fathers. Study the history of the world, and be able to correlate between the failures and successes of past civilizations and present day America. Know what our founding fathers intended for this country. We should also be in constant contact with our representatives and senators. Do not be scared to voice your opposition to any policies that you do not agree with. It is your right to speak out against the government. Indeed, it is much more than your right, it is your duty. It is the duty of every American generation to protect their inalienable rights, and preserve the republic. If we do not stand up against tyranny, we will deservedly lose freedom.
“Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.” -Aristotle
Cross Posted From: LibertyandPride.com
Mark Twain, in “Osteopathy,” 1901
Conservatives… the Party of NO! How many times have you been confronted in debate by that argument when you voice your opposition to the reforms that are being foisted upon us by this congress.
Frederik Bastiat – The Law – 1850
May I offer this bit of comment and wisdom?
Not Yours To Give
“The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution … It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people.
Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.”
Col David Crockett, US Rep Tenn, on Congress’ spending habits.
I feel that the corruption in this government is so deep rooted that normal means to remove will not work anymore. Our founding fathers even thought of this when drafting our Constitution. They knew that politicians given the power, they would eventually abuse it and become tyrannical. So the Second Amendent was added to solve this problem, isn’t this how they got rid of an abusive regime? We cannot continue to allow these corrupt people to govern us.
@Don
It seems that everything old is new again…Can history be so circular? When we see that it is, it is a “marker” that tells us that we are on the wrong path, and that we need to break out the map. The left has always tried to ignore/discount/hide the map, so they condemn us to repeating what they swept under the rugs.
Thus, we who hold the map, are also tasked with beating the rugs.
@Donald Bly
The best answer to the party of No label is to say that sometimes “no” is good. No skateboarding in the street. No beans up your nose. No restrictions on your liberties. No debt.
@Patvann
Everyone knows history repeats itself. 🙂 I think it is because of our lifespan and generational memory. By the time we’re old enough to notice how things are repeating, we’re too old to be influential. 🙁 For a lot of fun, read through old newspapers, at least 50 years old. Older than half a lifetime. You will laugh and cry at the hopes that were dashed or twisted, and all the evidence of changes that now seem so obvious to us (like the rise of the Nazis–start in 1929) but were blown off then.
I cannot address your topic directly, but the following has great relevance to the question posed. It is a powerful commentary.
http://www.galganov.com/editorials.asp?ID=1147
@Pat… I don’t know about those “NO” scenerios. Skateboarding in the street is good if one wants to weed out the mental deficits in the gene pool… they even give out awards – Darwin Awards. No beans in your nose is okay too… if you’re three and it’s mom and dad not uncle Sam announcing such an edict. The no restrictions on liberty and no debt; I’m on board.
Regarding how we can fix our big federal government mess, people need to be made aware of the anti-state sovereignty 16th and 17th Amendments, IMO.
More specifically, as evidenced by Article I, Section 3, Clause 1, the Founders had established the federal Senate to be the voice of the constitutionally powerful state legislatures in the Constitutionally humbled federal government. And the constitutionally powerful states are important where federal taxes versus state taxes are concerned. This is evidenced by the following case precedent established by Chief Justice Marshall, but now wrongly ignored by both federal and state lawmakers. Justice Marshall wrote that the federal government cannot lay taxes in the name of state power issues.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” –Chief Justice Marshall, GIBBONS V. OGDEN, 1824. http://supreme.justia.com/us/22/1/case.html
With this in mind, consider that not only is Obamacare, for example, constitutionally unauthorized as evidenced by the federal Constitution’s silence on public healthcare, but Justice Marshall’s official words appropriately indicate that neither does Congress have the power to lay taxes to fund Obamacare.
So ideally, when constitutionally clueless FDR cried for Congress to make constitutionally unauthorized tax and spending legislation in the 1930s and 40s, legislation which not only usurped state powers but also stole hard-earned citizen dollars that should never have left the states, federal senators should have stood up and stopped Congress from giving FDR what he wanted.
So why didn’t federal senators stop Congress from approving legislation which usurped state powers and stole associated taxes? After all, as previously mentioned, the Founders had established the federal Senate to protect state interests.
To begin with, mostly rural US citizens seem to have forgotten about state sovereignty before 1913. This was the year that state legislatures unthinkingly ratified the ill-conceived, anti-state sovereignty 16th and 17th Amendments.
And I surmise that the reason that state legislatures ratified these amendments is this. Not only had the people evidently forgotten about state sovereignty since the Civil War, but the lawmakers that they were electing to their state legislatures must have been as state sovereignty-impaired as the voters were.
As a side note to the possibility of widespread ignorance of state sovereignty after the Civil War, consider this. The Pledge of Allegiance, written in 1892 by a Christian Socialist, is arguably pro-big federal government propaganda. This is evidenced by the words, “one Nation,” and “indivisible” in the Pledge. Indeed, given such wording, the Pledge has been arguably diluting the idea of state sovereignty in the minds of school children for many generations.
Getting back to the insane 16th and 17th Amendments, not only must voters have filled state legislatures with constitutionally inept lawmakers by 1913, but voters did an “encore performance” by using their new 17th A. power to likewise fill federal Senate seats with lawmakers who were evidently as constitutionally-impaired as the clowns that they had been sending to the state legislatures.
So by the time that FDR demanded his social spending programs from Congress, instead of getting the resounding “hell no” that he deserved from a state sovereignty-saavy Senate, a Senate that understood that its job was to protect state sovereignty, constitutionally inept federal senators unthinkingly did the following. Senators told FDR, “Anything you want FDR,” just as state legislators had unthinkingly ratified the 16th and 17th Amendments decades earlier.
And since FDR was in office long enough to nominate eight pro-big federal government justices by the early 40s, all constitutional firewalls to protect state sovereignty from a corrupt, power-hungry federal government had ultimately failed.
Again, the consequence of the 16th and 17th Amendments is that state lawmakers stupidly made it difficult for themselves to fight constitutionally unauthorized federal laws and taxes legislated by a corrupt Congress that the state legislatures no longer had a voice in.
Are we having fun yet?
What a mess! :^(
The bottom line is that Constitution-defending patriots have a big mess to clean up in both the federal and state legislatues in this year’s midterm elections.
B. Johnson, much to my dismay, you are correct on all points.
Well said and well stated. The Tenth Amendment Movement is rightfully gathering momentum but is no match for influence and arrogance of the Huge Government Status Quo just yet. We have raised up three generations of “Entitlement” minded Americans that are lacking in both personal values, integrity and personal responsibility as “core beliefs” They are looking for what the Country can do for them as opposed to what they can do for themselves without the .Gov involvement and Federally Funded Programs. They are complacent and appear to be lacking in the understanding of the Founding Father’s intent.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/881-tenth-amendment-movement-taking-on-the-feds
We are lacking in thinkers along the lines of Jefferson, Sam Adams, Franklin, Madison and others that drew up the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. They have no concept of the limits of Congressional or Executive Branch Powers or Authority or those reserved to the individual States as Sovereign.
“James Madison, known as “the Father of the Constitution,” said in The Federalist, No. 45: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce…. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”
Before big Federal Government destroys the Nation we must get back to basics regardless of the pain of weaning that must occur in the process. It must originate in State and Local governments to gather the necessary strength and momentum with Congressional Districts, State Houses and State Legislatures to catch fire and be heard in DC. Congress ignored the Tea Party Movement and Citizens in Town Hall Meetings and have little sense of responsibility to the folks at home at this point. It is in the end all about the Consent of the Governed being honored and respected by the Parliament of Whores in DC.
Hi, Folks:
This is what I just sent to my nephew Scott, an Iraqi veteran with the U.S. Marines – Semper Fi! He’s now reading that pernicious Marxist “historian” Zinn, arguing that he should consider “both sides.” This is one of the things we are going to have to fix, reversing Gramschi’s formula for taking over the cultural nodes of our nation, to include classrooms, to foster socialism. Here is what I wrote to him on Facebook in response:
Dear Scott:
You should first learn to note the differences between positive and negative law. You might be amused to note that Adolf Hitler once said of Karl Marx, and I am paraphrasing here, that he agreed with all of Marx’s “Communist Manefesto” written (Hitler read it) economic proposals except for the fact that its author was Jewish. The acronym NAZI, translated from German, afterall, means National Socialist Party. Indeed, Mussolini himself, whose father was a communist, established Italian Fascism in the 1920’s, which in more polite poly-sci 101 terms, is known as corporatism or mercantilism, e.g big corporations, big labor and big government work together, as a synthesis, so-to-speak, to run the state for their private and collective advantages.
A real world application of this process is the present health care bill being “negotiated” in D.C., whose House vote is tomorrow; most people don’t know that the insurance industry worked with the Obama Administration to write the legislation (as did the pharmaceutical industry). Even the WalMart Corporation is lobbying for its passage because, if enacted, it allows them to take all of their workers and turn them into contractors, dumping them off of their compensation payrolls.
In fact, if the House gets its 216 votes to ratify the Senate’s 2009 X-mas Eve version of the bill tomorrow, Sunday March 22, then watch the insurance stocks rally on Wall Street Monday morning when the markets open on the Eastern seaboard. Why? Because the legislation forces all Americans to buy mandated insurance. A family of four, for example, with a two wage earning married couple, making combined salary of about $76,000/year, would have to pay out of pocket about $12,500 for insurance – nearly a quarter of their entire salary! The other key lobbyist for the health care bill, of course, is Andy Stern’s SEIU, a public sector union. The is a classic example, if there ever was one, of fascist corporatism-fascist economic policies, which have their statist big business and big labor finger prints all over it.
When people wear Che t-shirts, I smile, often wanting to ask them, “Hey, is that a picture of Che or Hitler? I mean, afterall, what’s the difference?” Most people think that the NAZIs were a ‘right wing’ political party. Au contraire: Hitler was a man of the left, which why both he and Stalin could work so closely together, to include the invasion of Poland in 1939, which started WWII.
I don’t even bother with the “both views” arguments of statists, as you put it. It’s sort of like saying, “Well, I want to consider some of the arguments of Lucifer” and displays a level of economic ignorance I find intolerable. There is, as they say, no free lunch. Statist policies, meanwhile, world wide bring about poverty, economic dislocation, suffering and the loss of economic freedom, all in the name of some nebulous, abstract ideal of “equality,” which really means economic leveling in which all in society are poor, and typical economic transactions are politicized, in which, for example, you now have to know someone who knows someone who works at the paper factory to jump the line to get some toilet paper. Or, more precisely, in countries with socialized medicine, unelected bureaucratic boards determine who gets what health care and who does not, monetizing, nationalizing and politicizing into a positive law right what should be an individual, free choice economic arrangement freed from the statist, monopolist coercion of the state. Worse, statism ultimately brings about a two-tier society in which the political elites exempt themselves from the very oppressive policies that they inflict upon everyone else, especially the middle class, the bulwark against the state if there ever was one, which is also why guys like Zinn and Marx hate the middle class, because the middle class acts as a brake on their ignorant, economically retarded utopian fantasies that we can all have a free lunch and not have to pay the waiter for the eventual tab. In fact, if communism were nirvana, then the Soviet Union would have never collapsed (this last clause is what we call in Latin, a past-contrary-to-fact conditional sentence with a pluperfect subjunctive in the protasis and apodosis).
That is why if Obamacare passes tomorrow, its Constitutionality is going to be immediately challenged in the Supreme Court. Imagine! Forcing 304 million Americans to purchase health insurance whether they want it or not. What’s next? Forcing all Americans to buy a Prius? Or – Heaven forbid! – a GM car because the Federal government is now a major share holder! Do you think the sudden attacks on Toyota’s alleged “safety issues” are an accident? Or is it that GM union workers hate the non-unionized Toyota plants in states like Tennessee and are using their influence with the present Federal Government to attack one of their market competitors by using the monopolistic power of the state’s use of coercive and regulatory force?
Socialists, NAZIs, Marxist, Maoists, European political parties, the Democrat party and Communists are all statists who seek to enslave populations under the economic tyranny of the state and are collectivists; it’s not an accident, either, that the Democrat party was a party of slavery in the 18th and 19th century, founded the Klux Klux Klan, and even introduced the first gun control laws in the South, post bellum, after Reconstruction, to suppress African Americans in their own communities so that they couldn’t challenge the reigning white supremacy. It’s also why the First Amendment (a negative law…”Congress shall not…”) is quickly followed by the Second Amendment, which was established by the Founders to destroy statist, tyrannical government, or as Jefferson would put it, “the Tree of Liberty” should on occasion be “nourished with the blood” of tyrants.
I would suggest that before you read Zinny the ninny, you might want for first read the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers, and then read Friedrich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” in order to arm yourself, both intellectually and psychologically, from Zinn’s destructive and puerile propaganda.
Uncle Tim
@Donald Bly,
here’s a true healthcare sob story of about 25 years ago:
A 15 y.o. boy, his single mother’s only chick and cherub, wheedled his mother into buying him a skateboard. Half an hour later, he’s in the ER with a really bad fractured elbow requiring surgical resetting and pinning, and his mother has no insurance. She did have her life savings which was used up in one trip to the hospital, about $5000 at the time. She was not on welfare, she didn’t get any aid, she managed but it really hurt her little family.
Now I would not condemn a 15 yo for being stupid, because most of them are, and I would never suggest someone’s only child should die because their mother was trying to be kind to them even if she wasn’t thinking either. The mother should have said no, or at least no skateboarding without pads. I think they were both stunned and remorseful about it, but who knows how long it lasted.
IMO the hospital was the villain of this piece because, as hospitals usually do, they charged the full amount to the uninsured person because she didn’t have an insurance company to beat them down to half price, as they will. There’s plenty of differential treatment like this going around to give all the mud in the world to people who want to criticize the health care PAYMENT system as unjust, which is what led to people now being duped into thinking a different insurance plan is the answer. It isn’t just “party of NO” that needs some quick retorts, and helpful and humane ones too.
For 60 years, actual Americans–those who believe in the greatness of the nation, the Constitution and their rights and liberties as people and citizens–have watched their rights disappear, while the bizarre, grotesque and WRONG are portrayed as proper and correct. They have had their tax dollars stolen and given to those who do not work, who cannot read or write and who commit the vast majority of the nations crimes. The DC left has rewarded sloth, ignorance and stupidity, making it PROFITABLE for such sub-classes to breed as rapidly as possible. In short, inferior stock is encouraged to reproduce while the superior are forced to care for and raise them. No society can withstand this.
@Pat
I don’t have to go back 25 years to relate to such a story as I sit here with seven pins and two plates in my ankle along with my leg broken just below the knee. And all I did was take a last step off of a flight of stairs. Gives me plenty of time to research and play online poker. I was fortunate to have have insurance, but even with the insurance my co-pays will come close to $4,500 by the time all the surgeries are completed. The total bill to date would exceed $27,0000 but the insurance company would only pay $12,000 so that’s all they charged.
Unfortunately several years ago, my wife was working for the US Government building Flash Animation training aids for the US Navy, she was a contractor and as such no medical benefits were provided. She required a colon resection, the total cost was $30,000 plus and there was no write down of the cost. Two weeks after her surgery, she went back to work and they laid her off a week later. She received $500 per week in unemployment compensation and the hospital deemed her income (unemployment) to be too high for her to qualify for any type of write-down.
I find it appalling that the medical profession is allowed to “discriminate” utilizing a two tier pricing system where those that don’t have the luxury of “group” negotiated discounts are forced to subsidize the group represented patients. If an appendectomy cost x amount it should cost x amount for everyone. If people want reform… this is a good place to start.
My wife and I aren’t deadbeats or I guess the easy thing to do would have been to file bankruptcy and just foist the problem on others. Instead, I’ve made arrangements with the hospital to pay them each and every month, automated bank draft, until the amount is paid in full, some 10 years from now.
My wife has felt bad about getting sick and burdening the family with such an expense, but would the alternative have been better? To not seek care and die? I think not. Even though we did not have the means to pay at the time our system of care did work for us, it isn’t perfect but my wife is alive and well. I tell her not to worry…. a cadillac costs more than her medical bills and the ride isn’t nearly as good.
The current fiasco the Whores of Congress are foisting upon the American public isn’t real reform, it is control.
True reform would be a shifting of the responsibility for getting and paying health care to the individual that recieves it in a manner in which the individual can cope. Granted sometimes the amount is huge but it doesn’t need to be. We were ignorant of the low cost of catastrophic health insurance plans. In my State, $150 a month but with a large deductible. $5,000 per year with 100% coverage after the deductible.
I’ve advocated for a government guaranteed credit line… $5,000 per individual, that would be available ONLY for medical care, not premiums, that could be paid back at a rate of about $17 per $1,000 financed with a top interest rate of 1% per month on the unpaid balance. This would have several benefits. It would reduce the burden on primary care physicians by reducing the overuse of medical services for common things like runny noses and minor ailments that really need no doctor visit. Because the individual would be paying out of their own funds they might think twice about abusing/over-using the system.
Unfortunately there is no one willing to lobby for such a reform. I’ve sent the idea to several congressmen but not a peep from them. Perhaps this idea needs to be presented to MasterCard as they would reap the benefit of administering such a program, and it would be backed by government loan guarantees…. which seem to good enough for bankers, making mortgages to low income people that can’t afford the homes they are buying in the first place.
Now that I think about it… wouldn’t a $12,000 discount on a medical bill because you have employer paid medical insurance constitute “income” if I, without that employer benefit, have to pay the full amount?
Um, Guys?? There is something they do NOT advertise or tell you about, that in the cases mentioned above you can do. You go in, and you do not have the coverage you need, you ask the financial desk person for “Hardship Papers”…. you fill them out and return them. They will ask about your income etc… and after, you’ll get notified your payments have been “Adjusted to” XXXX amount…. and you can pay that off in payments. I know, we actually used it when I was between jobs and my wife needed her pacemaker replaced, really saved out butts!! Surgeon took payments as well, and yes, we payed up. So, there ARE ways.. but no, they sure don’t TELL you about them!! I’m guessing afraid of the “mad rush” they’d get if everyone knew!! Know someone in need NOW?? Tell them to do as I said and see for yourself.
Hankster…. we filled out “hardship papers”…. No reduction in cost…. unemployment of $500 a week put us over the income limit. I don’t mind paying the hospital the $30,000 for services we received, even if it takes a while. What I object to is the two tiered pricing system.
We’re in Seattle… things are a bit expensive here.
What state are YOU in??? Unemployment here (Missouri) runs $249 a week!! Ouch!! Sorry you didn’t qualify…. this is the NEXT area where we need “reform”….. I feel the working guy who hits a “snag” gets first crack at available Government help….. those who never worked or put in, and aren’t “disabled”.. wait and get what’s left…..if anything.
Hankster… what did you think of my proposal for a credit line?
went back and read that again…. you know you might have something there!! At least it makes payments all around feasible and doable! The way they are willing to finance everything else, why not THIS! What about the added possibility of tying it to a persons tax refund…. if you owed say $1000, in health payments, and had a grand in refund coming…. you’d wipe the slate clean in that case. Just a thought, but yeah, I like your idea! Why the heck not??? People should not expect a freebie, but should not be “wiped out” either…. this fixes both ends!
@Politics
If you actually believe the swill you just posted, I’ve got some prime swamp land that you can purchase cheap. It’s just south of Utopiaville in the land of Delusion. To get there, you fall through the looking glass, pull back the curtain, then click your heels three times while repeating, “We’re not in America anymore Toto, We’re not in America anymore Toto…”
I’d like some of the drugs he’s on….. must be GOOD stuff!!! LOL!!!
The answer to “What to do about America” should be as plain as the nose on our faces. We need to exercise the real “nuclear option”. No, don’t shoot, not yet. Two thirds of the states may demand a Constitutional Convention! It’s way overdue. Many worry that we can’t control what comes out of such a convention, once it is set in motion — the same concern would have applied to the orginal convention. Anything that comes out of the convention must be ratified by three quarters of the states, so I’m not overly concerned about radical elements hijacking the convention and imposing their will on the rest of the populace. A Constitutional Convention could smack down the federal leviathan, restoring the proper balance between the central government in Washington and the states, and the people. No other means will accomplish anything more than a temporary reprieve from the tyranny of the federal government.
@Tim.
Man yer good.
People, I would request you’all go back and read it again. Aloud this time. Thar it iz.
@Tim
That letter is good. Hopefully the kid shows some sense and takes your advice on reading material. As for considering both sides of an issue, that is a common cop-out by the independents who don’t want to stick their neck out too far either direction for fear of getting it chopped off. I learned much from my father, and none of it was political, yet, it all applies to politics, and when those values are applied to political issues, I know then what I believe is right and have no need to consider the “other side”. Now, some lefties will say they do the same thing with their values, however, my guess is that their values were learned in a classroom in some higher education institution by a teacher or instructor who’s values run more along statism than anything else (and my apologies Tim, for I know your job and I do not mean to lump all in together in that).
I did not finish higher education, and enlisted in the Navy at age 19. I took an oath on the day of enlistment and as my education was barely beyond high school, I did not understand it completely at the time. The military helped with the UCMJ part, and reading, rereading and studying the text of the Constitution helped me with the rest. Here is the text of the oath:
Our congressional representation and the President take a similar oath about the Constitution. I am not a formally educated Constitutional scholar like some of our current crop of oath takers in DC, but I would put my knowledge and belief in it up there with any and all of them. Much has been said on here by certain individuals over the course of the past couple of weeks about “precedent” in regards to the Constitution and how it applies or should apply in the particular case of Obamacare. I believe that relying on “precedent” like many of the congress critters are in following the disastrous footsteps of the president and congressional leadership is not only wrong, but is in direct violation of the oath taken. I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic . The Constitution is a fairly simple document to understand, indeed, I would put much of the required reading by our high schools at a higher level of reading and comprehension than the Constitution is. It clearly defines the limits of the federal government, and states as well that anything not given to the federal government in the way of it’s duties and actions is reserved for the states and the people. By ignoring what is limited to the federal government, our congress people are breaking their oath and should, without any doubt in my mind, be held accountable for those actions.
We must, as a society, hold our federally elected officials to their oaths, and require compliance by the federal government to the Constitution, or we will find out soon that the liberties and freedoms we have taken for granted are soon gone forever and we will no longer be a representative republic, but a socialist society where only a privileged few have any freedoms and the rest of us are mere serfs to a central government. Indeed, we are already under the thumb of the federal government in many ways, and this healthcare legislation is only one more shackle to keep us there.
JOHNgalt it must be problem if you have made the OATH to obey also the President and you do not want to or it is against what he does against the Constitution,also does the soldier muslim who killed did he made the OATH? i would thik he did as a military.
@Don Bly–
I feel for you, this story plays out daily and is why the “healthcare reform” idea is so seductive. It is way too hard for the average individual to make sense of even their own insurance plan, and that’s the easy part.
Historically, health insurance is relatively new on the scene. Back when it started the demographics for a risk pool based coverage were more favorable and the high priced drugs and treatment we have now didn’t exist and the whole premise was reasonable.
However, as we have both experienced, the insurance companies had leverage with hospitals, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies because they could offer assurance that there would be some reimbursement guaranteed. Of course they all jumped on it because before that time, the system was that rich people paid their way, and the excess that could be charged to the rich was used to support the poor or ruined-through-expenses group, and with the insurance model they could plan their income better and make more.
Thus the doctors were cast as insurance supporters. I think now they tend to hate the present system of preapprovals, but in the public eye docs are still driving healthcare costs.
Then pharmaceuticals took off and figured out how to cover their R&D costs, same as hospitals, gouge the uninsured and cut a deal with the insurance costs. IMO this is what’s driving increases, the cost of drugs, which is also more complex than it appears, because insurance cos. and drug companies are at the heart of many mutual funds, and we built a lot of the economy on “savings” by investment.
Then trial lawyers and commerce regulators and the FDA got into it.
This is why I’m always saying, it isn’t healthcare reform (that 0 is pushing). It’s a different insurance plan trying to cover not only a power grab but all the other things that have grown dependent on an insurance model. In my opinion the classical insurance model can’t work in the current climate any better than it is now. The whole mess needs to be torn down to basic wants and assumptions and rebuilt.
@IluvBee’s
A little information for you…
We do not make an “oath to the president”, we make an oath “to protect the constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic”.
-It’s getting close to the time where we might have to actively support that oath, because I see my president and the Neofascists (AKA Democrats) as the enemy to that constitution.
@IluvBee’s
Patvann already stated what I would have. The common element in the oath’s of the military, congress and the president is:
It is my opinion that congress and the president have failed that oath many times over the course of the it’s existence, but most notably during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This latest attempt at intrusion into our daily lives carries with it a veiled, but strong governmental control of our lives. The dems have said and continue to say that it isn’t a governmental takeover of healthcare, yet I challenge that lie based on the controls that would exist under this healthcare plan. Much of it is in violation of the Constitution, and as such, is why I consider any who vote yes for it to be a “domestic” enemy of the Constitution and to have failed in their oath.
Pat… I’ve cajoled a few people into commenting on my idea of a credit line for health care costs with gov guarantees. Do you have an opinion?
@Don Bly
I’ve been thinking since I wrote that, about what could be done. The insurance model roots go everywhere. To really change that would be a huge upheaval, and it’s hard to know where to start with incremental changes.
I’d be all right with the idea if we had any money for govt. guarantees, which we don’t now. However, when we get into credit we get into all the banking regulations over credit. And there would still be the problem of unlimited costs.
One of the reasons it’s such a hard problem is that insurance has created the illusion that all you need is the right insurance policy and everything is magically fixed. But, medical advances have made some fixes really, really expensive. When Medicare started it was for the elderly and people with endstage renal failure on dialysis. There were very few of them at the time and it was obviously a catastrophe for those people so it was an easy feel-good measure. Now there are a lot of them, because people are living longer, and not only do they have ESRF but have developed other problems. The cost hasn’t decreased with time and practice, it increased. For one thing, now we have HIV to worry about. This increases cost for disposables to avoid cross-contamination. We have the pharm companies coming up with wonderful expensive drugs to treat the side effects of dialysis. If it weren’t for Medicare, these people would reach their lifetime insurance caps. Then what? They would need added money for the rest of their lives, or they could die. If that happened to me, I wouldn’t prolong the agony while holding out hope for a transplant (and the huge cost of that, and the huge ongoing cost of immune suppressants, and the ongoing cost of infection care because of the immune suppressants). I’d eat well and die. It isn’t such a bad way to go, only about 3-4 days.
This is only one example of an intractable health problem that will drain costs and lower the pool fund of any insurance scheme, but since it is now an entitlement, it is draining the country. Hard though it is to accept, there is a limit to resources. Every insurance model comes with resource limits, which is why Palin was very safe to say there were “death panels,” because when the resources dry up, you die. (I wouldn’t have put it that way, though) I think the first part of any reform has to address the issue of where the money is coming from and where it is going. And if you think our govt. has confused accounting, the whole medical industrial complex is just as hard to figure out.
I personally would favor entitlement only to preventative services with a public component, like food inspection. This doesn’t have to be nanny statism like listening to Michelle harangue about obesity and the government putting info labels on food. It would keep the govt. busy enough just to do a better job monitoring food and water quality. I would also favor special credit or loans for catastrophic illnesses. (What do you do if your medical credit rating is shot, though?) Chronic illnesses, I don’t know. That could get to be a big can of worms.