What Freedoms Remain?
On Wednesday President Obama signed a law expanding the SCHIP program. In his speech he said several memorable things. One was that this bill was merely the “down payment” on universal health care. He concluded with the assertion that Americans, presumably in our armed forces, have fought throughout our history for....heath care. Not freedom, not our God-given rights, not to protect us from fascism or communism but heath care. I highly doubt that universal health care was on the mind of the marines who stormed the Normandy beaches. He also said that all this was necessary so our children could dream dreams “as big as they could take them.” I suppose that applies only to those who don’t desire to become CEO’s because according to Barak Obama, those dreams only go to half a million dollars.
Health care, CEO pay, the nationalization of the banks, Maxine Waters’ threats to nationalize the energy companies, many have looked at all this and trembled in the face of what can only be called socialism. Wake up people! We have already come a long way along that road. What freedoms, significant freedoms, really remain? I’m not talking about the freedom to drive your car to the next intersection and turn right or left, the freedom to download pornography off the Internet or the freedom to choose which of 1000 cable channels you’ll watch tonight.
Let’s start with President Obama’s “down payment” on universal health care. Once that is paid in full you will lose the freedom over your very body. Once the government is footing the bill for your health care it will be able to dictate your lifestyle, what you eat, how often you exercise, the risks you take in your recreation. The food police have already established beachheads on several fronts, sugar and transfats to name the most obvious. This is to say nothing about the fact that our freedom to choose our doctors and health care will evaporate. I’m sure you would agree with me that control over your health and dinner plate are fundamental and important and the government should have no right to dictate our choices in either area. But if we abdicate our responsibility, we give up our freedom.
What about other choices that affect our “comfort”. President Obama is firmly on Al Gore’s bandwagon and in the rush to “save the planet” liberals have all kinds of ideas to force us to “do the right thing”. Washington bureaucrats already have too much input concerning what we drive. In California they wanted to determine at what temperature residents set their thermostats and then candidate Obama stated that we cannot expect to keep our houses at a comfortable level while the planet suffers. Do not think for a second that control over our energy consumption will not be on the mind of the president's “Global Warming Czar” every moment of every day and that many of those ideas will find willing supporters in Nancy Pelosi’s house and Harry Reid’s senate.
With President Obama’s statement concerning executive pay, another, and perhaps the most crucial, loss of freedom comes to the forefront. The constitution guarantees the sanctity of private contracts within the law but the idea that the government can interfere with those contracts now has a long history. The minimum wage, and now the “maximum wage” is a blatant example of this. The government should have no right to regulate the terms of a contract freely entered in by two people for work performed and payment expected. If I want to work for less than minimum wage or I think my skills are worth more than half a million dollars, The government should have no right to say otherwise. Right now the “maximum wage” is limited to companies that took federal money but ask yourself this, do you receive federal benefits? FHA loan on the house? guaranteed student loan? Medicare? Social Security? Subsidies? Do not think for a minute, in a country plagues with wealth envy and class warfare, that the federal government will not attempt to extend its reach into our lives to bridge the gap between the rich and poor by raising the minimum and capping the maximum. Keep in mind there is already a push to allow federal judges to invalidate mortgage contracts and even reduce principle amounts. If the sanctity of contracts for sales or employment are violated willy nilly by the government, business will be nearly impossible.
Don’t forget the fact that your retirement is determined by the federal government. There have already been rumblings in Washington concerning finding ways to incorporate all that IRA and 401K money into Social Security. Where will we be at the end of the Obama administration? If our parents pass Ms. Pelosi’s test and we are born (too many people already putting a strain on the system) we will enter into a health system that will follow us to the grave and determine our diet and exercise habits. We will go to a government indoctrination school (over which we may have no choice). We will graduate, and if we’re lucky we may be able to read our diploma, and enter the workforce where the government will determine our minimum and maximum levels of success. We will buy a house under a government run program and the energy we use in it will be regulated by bureaucrats. We will drive a government approved car. We will give a larger and larger percentage of our income to feed the beast in Washington and pay for our retirement and health care. We will retire on our government stipend and when we start to cost the system too much we will be encouraged to stop being a burden or denied care. Then we will die and anything we have left behind will be confiscated by the government to pay for the next kid to come along.
We are already too close and the attitude of too many is that such a system is where we should be. Certainly President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and senator Harry Reid think that is the way to go. We are standing at the edge of the precipice, the point of no return. Will we allow ourselves to be pushed over or will we push back and retake our country, restoring America to the vision of the founders and enshrined in the constitution.
Health care, CEO pay, the nationalization of the banks, Maxine Waters’ threats to nationalize the energy companies, many have looked at all this and trembled in the face of what can only be called socialism. Wake up people! We have already come a long way along that road. What freedoms, significant freedoms, really remain? I’m not talking about the freedom to drive your car to the next intersection and turn right or left, the freedom to download pornography off the Internet or the freedom to choose which of 1000 cable channels you’ll watch tonight.
Let’s start with President Obama’s “down payment” on universal health care. Once that is paid in full you will lose the freedom over your very body. Once the government is footing the bill for your health care it will be able to dictate your lifestyle, what you eat, how often you exercise, the risks you take in your recreation. The food police have already established beachheads on several fronts, sugar and transfats to name the most obvious. This is to say nothing about the fact that our freedom to choose our doctors and health care will evaporate. I’m sure you would agree with me that control over your health and dinner plate are fundamental and important and the government should have no right to dictate our choices in either area. But if we abdicate our responsibility, we give up our freedom.
What about other choices that affect our “comfort”. President Obama is firmly on Al Gore’s bandwagon and in the rush to “save the planet” liberals have all kinds of ideas to force us to “do the right thing”. Washington bureaucrats already have too much input concerning what we drive. In California they wanted to determine at what temperature residents set their thermostats and then candidate Obama stated that we cannot expect to keep our houses at a comfortable level while the planet suffers. Do not think for a second that control over our energy consumption will not be on the mind of the president's “Global Warming Czar” every moment of every day and that many of those ideas will find willing supporters in Nancy Pelosi’s house and Harry Reid’s senate.
With President Obama’s statement concerning executive pay, another, and perhaps the most crucial, loss of freedom comes to the forefront. The constitution guarantees the sanctity of private contracts within the law but the idea that the government can interfere with those contracts now has a long history. The minimum wage, and now the “maximum wage” is a blatant example of this. The government should have no right to regulate the terms of a contract freely entered in by two people for work performed and payment expected. If I want to work for less than minimum wage or I think my skills are worth more than half a million dollars, The government should have no right to say otherwise. Right now the “maximum wage” is limited to companies that took federal money but ask yourself this, do you receive federal benefits? FHA loan on the house? guaranteed student loan? Medicare? Social Security? Subsidies? Do not think for a minute, in a country plagues with wealth envy and class warfare, that the federal government will not attempt to extend its reach into our lives to bridge the gap between the rich and poor by raising the minimum and capping the maximum. Keep in mind there is already a push to allow federal judges to invalidate mortgage contracts and even reduce principle amounts. If the sanctity of contracts for sales or employment are violated willy nilly by the government, business will be nearly impossible.
Don’t forget the fact that your retirement is determined by the federal government. There have already been rumblings in Washington concerning finding ways to incorporate all that IRA and 401K money into Social Security. Where will we be at the end of the Obama administration? If our parents pass Ms. Pelosi’s test and we are born (too many people already putting a strain on the system) we will enter into a health system that will follow us to the grave and determine our diet and exercise habits. We will go to a government indoctrination school (over which we may have no choice). We will graduate, and if we’re lucky we may be able to read our diploma, and enter the workforce where the government will determine our minimum and maximum levels of success. We will buy a house under a government run program and the energy we use in it will be regulated by bureaucrats. We will drive a government approved car. We will give a larger and larger percentage of our income to feed the beast in Washington and pay for our retirement and health care. We will retire on our government stipend and when we start to cost the system too much we will be encouraged to stop being a burden or denied care. Then we will die and anything we have left behind will be confiscated by the government to pay for the next kid to come along.
We are already too close and the attitude of too many is that such a system is where we should be. Certainly President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and senator Harry Reid think that is the way to go. We are standing at the edge of the precipice, the point of no return. Will we allow ourselves to be pushed over or will we push back and retake our country, restoring America to the vision of the founders and enshrined in the constitution.
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