Your rights and my rights

I'm becoming more libertarian as I get older, although I doubt I can ever be fully libertarian: the individual is no more the arbiter of rights than the state. Our rights come from a higher power than ourselves, Lansing or Washington or the European Union or anybody. Further, our true rights are absolute against outside forces: I have the right to life until natural death unless I myself abrogate it of my own volition. If I'm trying to kill you you thus have a right to kill me, if that's what it takes to stop me. 

Rights also imply duties. If you're going to argue, oh, um, say, that people have a right to health care the proper first question is, who has the responsibility to deliver it? If you answer society or government, what you're really saying is me. At that point I have the right to ask why am I responsible for your health care? I'm not responsible for getting your food, clothes, or housing. What makes your health care (and I could add many other things to this question, such as education) my job?

Further questions include, what is health care? Is abortion or a sex change procedure health care? Should people who don't believe in the propriety of such things be made to pay for them? Morally, absolutely not.

A very interesting article on these and other issues related to the supposed health care right can be found here: Is Health Care a Right?

The article does allow that true health care, health care truly necessary for people to live rightly, is important, because of course it is. I will even argue that we do indeed as individuals have a moral obligation to help those in any kind of real need to obtain proper health care (among other things). As such, I believe that demanding society or government fund certain admitted needs amounts to passing the buck and neglecting your own duty towards others. God, if you care to be seriously religious about it, tells you to help your fellow man, not make someone else see to it. Any way you slice it, once you start saying that such and such admitted need is a right, you are in a quagmire with no easy escape outside of violating the true rights of others.

You may fairly ask, Marty, who is responsible for health care then? Well, the same person primarily responsible for your food, housing, clothing, education, and myriad other things.

You.

Trickle Down Works: Obamacare Proves it

According to NBC News Online this morning, businesses across the United Sates are cutting employee hours down to 29 per week or less in order to avoid the requirements of Obamacare. Small businesses tend to have narrow profit margins, and the cost of providing health care for their employees is simply too much of a hardship.

This will hurt the very people whom the left and the Democratic Party claim to hold in such esteem. They're the ones for the poor and underemployed. They're the ones for the little guy.

The looming Obamacare regulations are hurting that guy in precisely the same way as the Cash For Clunkers program hurt him. Cash For Clunkers destroyed the used car market precisely because it required old models to be destroyed. Consequently, what used cars there were became higher priced. It's simple supply and demand: high demand plus fewer resources make the cost of the resources jump. And who does that hurt most?

The working poor, the lower classes. The same ones who are going to be crunched by Obamacare.

Trickle down economics does work, and in both directions. Reagan proved in a positive way, leading the longest sustained period of peacetime economic growth in our history. President Obama is proving it in a profoundly negative manner, and it is hurting the folks who most need help.

Of Course the Health Care Reform Bill is Unconstitutional

A federal judge in Florida has ruled the Affordable Care Act of 2010 unconstitutional. This brings the score to a two/two tie" two judges have said it's constitutional under the Commerce Clause, and two have said no. The case will surely go the US Supreme Court.

Yet no matter what the Supreme Court may rule, and at this point a ruling that it is against the Constitution is likely, the fact is that the Commerce Clause was never intended to go right down to the individual. Indeed, in most areas where the federal establishment has reached all the way down to the single person, it has only been after constitutional amendments such as the 16th, which allowed a so-called 'head' tax (income tax) to be levied directly against the individual.

The point is made clear by constitutional scholar Randy E. Barnett of Georgetown. "Never before in American history has the commerce clause been used to impose a mandate on all Americans to enter into a commercial relationship with a private company," Barnett has asserted. "Up until today, all previous exercises of the commerce power had been to regulate activity or to prohibit certain activity."

The entire health care debate is simply another manner in which the liberals are trying to paint the Constitution in their favor. They do not believe in the rule of law. They believe in what they believe and want what they want, and will do whatever they can to achieve it. Even if that means a lobotomy for the US Constitution.

A Review of the Year, Sort Of.

The Democrats want to bust the filibuster because the Republicans have used it so much in blocking many of their plans. Yet they used it themselves quite often thwarting the goals former President George W. Bush. This tells us two things: the Democrats, once again, are hypocrites, and that those in power like to wield that power.

The filibuster is Constitutional, folks, under Article I. If we alter it at all,then we ought to go back to when the Senator speaking had to hold the floor and stay there while filibustering. Any way you slice it, let it stand as a defense against tyranny, even if it is too often used for simple political gain or advantage. There are times when we must take the bitter with the sweet.

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has been on strike for what, now, 13 weeks? No one seems to miss it. No one really cares, outside of self serving classical music patrons, whether it is there or not. That is the final word on the subject. There is no need to support optional features or unimportant peripheral issues cannot support themselves, no matter how necessary you believe they are or what positive, ahem, note you think it may sound for the community. Having a local professional symphony is just not a big deal. The crisis, such as it is, isn't worth a quarter note.

Barack Obama and his minions forced through health care reform, and paid dearly in November. This demonstrates that the political process can work. When the people are riled enough to do something within it.

Tim Tebow's anti-abortion ad during the Super Bowl was one simple yet stunning bit of cinema, and the liberal outburst against it demonstrated their complete loathing of human life. How dare we suggest that human life is special? That's the trouble with us conservatives: we think life important.

Whatever happened to the Wikileaks, uh, scandal? Somehow it doesn't seem so awful as it was supposed to be, with what's his name behind it in legal trouble and no Third World War yet.

The Tea Party demonstrated real political clout in 2010. Are they merely an organized minority or do they represent a greater portion of American public than we are supposed to believe? Either way, as the New Year dawns, it would be a good idea for the liberals to sit back with a cup of Earl Grey and consider the risks involved in over-reaching your bounds. Perhaps a spot of cream to ease the bitterness would be in order, eh wot?

2011 approaches, and there's no reason that we shouldn't accept it with open arms. We may as well be positive, at least at the start of the new decade. Auld Lang Syne, friends. Auld Lang Syne.

Harry Reid: Off the Deep End

Harry Reid has said that opponents of health care reform are like the supporters of slavery back in the day. Or opponents of women's and civil rights. All he has actually done is shown that he is simply a radical who needs to be turned out of office.

Health care, let's face it, is not in league with those issues. Indeed there is not a right to health care any more than a right to a particular job or particular home. There is only the right, which is in fact an obligation, to pursue these things freely in an open market. Government controls by their very nature restrict these rights. They must, in the long run, constrict them severely, because eventually our only choice will be what Washington offers us. That does not respect humanity and human rights. It insults them.

If you insist on an analogy between slavery and something modern, at least look to abortion rights activists. It is there where human dignity is most directly at issue, not over a hyper-partisan political football such as government mandated health care.

Mr. Reid demonstrates nothing less than a callous disregard of his colleagues and their position when he stoops to such scandalous talk. Especially as he and his liberal peers hold all the cards, at least for now. But, of course, that's why all this must be done now, these extreme measures must be forced through as soon as possible. Because they won't have the votes after January 3rd, 2011, and they know it.

Reid's very shrillness on the point illustrates as much. Let's give him a reason to scream really loud in November.

Charlie Daniels: Saying What We're Afraid to?

County star Charlie Daniels, of The Devil Went Down to Georgia fame, has said something which must be taken seriously. He has called the current government in Washington a dictatorship in light of its handling of the recent health care bill.

Hyperbole? Perhaps. Yet the way in which Barack Obama and his minions Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid forced the bill through Congress despite the overhwelming opposition of the American people surely is reminiscent of dictatorial rule. When the liberals have the polls on their side, conservatives are supposed to accept the will of the people. But polls be damned for them. They will do what they please.

To be fair, Mr. Daniels may be over-interpreting things. There's still time to fix this debacle, and that's called the next elections. But what the President and the Imperial Congress are surely relying on is that the voters will have short memories. By November of this year, when the sky has not fallen, they may not think things all that bad. The voting public may not take the time to consider that it may be years, decades, before the real weight of this massive government intrusion into our lives hits us. They tell us now that the bill is so that 5 year olds get cancer treatment. Wait until 65 year old can't get it simply because they've lived their lives and the money isn't in the budget.

In the meantime, we ought to heed the fiddler's words. We may not in fact have a dictatorship now. But as government power only grows, well, with this health care bill, we are surely on the path to one.

We Need a Constitutional Crisis

With Obamacare now having passed the House, there seems little to do. The massive Federal establishment has reared its ugly head again, and now we're stuck.

Or are we? There are several states considering legislation to sue Washington over the health care mandates which are scheduled to be put in place soon. At least two, Virginia and Idaho, have actually passed such bills into law. That's good, because it may lead to what we really need in this country right now: a genuine Constitutional crisis.

We need, not only the people, but the States as political entities in their own right to stand up to the folks in D.C and tell them that enough is enough. Not only in health care, as that is actually only the most recent intrusion on the power of the states and the general citizenry. Washington must be told that education is a local matter, that we need no federal Department of Energy, that states, being closer to the problems they face, have a better chance of setting them right than vast and unilateral national actions might. We need to make certain changes in the Constitution itself to ensure that such encroachments wane.

With 36 or 37 states talking about standing up to the feds on health care, and with 38 states needed to amend the great document, it would seem that such cohesive action is surely possible. It is time to unite in way in which we rarely have since 1776. It is time to go back to our roots and replant the tree of liberty.

Saving Money on Health Care Reform?

Can government involvement in anything actually save money? That is what some House members are saying: that the proposed health care bill will save $138 billion dollars over the next ten years. Further, an incredible $1.2 trillion bucks would be saved in the following decade, according to the supposedly nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

How anything funded by government can be nonpartisan is beyond reason. And more, how any proposed expansion of government power can actually save money seems unrealistic. Has there ever been a government initiative that saved cash, other than real and true budget cuts?

Do programs which encourage energy efficiency save cash? If the government spends money to help individuals save it, are we really seeing a savings in state coffers?

Do you actually believe that the health care bill will save money in the long run?

Just asking. And wondering whether there are any straight answers out there.

Idaho leads the Way

In what may well become one the foremost Constitutional crises in our history, the State of Idaho has put into law an act calling on its Attorney General to sue the federal government over any health insurance mandates from Washington. Similar legislation is being considered in 37 other states.

Good show, Boise. It is high time that we bring states rights back to the fore. It is absurd to argue that states have no rights against the federal establishment, and where those rights exist they must be reaffirmed.

Sure, the doctrine has been battered and abused over time; liberal historians would love to keep the idea linked with the slavery crisis in nothing less than a guilt by association scheme. But the fact is that the call of states rights can well be legitimate if and when the circumstances call for it. We are a federal system; by our political nature, localities have certain basic rights. Even the Constitution recognizes as much, as seen in those two forgotten Amendments at the end of the Bill of Rights.

Let us hope that Idaho's bold move will stiffen the spines of many other states, and remind the Congress and the President that they are not all powerful. If nothing else, perhaps this move will be the seed from which will grow a better understanding of who we are as a nation. Perhaps it will, in the end, speak to Washington as we once spoke to London, Don't Tread On Me.

The Reid-Ometer

Harry Reid sure isn't getting much slack these days. Yes, he apologized and had the apology accepted by President Barack Obama for remarks he made about him before he came to support the chief executive in the last presidential election. But his woes run deeper than that.

The Nevada lawmaker is seen losing to any of the three Republicans vying for the chance to unseat him in November. And the racial remark (one wonders if a conservative candidate would get such a free pass had he uttered the words) is only one example of the type of comments Reid has been prone to make. Equating GOP opposition to health care with the obstructionists who promoted slavery gives us another view of how deep his feelings run about those not in his camp. Harboring hatred for you enemies does not draw a pleasant and caring image.

Being the Senate point man in the current political climate no doubt calls attention to him that he otherwise would not merit. But if what we are seeing is the real Harry Reid, then the bi-elections cannot come soon enough. Hopefully, it may be that the coming wave against him is a microcosm of what may expected in the fall against Democratic office holders in general.

It's no wonder they need to ram through a health care plan now. They won't have the chance in 2011.

Far From Over

A week ago it looked as the the Senate was not going to pass any kind of health care reform bill. Now they've gone and done it, and our only hope of stopping this travesty lies in the upcoming conference committee in January.

Passing the measure along a complete and pure party line vote, it seems as though the Democrats are determined to force their will upon the American people. Whatever you think about the liberals, you have to give them credit: when they have the upper hand, they push for their goals. You never hear a liberal say something like, 'You know, we really should be more inclusive of the conservative thought.' Nosiree; they ram through what they want.

Don't be concerned about all the negotiation that went into this: it was all banter among themselves. When you get a strict party line vote, you haven't had any real negotiation, no actual compromise. What we have seen is a display of raw power at work. They did it because they wanted it done and could do it.

When we needed a Reagan, we got an Obama. Our grandchildren will pay dearly for this if we can't stop it. As likely as not, they will pay with an America unlike the America the Founders gave us. We are witnessing the tyranny of the majority rearing its ugly head, and there is no St George on the horizon.

Abortion: Keep the Debate Going, Anywhere, Anytime

This morning's Detroit Free Press reports that Michigan Representataive Bart Stupak's (one of those rare and brave birds, an anti-abortion Democrat) anti-abortion rider may kill the proposed health care initiative. That is a moral good in and of itself. But more importantly, it forces this nation to address what sometimes has become an issue relegated to second class status.

Abortion is the proverbial elephant in the room for the politicians in the middle. They know they can't win on the question, so they generally hope that it will just go away. If they seem in the slightest way to promote it, conservatives become upset. If they likewise appear to go against it, the leftists rant. That is precisely because, like slavery, it is an issue which does not allow for compromise. There is no middle way. We have it or we don't; there simply is not another, ahem, choice on the matter.

So if the abortion debate alone kills the health care initiative, it will have served a great good. Nevertheless, we must remember that more is at stake than short sighted political gain such as that. We must use this opportunity to remember that abortion is a stain on our national soul, and as a rallying point where we fight it all the harder in the future.

Defeat National Health Care!

The swarm of protesters who descended on Washington last Thursday ought to send a message to our federal lawmakers: stop the proposed overhaul of our health care system. It is nothing less than a power grab by a group of newly empowered Democrats who, regardless of their intent, want to make a huge impression on our nation and our future while they have the chance.

They remember too well what happened the last time around. Their political kin could not force through Hillarycare when they might have, and went down to a stinging defeat in the 1994 elections. It is similarly important to vote down the current plan; such a defeat, if followed up with a ringing anti-Obama message next year, would stave off attempts at national health care well into the future.

There is, also, an ominous cloud which the observers of history may already see. When the government expands its powers, it rarely retracts them. In England, for example, no less than Winston Churchill embraced their brand of socialism in the 1950's when he saw political gain in it. Don't think that Republicans would not embrace national health care, once in place, as an area where they might wield power and influence in their own way.

Power corrupts. Do not give the power over everyday life and death to the feds.

Liberals Hate Us: Time to Respond in Kind

I can’t remember where I first heard it; it was either Rush Limbaugh or P. J. O’Rourke, I believe. But it is a simple phrase which I’ve never forgotten: liberals hate people, especially the free. It is not an overstatement, and runs from the proverbial, ahem, sublime to the ridiculous. They want abortion because there are too many of us on the planet, and they want mass transit so that we have to go places on their schedule, not ours. They’re against urban sprawl because they don’t want people living where they want to by their free will exchanges among themselves. They use global warming scams to make us stop living how we live because it isn’t how they want us to live. They champion the environment because inert matter is more important than living, breathing human beings. They want national health care so that they may eventually tell us who gets what care and when. It’s all about control, my friends, and we’re well past time to tell them enough is enough: I can control my own life just fine without liberal meddling in things which are none of their business. It’s time to send these busybodies and their trumped up causes packing so that we can conduct the business of our lives unharried by manufactured guilt. It’s time we stand up to the true haters in our land. Get out and vote for the conservatives in your area, and send Washington, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid a loud and clear message.

Free Love and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

When my second son was seven (say that three times fast) he happened to notice that, as I was shaving, I kept the hot water running. “Dad,” he told me a little sheepishly, “the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles say you shouldn’t keep water running when you wash.” My response would draw the ire of many: “Son, when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pay my water bill, they can tell me how much water I can use.”

Consider that story in relation to this next one. I watched a news report about a 19 year old mother of two, apparently (though it was not said definitively, to be fair) by two different fathers, lamenting that she could not afford health care for her babies with the fast food job she held, the only job she could get. The point of the story was that this was why we need national health care.

Now, were I to have told her before she chose to have sex that she should not do that as it may lead to pregnancies she would not be economically able to handle, indeed that she ought to wait until at least the time when she was able to care completely for her own children as one of the risks of sex is pregnancy, I am certain I would have been told that her actions were none of my business. Further, I am also quite sure that the general community would support her assertion. Why? Because I have no right to make comment on her morals.

Several things come to mind as I contrast these items. I would like to point out two. First, I am told I cannot tell that young woman how to act. Yet as a direct consequence of her chosen irresponsibility, I am later being told I need to pay for the results of her free will action.

Second, when I am paying out of my own funds for every drop of water I elect to use, I am told I am irresponsible.

Think about that for a moment. Then you tell me the folly of our approach to right and wrong in America today.