Crossing the Rubicon

There are defining moments in a nation’s history that determine its future. Nationally provided healthcare is one of them. Many Americans believe that the government should take care of them from the womb to the tomb and provide all of the necessities of life. However, such a belief is the death of liberty. For the rights of man to exist, these rights must be inherent to man and not provided by a governing body. For if the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come only at the whim of government, the individual is in great peril because governments change and the next administration may not be as generous.

Yet, this is the America that is promised by Marxist Democrats and their leader, President Obama. Under their direction, the Federal government has grown to titanic proportions. The Federal government now owns 56% of the mortgages in the nation. It has a major share in the banks, insurance industry, and auto industry and wishes to hide its shady dealings within the stygian folds of the Federal Reserve. President Obama and his allies have outspent President Bush by trillions of dollars and for the first time in American history we are operating with a budget shortfall of one trillion dollars and that amount is expected to grow by the close of the fiscal year.

This brings us to health care. The numbers regarding its cost has been all over the map and that usually means that an inordinate amount of lying is taking place. I have heard estimates that range from zero budget impact to 4.4 trillion dollars, but with Joe Biden’s insane declaration that we must spend our way out of bankruptcy, I am inclined to believe the higher estimates, but what are we getting for spending our descendant’s into oblivion? Not much.

President Obama has declared repeatedly that Americans who wish to keep their private health insurance will get to do so, but when questioned about the lack of this provision in the House bill he endorses, he admitted “…I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about.” Excuse me? The President wholeheartedly supports this bill, has derided Republicans for opposing it, and he has no idea what is actually in the bill? This is one of the reasons that occasionally I think that I am just having a surrealistic nightmare and will be waking up soon.

Other things in the bill that the President may not be aware of include:

1. Rationing health care. With regard to senior citizens who require expensive, life saving medications and treatment, forget it.

2. Keeping your own health insurance. According to the language in the House bill you will be forced to participate in the government program because it will be illegal to sell health insurance in this country. Health insurance will only be sold as supplemental policies similar to the Medicare supplements now available to seniors.

3. Long waits to see a doctor and no choice regarding your provider. Similar to England, France, Germany, and Cuba, you will have no choice regarding which doctor sees you. Don’t like your physician? Too bad. If you want treatment, you take who we give you or go home. Want to see your doctor today? You can see your doctor in two weeks. Really sick? Two weeks. Need an MRI? Six months. Need Surgery? Three month wait. (These numbers are typical of British waits in their National Health Service)

4. Sky rocketing costs. Because the government is paying for your medical care now, citizens will go to the doctor far more than they ever did before. This will put an incredible strain on the health care system and costs will balloon. Eventually, the system will become economically unsustainable as the system in Britain has.

5. If you cannot prove to the IRS that you are covered by an authorized policy then you will be fined heavily and enrolled in a random policy regardless of whether you want it or not.

Even the Mayo clinic, that President Obama is so fond of touting, has said “Although there are some positive provisions in the current House Tri-Committee bill … the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher-quality, more affordable health care for patients. In fact, it will do the opposite. … The real losers will be the citizens of the United States.” Is government provided healthcare a train wreck waiting to happen? I believe so, but that it remains the gateway to the destruction of liberty in this nation is an undeniable fact.

By accepting government provided healthcare, what we as a people are saying is “Help us government because we are too weak to do it ourselves.” By turning to the collective to provide what we could provide for ourselves we relinquish our individual rights in favor of the collective. This is because you admit that as an individual you are weak when you turn these responsibilities over to others. The child like notion that the government will always take care of you only emphasizes that weakness and encourages the government to take the final step of actually treating you like a child and what liberties do you give your small children? Freedom likes a strong people and it finds no home in the weakness of the spirit or of the will.

This is why national healthcare is akin to the Rubicon. When Caesar arrived at the Rubicon he knew he faced a choice, either cross the river with his legion and destroy the Republic or cross alone to his fate and preserve it. Caesar crossed the Rubicon and became the Emperor of Rome. The choice of the American citizen regarding healthcare is the same. Either we accept a nationally provided healthcare and end our freedoms by adopting a socialist government or we take personal responsibility for ourselves and maintain our liberties.

Thus, do we cross the Rubicon or not?

Got Peace of Mind?

There are a number of concerns facing Americans today. An out of control Federal government, a gutted intelligence program, the war on terror being cancelled due to lack of interest, trillions of taxpayer dollars being spent to convert the United States into a welfare state, zero transparency of legislative actions, a shadow government of Czars that answer only to President Obama, and the complete and utter failure of the media to keep the public informed all combine to give a major case of heartburn to the citizens of the USA. In addition to this laundry list of worries, there is the non-existent foreign policy of this administration to keep the American taxpayer awake at night.

Nuclear proliferation, rogue states, lawlessness on our Southern border, and the utter confusion of our allies all combine to paint the picture of an inept President who is struggling to comprehend his international responsibilities. So far President Obama has delivered his American apology tour to the world, ideologically sided with the Marxists in Central and South America, confused our allies, and God knows what else he has done without our knowledge. In fact, President Obama has abandoned his post as the leader of the free world in favor of a Marxist ideal of a global government headed by the United Nations. If only President Obama was the least of our worries.

Nancy “liar, liar, pants on fire” Pelosi and Harry “can’t we just bar the plebeians from Washington” Reid have both combined to lay the groundwork for unprecedented government expansion. In addition to pushing President Obama’s legislative agenda through Congress with all the subtlety of a sledge hammer, these two closet Marxists have conspired with the President to bring Marxism to America’s shores. They have done this by laying a usurious debt upon unborn Americans, reducing our quality of life by pursuing “green” energy that eliminates jobs while making their donors millions, bringing major corporations into the Federal fold through the Federal Reserve Bank thus keeping the private citizen ignorant of how their tax dollars are being spent, and crippling our military with budget cuts while they cancel orders for new equipment. Did I mention that the Congress already controls a large stake in the banks? Even given all of this, there are now calls for yet another stimulus package consisting of hundreds of billions of dollars. Never mind the fact that we are already one trillion in the red this year alone. Let me give you that in numbers: $1,000,000,000,000. One trillion is a number that is difficult to put in perspective. In order to help you comprehend the size of the number, allow me to give you an illustration of the enormity of what we are discussing. If you were a surgeon making $1,500,000 per year it would take you over sixty-six thousand years to make the amount of this year’s shortfall.

This is the reason for the TEA parties of April 15th and July 4th. American citizens are angry about the financial enslavement of our children, angry that our way of life is being systematically degraded, and that our representatives now represent George Soros while they sneer at us. Unfortunately, our protests fell upon deaf ears. Now, Congress seeks to lay the first of many taxes upon the American citizens while they attempt to bring forth Socialized medicine at a cost of over four trillion dollars extra. Where is the news media in all of this? The American media has been hard at work keeping the public in the dark so that the leftist agenda of the Democratic National Committee and the President can achieve their goals without interference. It is a betrayal, that when realized, will be remembered with Arnold and Judas.

China believes that America has lost her mind and is extremely reluctant to buy any more of our debt. Russia and Europe are pleading with President Obama to stop spending while they turn away from the dollar and like Nero fiddling while Rome burned; President Obama continues the uncontrolled growth of the Federal government. That is why the Russians said that one day soon, Americans would wake up and realize that we were a Marxist nation and wouldn’t know how we got there. We didn’t elect a President; we elected a leftist teleprompter and the Marxists who are writing the scripts.

All for hope and change.

E Pluribus Unum

Out of many, one. That is the motto of the United States of America. It encompasses the values, traditions, and pride of a people who came to these lands from distant shores. Some were seeking their fortunes, but many others were fleeing from oppression. All sought a better life free from the tyranny of their homelands. Unfortunately, the tyranny of England would not relent and taxes were levied without representation in the government that levied them. The war for independence followed soon after and the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Concord.

We purchased our freedom with the blood of patriots and the deaths of those who sought to keep us in bondage to a monarchy that viewed Americans as property and not citizens. We fought not only the red coats of the King, but also the Tories who sought to keep us under the influence of England. In fact, there were more loyalists to the crown than there were men who sought to break the yoke of the King. Spies for the crown were a constant danger to the men and women of the Revolution. By taking part you were committing treason. An offense that is punishable by death. If they were caught, they were certain to hang, and many did.

The war ended at Yorktown, Virginia where Washington pressed the British Army on the ground and the French fleet prevented General Cornwallis’ escape. It is telling that General Cornwallis did not even possess the courage to face Washington in person and sent his sword of surrender via a subordinate. Despite this slight, we were free.

A Constitutional convention eventually followed to correct the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution was born. Our highest law, it took years to hammer out and the debate almost came to blows in Independence Hall more than once. Eventually, the final document was drafted by a collection of the finest minds that the world had ever known and was finally sent to the States for ratification. Once adopted, the Constitution became the guardian of our liberty. It is the ultimate guarantee for all Americans that protect the citizenry from an intrusive or abusive government. All Federal, State, and local law must be subservient to that document and the Declaration of Independence and the Articles written in the newspapers of the day by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay are used to further define our American rights.

Further, our American rights are based upon the philosophies of John Locke, Montesquieu, and Hume. It is from these men that we achieve our understanding of the reasoning behind our founding documents. It is certain that the founding fathers knew of these men and had studied their work prior to securing our freedoms and creating our national government. That government derives its power from the consent of the governed and that consent may be withdrawn at any time comes directly from Locke. Our founding documents, the sacrifice of our most sacred blood, and the reasoning of the finest minds of an era all formed the basis for E Pluribus Unum.

The first Americans were bound together by a shared belief in our founding values. Newcomers to our shores sought American freedom and became believers in our national ethos. As such, they joined with us and made us stronger. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Today we are faced with a government run amok. Congress has set the bonds of financial slavery upon our unborn children and seeks to tighten them. A Socialist/Marxist sits as the President in the White House oblivious to the pleas for freedom from the peoples of the Earth and apologizing for America’s arrogance and cowboy attitude while he bows in obeisance to foreign potentates.

The Congress seeks to spend Americans into oblivion by raising taxes, reducing our standard of living, and turning America into a welfare state similar to Germany and France. The government has promised transparency, but there is none. There is only obfuscation. The government has promised to act ethically, yet the opposing party is locked out of legislative decisions and only given information when it is far too late to assert any influence. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barrack Obama seek to spend trillions more, place businesses under the Federal Reserve Bank where there is no possibility of oversight by the American people in order to protect trillions of taxpayer dollars.

Worse, nearly every time a bill goes through the House or the Senate the Democrats in control say that it is an emergency and there is no time to actually read the bill before the vote. Yet, when the second TARP bill was passed it waited on President Obama’s signature for four days because he was vacationing in Colorado. While many damn the Democrats for their irrational behavior and their desire to spend money like it is going out of style, but fault must also be laid at the doorstep of the Republicans for their idiocy over the past eight years. If bubble headed Megan McCain is any example of what a Republican is then count me out. John McCain and his ilk have thumbed their nose at conservatives and our values for decades. The only reason he even gave us the time of day the last election was because he knew that he would lose if he didn’t. I for one am tired of “me to” Republicans cow towing to the Marxist Democrats because we need to “reach across the aisle.”

When they lose they moan about “rebranding” and “getting the message out” and all that other trash. How does one rebrand ethics or morals? How do you remake God? Like the Marxist Democrats the Republicans seek to appeal to hyphenated Americans by being fence riders and advertising a “big tent.” It is truly sad that we have come to this. Conservatism is an admirable ideology. The principals upon which this nation was founded are our ideology. Family values, a belief in the Almighty, and in the sanctity of human life are our principals. We believe that a man should do unto others as he would have them do unto him. We believe that lying, cheating, and stealing are wrong. That God watches our every action and measures our every intent and that there will be an accounting for our actions. We believe in giving a person a hand up and not a hand out. That Dr. King was right when he said that a person should be judged by the content of their character and not by any other measure. That man was endowed by his creator with inalienable rights and that those rights are inherent in the man and not granted by any government.

We believe that government should not and cannot be trusted to any great degree because it is human beings who do the work of government and humans are fallible and can be corrupted. We believe that the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land and that it is not to be tampered with or used as “guidelines.” We believe that legislating from the bench is an abuse of judicial authority and demonstrates a lack of ethical behavior. We believe that abortion is the legally sanctioned murder of the unborn and that it is used to cull the population of “undesirables” as a continuing tool of eugenics.

On April 15th there were thousands that took to the streets to protest a government that is out of control. The result was crude sexual humor by leftist news media, derision by one CNN newscaster, and laughter by the politicians in Washington. This July 4th, remember where we came from and what we had to do to earn the freedoms that we enjoy. Remember the blood, sweat, and tears that forged the fabric of this nation. Remember the founding principles that bind us together as one unified people. But most of all, remember the politicians who thumbed their nose at you and laughed at your objection to the ruination of you and your children’s future. Remember that anger and keep it close until Election Day and then repay the jackals, each and every one of them and explain to your children why you did what you did.

United we stand, divided we fall.