Political Labels

   I just read something asking about the "constitutional right" of a federal government to impose national healthcare. I know this is a huge debate and everyone is all up in arms on one side or the other.

   That's the design. Obama ran for President on a platform promising healthcare so the opposition attacked it. Never mind all of the balls that were dropped in the pursuit of what ended up being a fairly meager healthcare deal. Whatever -- that's how the system works now: one side finds a hot topic to exploit, the other cries to the other side ("save the kitties" - "what about dog rights?!" -- how do you think the rich people got the people who support a man who ran money changers from the Temple on their side? It goes both ways -- what liberal doesn't want "The Man" out of his business?).

   Political labels only mean one thing at this point: "I don't have time to think for myself, therefore I vote the Party Line".

   Genius! Party voters have proven the need for an electoral system. I think Bill Engvall has something for you...

   Back to my original thought, where does The Constitution of The United States of America grant the government to impose healthcare? I don't think it does and I'm not even going to look over The Constitution a couple more times to try and find it because I don't think it matters. Why? Because 12 years before The Constitution was ratified, and 15 years before the first ten amendments known as The Bill of Rights were ratified, 56 leaders of the 13 colonies signed a document that said this:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

   "Healthcare" was not in the lexicon of the late 18th century, but it seems to me that some important men were willing to risk treason (i.e. hanged, drawn and quartered) for the idea that we all have "an unalienable" right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". This meant that it was intrinsic and did not require anything more than it's own self-evidence.

   Today we have all kinds of access to life against any number of medical conditions, liberty from debilitating disease, and the pursuit of Happiness beyond anything those 56 men could have imagined.

   Not only that, but governments are subject to the governed.

   But if the governed do not want everyone to have The Right of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" unless they have the ability to pay for it, then what?