Fred and Diane are sitting at a car dealership.

Fred: “I sure hope we can get a good deal on this car.”

The salesman walks in with a huge stack of paper.

Salesman: “Just sign this contract and you are on the road. woo hoo”

Diane: “How long is that contract?”

Salesman: “It is 2074 pages”

Diane: “That seems awfully long. Can we look at it?”

Salesman: “You don’t need to read it before you sign it.”

Fred: “But what about those negotiations we had?”

Salesman: “Don’t worry, I drew up this contract on my own. It has nothing to do with our discussion before.”

Fred and Diane look at each other and a voice over says:

“Would you sign the contract? That is exactly what Senator Harry Reid wanted and that is exactly what the Democrats did. Any wonder the Republicans wouldn’t sign on?

Fred is sitting at the dining room table… Diane walks in

Diane: “Honey, I was looking at these bills and we are getting in trouble. When we started spending more last year, we overdid it. Every month, we spend $500 a month more than we make.”

Fred: “You’re right, this is a crisis. I have an idea that I got from the Democrats. We’ll freeze our spending at the current level, exactly like the President’s plan. That is sure to solve the problem.”

Diane: “Are you nuts? That won’t work. We’ll be getting further into debt every month.”

Fred: “Then I wonder why the Democrats want to do it?”

Brought to you by the Committee To Help Liberals Learn Math

The old saying goes something like, “When you see your enemy committing suicide, there is no reason to intervene”. Rep. Alan Grayson might be the best thing to happen to conservatives in a long time. Every time he appears on television, it is equivalent to the Democrats hiring Charles Manson as their national spokesman. He is so outrageously repulsive that any Democrat or left of center Independent can’t help but be embarrassed to be associated with any issue he supports. He is the poster boy for guilt by association. Because he is so repugnant, if you agree with anything he says, you look like a nut (by definition) and your election prospects plummet. The left blogs usually comment to the effect of “we need a few more like him” to which moderate Democrats cover their faces and pray no more come along and Republicans offer to buy him more time on the air. He is the Typhoid Mary of politics. Everyone marginally associated with him will suffer the wrath of reasonable voters.

Additionally, he is legislatively harmless since he essentially accomplishes nothing of substance in policy matters as a representative and makes any conservative’s (or almost anyone, for that matter) policies look sane by comparison. Grayson’s antics have the net effect of improving Republican prospects across the entire nation. Reasonable Democrats cringe when they see the -D after his name when he appears on television. He is what the military call a force multiplier. As long as he stays in public view, he can ensure Democratic losses in places he has never even seen for people he doesn’t even know. I believe it would be effective to run campaign advertisements in the fall that were only ten seconds long. All they need say is, “Barrack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, and best of all, Alan Grayson, are all Democrats. How are you voting?”

When O.J. Simpson nearly decapitated his wife and killed Ronald Goldman, the event happened in Brentwood, a very affluent area of Los Angeles. The subsequent circus trial and the nearly irrational acquittal of Simpson was made possible only by the decision of the Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti who, for politically correct reasons that only he could have understood, moved the trial to downtown Los Angeles. The change of venue of the trial changed the atmosphere, the jury, and (one could clearly argue) the outcome. The trial has now become the poster child for travesty of justice. As Charles Grodin once said (paraphrasing) “OJ’s blood was at the scene; Ron Goldman’s and Nicole Brown Simpson’s blood were in the white Ford Broncho. Why are we even having a trial?”

Flash forward to 2009. Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other 9-11 conspirators are going to be brought to New York for trial. This is the same KSM who admitted to planning the 9-11 attack and asked for the death sentence after admitting his guilt. There is not any question that he is guilty. He has already confessed. The question cannot help but be asked: What is the logic behind this decision?

Guilt or innocence: There is no doubt that KSM did that which he is accused of doing. Once again, he has already pled guilty to the crimes. Therefore there is no reason to even have a trial in open court. It wouldn’t be done for any other criminal who pled guilty to any crime (burglary, shoplifting, etc.). Additionally, what if the defendants were acquitted on a technicality? No one would let them go free. Therefore the trial won’t make any difference other than possibly giving them death sentences. I will point out again that the military tribunal could have done the same much more efficiently.

Financial cost: The City of New York has already asked for $75 million to cover security costs and anyone knows that is only a down payment.  The cost of using a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay would be to set up some chairs and tables. It is insane to spend that much tax money on a trial in which you supposedly already know the results. The cost doesn’t even take into consideration the inconvenience, disruption, and increased risk that will be present in New York City. Those costs haven’t even been factored in.

Constitutionality: The United States Supreme Court, after years of revisions, has approved the process of the military tribunals. Attorney General Holder has already indicated that the defendants from the USS Cole attack will be tried in military tribunals, so clearly there is no constitutional issue there. On top of that is the precedent set that a terrorist gets better treatment for killing innocent civilians than for attacking legitimate military targets. This is an attack on the basic internationally agreed-to laws of war. Holder’s logic is completely convoluted and doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Therefore, one has to ask, what could be the possible motivation for holding a trial in New York which is a security nightmare, not required constitutionally, will provide an open forum for jihadist propaganda, will cost an unnecessary fortune, and can only screw up the admitted guilt of the defendants?

One can only look at the alternatives: 1) Attorney General Holder has no idea what he is doing; or 2) There is a political agenda. As much as it appears alternative one is possible, the likely answer is number two. If it is the purpose of the administration to attempt to paint the Bush administration in a bad light, it would be much cheaper, be less of a security risk, and be more constitutionally sane to just spend some money on some bad publicity than to conduct a show trial which will inevitably be a travesty of justice. I suppose to an administration which proposes trillions in new spending, $75 million doesn’t seem like much money, anyway, but in a poor economy, it is.

So it looks like Eric Holder will become the new Gil Garcetti on steroids, screwing up an easy conviction of a clearly guilty defendant for political purposes.

There is a disturbing trend in the actions of the Obama administration when it comes to how they spend the money. There are many different examples which will highlight the trend.

First, the automobile industry bailout: Money was given to General Motors and Chrysler instead of allowing the companies to reorganize under a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Therefore, public money was taken from auto workers in the south whose average salary is about forty three dollars an hour and given to United Auto Workers members in Michigan whose average salary is about seventy one dollars an hour. The Obama administration portrayed the action as helping the General Motors and Chrysler corporations. In fact, a chapter 11 bankruptcy would have been much more advantageous as it would have allowed renegotiation of the labor contracts and would have relieved the pressure of legacy costs to the companies. In addition, secured creditors received something like twenty seven cents on the dollar while the UAW was given a major stake in General Motors despite having no guaranteed investment. The money was really a bail out of the United Auto Workers, not the companies. It hasn’t worked and the two companies have shown no signs of changing fortunes, despite the Cash for Clunkers program.

Second, the school voucher program in Washington, DC: The voucher program in Washington, DC cost about $7600 per student. The schools at which the voucher students attended had 90% higher scores in language tests and 95% higher scores in mathematics testing. The interesting paradox is that the Washington, DC public school system spends about $13,000 per student. The omnibus spending bill removed funding for the school voucher program. The Democrats, in their infinite concern for children, cancelled a program which cost taxpayers half as much and resulted in markedly better school performance. Why would they do that? The answer is easy. The teachers union has been paid off for supporting Democratic candidates in the election. The Democrats are willing to screw over poor children and their families in order to pay off the union.

Third, the stimulus construction projects: The stimulus bill passed by the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration has a provision that stipulates that stimulus construction projects have to pay union wages to workers on stimulus projects. Why would that provision be in the bill? After all, it would result in less money to do projects and the ones that are completed would cost more. The reason is easy. Governments don’t build roads and bridges, private contractors do. Those contracts are awarded by bid. A non-union company can submit a lower labor cost bid than a union company. The raw materials cost will be the same. Therefore, the non-union bid will generally be lower. This provision in the bill is expressly for the benefit of union contractors to receive stimulus money contracts for infrastructure. The unions will receive money but the taxpayers will get less infrastructure projects completed for their money.

Fourth, the “Employee Free Choice Act”: This piece of legislation is close to criminal. The rules would change and take away the right of workers to a secret union election ballot. To organize a union, all that organizers would need is 51% of employees to sign a card and the union would be installed. The cards would be public and the period of time to have them signed in unlimited. This is like the mob in Chicago in the 1930s. Union thugs intimidating workers is not progress. The intimidation may not even be the worst part of the bill. In the event of non-resolution of a union contract, after a set period of time the federal government will set wages. Hmmm… with the Democrats in power, I wonder whose side would be favored? Therefore, people who are intimidated into a union will have their wages set by the federal government. This is an economic disaster of the highest magnitude just waiting to happen. It will lead to companies closing because they are no longer profitable and revival of the union thugs who have essentially gone away due to people’s reluctance to embrace unions.

Fifth, in the proposed health care legislation, groups are given advantages when purchasing health care policies. Which groups? Groups of organized employees. Hmmm… who could that be? Unions, of course. Additionally, Democrats are trying to protect the substantial health care plans in place for union contracts.

There are more examples but the point should be clear by now. In all examples, it is easy to see the pay off to the various unions by the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration. It is brazen and open. It is also going to massively harm the United States economy and prevent recovery. A recent poll which asked people if they desired to have their jobs converted to union jobs had only 9% say yes and a resounding 83% say no. This is the Democratic version of the organized crime “protection” rackets and is disgusting.

I noticed that the Democratic Congress and Vice President Biden are talking up the results of the stimulus package. Everyone who paid attention knows that the stimulus package was not intended for stimulus or, if it was, it was only a peripheral goal. The idea of that package was to use the crisis to advance liberal programs which would not have been passed through the normal appropriations process. By bundling them up in the package, the Democrats could get a lot of their long stalled programs into law. It was a total scam. The President was told by his advisers that about $750 billion needed to be injected into the economy. He gave that figure to Speaker Pelosi who gave it to Rep. Obey. Obey went around and solicited every pet project any congressman ever wanted. That bucket of crap was the stimulus package.  President Obama used the Bill Clinton tactic of running as a moderate but has since shown his true colors as a far-left liberal. Let’s look at some of the fundamental differences in the philosophies between liberals and conservatives.

The overwhelming viewpoint of liberalism is arrogance. The view of liberals is that the population needs guidance and caring from the government. They are maternal in attitude. The liberals feel that the government has to be maternal because the liberal officials in government are so much smarter than the population. The fundamentals of conservatism include the concept that people can think and choose for themselves and that an individual or family will know better what they need for their own situation than program directors in the government. You will notice that states where there are large numbers of farmers, ranchers, and others who are used to living independently and making their own decisions are almost exclusively conservative and represented by conservative Republican or moderate Democrat officials. The states primarily in the north east and in the rust belt where people primarily live in large cities and depend more on government infrastructure tend to be Democratic. Much was made of the recent Democrat wins in 2008 but if you paid attention you would notice that a lot of the newly elected members of Congress were moderates, like Rep. Heath Shuler in North Carolina. I find the liberal attitude insulting and demeaning. The idea that someone who has never met me, knows nothing of my own or family situation, and has less education than I do, can tell me how to run my life because they are smarter than me is insulting and arrogant. The government is supposed to serve the people, not control their every day life. If you read the Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, it is clear that while there are clear reasons to have a strong central government (military, commerce, treaties, etc.), the Constitution is primarily there to define what government is NOT supposed to do. Liberalism thinks that the government should constantly guide your decisions because they know so much more than you do. It is offensive.

Both liberalism and conservatism attempt to improve the financial standing of the general population. There is a great difference in the ways that the two philosophies go about it. In general, conservatives feel that the road to economic success lies in opportunities and restricting the amount of personal or business income that the government takes from the population in the form of taxes. The idea is that people, when provided opportunity, will improve their own situations based on their merit and work ethic. By allowing individuals and businesses to achieve success based on their own ideas and effort, people have incentive to work harder and innovate. By allowing people to keep more of what they earn and by providing opportunities for people to succeed, those at the lower income levels can improve their situation with hard work. Liberals go about this differently. Liberals feel that people of lower incomes are “victims of the system”. The way that liberals will improve the plight of those at the lower end of the economic spectrum is to take income away from the upper income earners and give it to the lower income group. It is denigrating to those who would like to improve their situation on their own. It is tantamount to saying that those without success are incapable of achieving it on their own. It is a philosophy of victimhood and once again shows that the overarching liberal philosophy is that they are smarter than everyone else. Conservatives want to raise the lower end of the economic spectrum and liberals want to lower the upper end by giving their earnings to the lower end. They call it “fairness”. It is a disincentive to work and innovate. How many times have you heard someone say, “Why work? The government is going to take it, anyway.” Of course, the liberal philosophy leads to socialism and eventually communism. The only difference is how far you are willing to go.

Recent program proposals by the current administration are evidence of the differing philosophies. The proposal for government-run universal health care demonstrates the arrogance of the liberal elected officials. I have written a number of pieces about it. The idea is that in order to reduce costs, the government is now going to tell physicians how to practice and to take away the right of successful earners to individualize their coverage. It is demeaning. While everyone agrees that reduction of carbon emissions is a worth while goal, the last ten years have shown a cooling trend on the Earth. Despite data to the contrary, the current administration wants to put in place a “cap and trade” system which will substantially impact the American economy. Their justification is “global warming” despite all data to the contrary. It is because they are smarter than the scientists.

The real common thread of liberalism which differentiates the philosophy from conservatism is control. Everything about liberalism allows the government to obtain power over the population in their daily lives. Once again, the reason that they want that power is because they truly believe they are smarter than the population and therefore should tell the population how to live. If you look at the very populations that the liberals have identified as those they are “lifting up” in the last fifty years, there is little to no evidence that the liberal policies have done anything other than to further the dependence of those same people to government assistance. As examples, one needs only to look at the results of liberal policies in Detroit, Washington DC, etc. to see how much they have helped the population. It is a Bernie Madoff scam of the highest order. Conservatism allows people to be left alone and gives more individual freedom to the population and therefore cedes control away from the government.

The idea that people are incapable of taking care of themselves, working hard and earning based on their own merits is arrogant and insulting. I am constantly amazed how liberal politicians can routinely insult people and still manage to acquire their vote by buying them off. It certainly is easier to just sit back, claim to be a victim, and have the government give you some free money that someone else earned, than it is to work hard for yourself. The problem with that is that if enough people do it, no one is left to earn. Then the economy collapses and you end up in the Soviet Union. Conservatism is the philosophy which drove people from Europe to the United States and drove the movement of people during the western expansion of the United States. It is a fundamental quality of the American people which will prove popular if elected officials who purport to be conservative would actually govern as conservatives once they are elected.

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With education clearly on the decline in the nation’s public schools, one has to ask why it is happening. There is a movement afloat which began in the 1920s which theorized that there was too much information available to be taught and that new information was created at a rate that defied the ability to have it taught. The theory suggested that a better way to educate the young was to “teach them to think” rather than teach facts. Using that theory, mathematics, history, and science were placed on the back burner and “life skills” and “life adjustment” classes were prioritized. We have now had many years of those theories and to be honest, they suck. To paraphrase another writer, there is no use in being able to think if you have nothing to think about.

One could argue that the purveyors of those theories didn’t understand what was being taught in the first place. While it is true that most people not involved in science, engineering, finance, architecture, etc. don’t use higher mathematics on a regular basis, the theorists completely misunderstood mathematics education. While mathematics education does teach students how to manipulate and solve equations and problems, that is only one part of the class. More importantly, mathematics teaches students how to approach any problem rationally and to be careful in what assumptions you make. Problems need to be solved in a step-wise manner in which each step must be justified and not left to whim, chance, or assumption. Many times in mathematics, the real answer to a problem is not what the answer is intuitively. Additionally, when an answer is obtained using firm and true assumptions and steps based on correct technique, one can be confident that the solution is solid and reliable. This approach is valuable to almost everyone every day. Systematic problem solving is a valuable life skill and is arguably much more important than how you “feel” about the problem. As an aside, mathematics is important to the daily life of US citizens in that the current Congress certainly has demonstrated that they have no mathematics skills.

History classes tend to be criticized as rote memory of names and dates. If taught correctly, they are anything but that. The early history of the United States, for example, is a drama worthy of any novel or made for television movie. The founders of the United States were not homogenized in their views and goals. There was much consternation about splitting with Great Britain and even more dispute on the proper construction of the government once the revolution was won. The Constitution barely passed and was only passed in some states on the condition that the Bill of Rights was included. The study of those people tells students not only who those people were but what this country was intended to become. It tells why these people were willing to die to create a way of life where individuals, not a monarch, held sway over their own lives. The founders were real people with differing thoughts and goals, not caricatures on different currency denominations. To be able to take a side in a political discussion, educated citizens should not only understand current issues but how the country got to be where it is and what it was in the past.

Science, at its core, is the search for the truth. Scientists are sometimes accused of being amoral because they do not subscribe to determined agendas. The true scientist takes the data presented and analyzes the data to determine where the real truth lies. Real science is reproducible and does not change with varying researchers. That is why true science is “open source”. Conclusions are only valid when someone else can do the same work and get the same result. When there is disagreement, it is because the data is conflicting when studied by many, not because a political or financial agenda is overshadowing the work. The ability to remain objective and unbiased is a very useful skill in everyday life and is difficult to achieve without education. If anyone watches opinion shows or reads the newspaper, they will realize objectivity is a resource surely lacking.

Political leaders who have nefarious objectives have always sought to “dumb down” the population because it is much easier to mislead and take advantage of an ignorant mob than an educated population. Educated populations ask tough questions and demand accountability from the leaders. In a representative form of government, the government functions best and is predicated on having an educated people. The founders realized that.

The conservative political philosophy encourages individual decision making and liberty. The liberal political philosophy encourages elite groups of leaders to make decisions for the population in their best interest. The assumption is denigrating in that the people are presumed to be unable to decide issues for themselves. It is therefore in the interest of liberals to have the population less informed and less educated and, conversely, in the interest of conservatives to have the population better educated so better individual decisions will be made. It is easier to guide the population to the liberal elites’ interests if they are less informed and more dependent. The teachers unions are decidedly liberal, as evidenced by their devout support of liberal politicians. Perhaps that explains why the teachers unions oppose educational programs like the voucher program in Washington, DC which clearly produced better student results at half the taxpayer cost. Teachers colleges educate future teachers on the liberal 1920s theories of education and reinforce the “life skills” agenda. The old saying is “When you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging”. The current educational philosophy in the United States public schools has consistently shown itself to be a failure. Why not go back to what worked and teach people how to think while they actually learn some factual information? Consider it a bonus.

The administration continues to talk about the health care “crisis” and is prepared to spend over one trillion dollars to insure about 16 million people (of their estimated 40 million without insurance). That works out to about $62,500 per person. Why not just buy them a policy at a few thousand a year and save a bunch of money? Because that is not what this is about. I wrote an earlier article about the differences between the liberal and conservative philosophies and how the liberals always think they are smarter than everyone else and therefore want to determine how everyone else behaves and lives. Health care is the ultimate weapon of control. How can that be, you may ask? What is wrong with insuring people who have no health care now? Nothing, on the surface. Let’s look a little closer at some of the issues.

President Obama said he wants to remove waste and overcharging by physicians. This is a straw man argument. If the waste was there, why wait five years to go after it? There are already massive amounts of regulation and remedies for physicians who overcharge, in the way of both regulatory and criminal statutes. It is total nonsense to say new programs are needed. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services stated that she wanted to protect physicians from liability if they practiced within (paraphrasing) “accepted standards”. There in lies the rub. The entire idea here is that the government will financially twist the arms of physicians and hospitals to dictate care. They keep repeating the mantra that physicians should be in charge of medical care. Physicians will be free to make their own decisions. The only problem is that if the government disagrees, the physician doesn’t get paid. Sounds like Chicago in the 1920s. Capone would be proud.

The government in the United States has a several hundred year history of taking good intentions and totally screwing them up. One of the reasons for this is that they try to write centralized regulations for currently about 310 million people. It is impossible to do and consider individual circumstances. Even much simpler issues (drug policy, transportation, weapons, etc.) have varying circumstances in different states. What you end up with is exception after exception added to the rules until you have the United States tax code (which no one, even the Internal Revenue Service, understands).

If a doctor decides a patient needs a drug and the government wants the patient to get another one, no payment. If your doctor tells you that you need surgery and the government disagrees, pay for it yourself. Actuarial tables will be used to determine who gets what. If you are over a certain age, head on down to the Soylent Green plant because you aren’t getting anything that costs money.

But alas, it gets worse. Because the government decides who gets paid benefits and how much, it is easy to creep forward in logic. For example, if you engage in a dangerous activity (skydiving, scuba diving, bungee jumping, motorcycle riding, etc.) it is easy for the government to say you have to pay more for premiums because you have to be in the system. Okay. But it isn’t a big step to say, if you smoke or are overweight, the same thing applies. There is already use of cigarette taxes to fund stop smoking programs. Hmmm. If you stop in McDonalds, you will pay a surcharge to cover the health care cost of eating a cheeseburger or french fries. There can be a dessert tax. You can get a break depending on what kind of car you drive, what kind of groceries you buy, what kind of hypoallergenic make up you use, if you take vitamins, if you are in a monogamous relationship, or if you limit yourself to two beers at the Fourth of July picnic. But how can we tell who deserves these premium benefits and coverage additions? Well, clearly we have to keep track of what people are doing so the government will know who to benefit. The government can track your vehicle registration, your purchases at the grocery store, your exercise log, your sex partner registration, your fast food purchases, if you bought condoms, or if you ate a second piece of cake at the birthday party. “It’s for your own good. I am from the government and I am here to help you”.

Government will tell automobile manufacturers what kinds of vehicles they can make (already happening with General Motors). Government will determine which restaurants can stay open and what they can serve by imposing “unhealthy food” fees. Government will tell you which hobbies you can and cannot have and when you need to lose weight. They will tell you that it’s okay though, because, once again, it is for your own good. The justification is because anyone who is not liberal or progressive is too stupid to realize what is good for them individually. It is the government’s responsibility to make decisions for them. These people actually believe this.

It is easy to take those steps in logic, just like it was easy to go down the path of eugenics in Germany in the 1930′s. That didn’t work out very well. Is this something we really want to do? Like they said in The Incredibles, “When everyone is super, no one will be”. Take anyway people’s right to individual decisions about their life, and there is no freedom and some would argue that it isn’t a life worth living. We will become cattle. The very basis of this nation’s founding will have been killed. This is not about health care. It is about control.

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I was commenting on the health care issue in a discussion about the “right” to health care. A rhetorical question I ask is whether the government is allowed by the Constitution to force individuals to purchase health insurance?

Liberals almost always knee-jerk and state that the government requires auto insurance for all drivers. It is an apples/oranges comparison. You have no right to drive. You are granted the privilege to drive if you meet certain criteria. You must have adequate vision, demonstrate knowledge of traffic laws, and pass a practical operator’s test. Additionally, you have to have liability insurance in case you injure someone else or their property. You don’t have to have insurance against your own losses (collision/comprehensive). If you don’t meet those criteria, you do not attain the privilege.

I would argue that you do have a right to be alive and that the right is actually stated explicitly in the Declaration of Independence. The Democrats want to require everyone to purchase health insurance. Are individuals required to purchase insurance because they are alive? Is the penalty for not buying into the system forfeiture of your right to live? I am trying to think of anything that the Constitution requires any citizen to purchase. Answer: There is nothing. Since there is no way to require people to buy health insurance and have it pass a constitutional challenge, the Democrats want to get around this by paying for the entire system requiring health care coverage with tax revenues. Taxes are allowed to be collected by the Constitution. That is the reason that the Democrats want the “public option”.  If the Democrats attempt to force people to buy insurance on the market, they will lose in the Supreme Court. Therefore, they want a single payer system which they can control. Therefore, once again, this whole debate is exposed as a health care reform in name only. Controlling health care reimbursement allows the camel’s nose into every tent.

Recent political discussion has brought up the concept of the “right to health care”. It is the view of some folks that If there is something you need, you have a right to it. In order to have a “right”, first you need to understand what is meant by a right.

Let’s start with this example: if you are hungry, do you have a right to food? You certainly do need it to survive. However, a right implies that someone cannot take it away from you and, more importantly for this discussion, that someone is obligated to provide that right to you. In the current political discussion, that someone is the US government. So, getting back to food, if you are able to work and provide for yourself but choose to sit in a lounge chair on your front porch, does the government have an obligation to bring you meals? I am not talking about someone who is affirmed or disabled, but rather about someone who expects assistance because of the “right” to food. Obviously, there is no right to food. If you can provide for yourself, you are expected to do so.

Do you have a right to a residence? We certainly don’t want homeless people wandering the streets but if someone is capable of providing for his/herself, does the government have an obligation to house that person? Once again, I am not talking about affirmed/disabled people. The answer is obvious, of course not. You do have a right to not be subject to discrimination in buying or leasing a residence, but there is no “right” to have a residence supplied to you.

Alexander Hamilton in 1775, said: “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

The beginning of the Declaration of Independence reads “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…”

Seems pretty straightforward, I suppose. The idea, in both quotations is that rights are not granted by people or governments, they are things which cannot be taken away.  Some rights are specified in the US Constitution (more about that below) but the source of those rights is not the government, they are only specified in the documents. There are times when individual rights are balanced against the community’s because it is necessary in a civilized society.

You would think the life part would be pretty simple in that no one can kill you. However, it can get complicated. For example, there is the question of what constitutes life. Are fetuses considered a human life? Not to abortion proponents but yes to opponents of abortion. If someone’s heart is beating but the upper brain is not functioning, are they alive? Legally, the answer is no even if they can continue physical existence without assistance for a period of time. The protection of your right to life is an obligation of the state. However, in death penalty cases, someone’s right to life is taken away by the state. In those cases, it is the considered judgment of the state that the crime committed was so heinous that taking away the individual’s life is justified for the protection of society as a whole.

Liberty is a little tougher. The old saying is that your right to swing your fist ends at my face. Allowing individual liberty must be balanced with the good of society. The first amendment protects free speech but not speech inciting violence or endangering the public. Per the second amendment, individuals have the right to bear arms but those arms do not include things like cannons, 500 pound bombs or other mass destruction weapons. You can have consensual sex with pretty much anyone you want but not with children. Believe it or not, in many states, it is legal to have sex with animals. In Oregon, it is not a law violation to be in public nude, even in the presence of children. Liberty as a specified right cannot be taken away unless your exercise of that liberty is deemed sufficiently harmful to society as a whole. Those specific limits to individual liberties have been litigated for as long as the United States has existed, and continue today. Some liberties have even been stretched a bit. Nude dancing in strip clubs has been interpreted as free speech. I think if people want to strip nude and dance in an indoor club out of the view of anyone except those who went there to specifically see the dancers, more power to them. But calling that free speech is a stretch.

I have always found, the phrase “pursuit of happiness” pretty vague. To take away someone’s pursuit of happiness is then also a vague proposition. We clearly don’t want to do it but don’t know exactly what it is.

Other specified rights are included in the Constitution; protection against unreasonable search and seizure, the ability to practice the religion of choice; petitioning the government for grievances; freedom of the press; no quartering of soldiers in private homes in peace time; no self-incrimination, a speedy trial, etc. However, what is important to realize is that the Bill of Rights really specifies what the government can’t do to citizens rather than what it can.

With that as a preamble, is there a right to health care? Just like food, people can certainly need it, at times. As opposed to food, a majority of the time, most people don’t need it. While no one wants people to die from non-treatment of curable conditions, I revert to the previous example. If someone is perfectly capable of providing care for him/herself and chooses not to, does the rest of society have an obligation to give them a free ride? Once again, I am not talking about people who cannot fend for themselves. If health care is a “right” then the government has an obligation to care for those who can afford to take care of themselves and choose not to. I have a tough time swallowing that argument. If you are ninety seven years old with peripheral artery disease, poor cardiac function, obstructive pulmonary disease, etc., and you fall and break your hip, does the government have to provide you a hip replacement? I am not talking about whether it is risky but rather is it a right? If you choose not to wear a motor cycle helmet or seat belt despite a law requiring it, do you have a right to taxpayer-funded health care if you choose not to buy insurance for yourself? If you gorge yourself up to 600 pounds and cannot leave your bed, does the government have to pay for your care or gastric bypass? If you choose to become a heroin addict and contract hepatitis via an infected needle, do you have a right to free health care from the government?

I think is a rightful role of government to help the those who cannot help themselves due to disability or impairment but that if you have the ability to provide for yourself and do not choose to do so, you are on your own. Therefore, there is no “right” to health care and those who argue for it are doing so out of a desire to have everything provided to them without effort. Of course, if enough people go that route, no one produces anything and there is no care for anyone.