The path to serfdom

To the Editors:

If you think the House of Representatives’ March. 21 vote to pass the so-called “Affordable Health Care for America Act” (AHCAA) was a major leap down the road to serfdom for the United States, you would be correct.

But if you think the AHCAA’s passage means the battle is over, you’ve got another think coming: “State lawmakers and attorneys general already are lining up to challenge its constitutionality and wage an outside-the-beltway war against it in the courts.” (“Health care reform fight shifts from Congress to the courts,” Foxnews.com, March 22.)

The AHCAA, a gargantuan, 1,990-page mass of mind-cracking, virtually unreadable gobbledygook(see for yourself:http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf),is already being challenged by more than three dozen state legislatures and by 11 state attorneys general as of this writing. Most of the challenges center on the health care requirement clause which, to “ensure shared responsibility,” mandates that all individuals obtain coverage or pay fines, under the threat of jail, of up to 2.5% of their income.

The White House, as you would expect, is pooh-poohing such challenges, asserting its confidence in the Supreme Court to justify the AHCAA on the grounds of the Constitution’s commerce clause.

Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, however, has a contrary view: “If a person decides not to buy health insurance, that person by definition is not engaging in commerce. If you are not engaging in commerce, how can the federal government regulate you?” How indeed?Nor is resistance to the AHCAA limited to the governing bodies of the states, for most of us individual citizens, disgusted with the blatant ramrod-style4 power-tactics employed in its passage, are fed up as well – and Tea Party leaders, now intent on running the Democrats who voted for it out of Congress, are finding a massive groundswell of grassroots support for that endeavor: “‘I am deluged with phone calls this morning from people wanting to join the Tea Party,’ said Gina Loudon, a founder of the St. Louis Tea Party…‘This has absolutely awoken a giant.’” (“Tea Partiers to Congressional Democrats: You’ll pay in November,” Foxnews.com, March 22.)

For make no mistake about it, folks, this issue is about far more than the mere subjugation of health care; it is much wider and deeper than that. It is nothing less than a federal takeover of your right to engage in free trade as you please with whom you please, which means: it is an assault on your fundamental liberty to exist and function as a human being, which means: an assault on your right to live your life for your own sake, without the good you might be doing for others acting as a justification for your continued existence (“ensuring shared responsibility”).

That whirring sound you hear? That’s the Founding Fathers spinning in their graves as they witness the devolution of America, once the “Land of the Free,” into Amerika, “Land of the Insured at the Point of a Gun.”

Despite the fact that passage of this bill proves the federalies now regard the 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights as fiction and “representative” government “for the people and by the people” as a joke, however, not all is lost as of yet: well over half of the States of the Union are rising up in virtual rebellion and revolution is brewing in every corner of the country.

How long are the rest of you going to sit on your butts while the sweet, sickening chains are wrapped around you?

Will you wait until the federal slavers tell you where you can work next? Or where you can travel? Will you finally rebel then? Or will you wait until they toast the 4th Amendment as well? How about the 2nd? How about the 1st? At what point do you finally recognize a raw power-grab when you see it happening right before your eyes?

Better stop and think about it; consider your words and actions carefully indeed. For, if you decide to wait until the jack-booted thugs are kicking in your doors – well, by then, I’m afraid, it’s just too late.

Or do you prefer to die as boot-licking sycophants, wearing your chains?

– Bradley Harrington,

via email

What’s wrong with Israel?

Dear Editors,

What in the world is wrong with Israel and why do they continue to flaunt international law in continuing to expand their “settlements,” which is nothing more than continuing to steal Palestinian land? Do they think the world is blind? Have they themselves somehow gotten into a strange form of the Stockholm Syndrome wherein they treat people the way the so-called Third Reich treated them? I think so or close. And the Israelis seem to have the same amount of respect for the U.S. President as they do Palestinians. Even that murderous pig Osama Bin Laden has said a stop to those settlements could begin the peace process.

Irregardless, they’re dead, dead wrong (the Israelis) in perpetuating this fraud. OK, I’ll end here before I’m tempted to really rant. But let me leave you with one observation –  Two to 300 people have no business facing the possibility of dying in an explosion over Detroit in order to support Israel’s incursions ... and their impervious attitude not just toward this black president that they refuse to listen to but any and ALL American presidents for 25 years. Excuse me? Just who in the hell do they think they are? Not for censorship purposes but just to make sure I remain balanced in this, I always check with my Jewish intellectual friends and professors at the University of Chicago and to a man (and woman) they agree with me. We must stop supporting Israel’s treachery today.

– Grant D. Cyrus,

via e-mail

Blogging against Red McCombs

Dear Editors,

I started a new website because I believe that We the People need a tool for rationally explaining why the speculative Village at Wolf Creek project near the Great Divide should be scrapped in favor of returning that land to a protected nature conservancy status. “NO - Village at Wolf Creek.blogspot.”

I have added what information I felt I could. However, there are many other problems with the Village at Wolf Creek regarding wildlife habitat and migration corridors. Then, there is that unique fens area and the rest of the wetlands network up there. There is also infrastructure and highway access and more.

I can’t speak to those issues with any authority. But, some of you out there can. Please check out http://no-villageatwolfcreek.blogspot.com. It needs more real-world information, can you offer some concise descriptions/arguments regarding unmentioned aspects of the VWC plans that deserve a skeptical eye?

– Sincerely, Peter Miesler,

via e-mail