Price controls are a problem because they are historically unrealistic and, over the long run, produce shortages. When a company is forced to sell an item at a price below the cost of production, distribution, and profit they stop producing—resulting in a shortage. Price controls also cause shortages through overconsumption. Thomas Sowell in Basic Economics (pg 29) tells of wealthy people who did not even live in the city holding on to apartments covered under New York’s rent control laws. This reduced the number of apartments available for the poor who were supposed to benefit from the laws.

When one of the agents is the government, negotiated prices are price controls with a less offensive name. Control is negative and implies a use of force. Negotiation sounds warm and fuzzy, sitting down over coffee and biscotti, and seeking what is best for both parties. In order for a negotiation to be effective, and balanced, each must have something to offer and negotiate from an equal footing. When one agent is far more powerful than the other, negotiation quickly gives way to demand. How is anyone, other than a separate sovereign nation, to negotiate with the US government? This is not possible because the government will set the terms of the negotiation. This will quickly degenerate to hidden price controls along with the resulting shortages.

What our healthcare system needs is a healthy dose of free market economics. Our system has been under the boot of big government for too long; Mr. Obama and his cronies in the Congress want us to believe the solution is adding the other boot.

Though changes have been made due to outrage, the lesson plans accompanying the speech originally included having the children write letters describing how they could help the president. While other presidents saw the value of inspiring children to stay in school, President Obama seems to have no problem using this as a tool for an American Jungvolk. Now, I know he did not write the speech, nor did he create the lesson plans to go with it, but the sycophants he surrounds himself with have shown no reticence to presenting him as the Messiah and Deliverer and he shows no sign of reigning them in.

No other president in modern times has demonstrated such a propensity for forceful expansion of government influence. He has increased government power in the financial industry through bailing out companies that were faltering largely due to liberal congressional meddling. Before long the opportunity came to seize control of a huge portion of the American auto industry. Once powerful GMC was bailed out with a huge chunk of the stock in the hands of the government after years of being pillaged by excessive union demands—unions that backed Obama and his cronies.

I’m not an apocalyptic conspiracy theorist, so I do not believe in an orchestrated attempt to get the nation to this point so at the right moment Barak Hussein Obama could bring us into some near future dictatorship. Please don’t regale me with your theories of the Illuminati or the Trilateral Commission or the Council on Foreign Relations. Neither do I want to hear misguided theories about how Obama is the Antichrist. Such discussions are useful for inspiring fear but have little use in meaningful and useful political discourse.

What I do see is a man who seems to have believed his own press. He seems willing to do whatever it takes to expand government influence (with him at the reigns) into all areas of our lives. Whether it is indoctrinating children to seek ways to support him—not the country, not the Constitution, but him personally— or taking control of industry, redistributing wealth from the productive to the unproductive, determining who gets paid what or bankrupting our children, grandchildren and beyond, his opinion of himself shows through.

Mr. Obama, my children and I do not need a Messiah. We already have one. You are the president which means you have been hired by the American people. Just as you can be hired, you can be fired. It is my greatest hope that in the next Congressional election the teeth of your presidency (control of both houses of Congress) will be lost. In the next presidential election hopefully the American people will tire of their venture into political idolatry and will send you back to Chicago.

For too long we have been quiet and polite. While the left has shouted us down with vitriol and hatred we have politely stood by—too busy punching the clock and feeding for our families. Now the federal government is coming after those we love—the elderly and infirm—with a program that worsens their care while muddling ours and saddles our employers with much of the cost. It is time those who love this country and believe as the founders did that the worst enemy of freedom is a large intrusive government to act as the founders would have. Politics in the founding generation were far from gentle or genteel. In the days of Jefferson and Adams politics was a contact sport.

For the last few years there have been calls for bipartisanship and getting along from many of the more lily livered segments of our society. I have always responded to these calls by pointing out that the founders intended that our political system involve a verbal blood bath every two years or so to prevent a literal one every twenty years. We are the only nation with over 230 years of self-rule with only one instance of turning to guns and bombs to settle an issue. This alone should be proof that such a divisive, mean and abusive system works. Some out there will point out that the founders were opposed to political parties and will quote from Washington’s Farewell Address his views on the “baneful effects of the spirit of party.” I get sick of hearing these arguments because those making them overlook history. The same founders who spoke against political parties quickly found parties essential. Even Washington, who tried to appear above such, was more aligned with Hamilton’s Federalists than Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans.

People, it is time to take off the gloves and bloody our knuckles. It’s time to take to the streets and shout about what is being done to our nation. Leave Miss Manners behind and go after those who would reduce our nation to despotism. Of course we don’t want blood or physical violence and rather than running the left down with pitchforks and torches we will run them out with the ballot box. However, if we do not make our voices heard this great experiment in peaceful self-government will end in a blood bath as those who love freedom are forced to fend for themselves against a government who in an attempt to provide all physical needs find it necessary to rob its people of property and liberty. A peaceful future requires us to act and do so now.

We often hear about those without insurance and that they are unable to get basic health care. It is actually illegal for a hospital emergency room to not render aid and care for life and limb. These patients will sometimes find their costs covered by government programs, but often the hospital is forced to pass these costs on to other patients. Most of these people are honest people who simply have not been able to afford coverage, but those who defraud the system are a huge problem—giving false identification to prevent collection. My family and I went for many years without health coverage. We still managed to get very good care for an assortment of problems. Sometime we made payments and other times there was help from private charities.

Another claim is the number of people unable to afford healthcare. What about the people in that statistic who can afford it but choose instead to spend their money elsewhere? I purchase health insurance because it is important to safeguard my family. To do this I give up other things I could spend the money on. Many who claimed to be unable to afford insurance have cell phones, good sized homes, new cars and cable TV. Some of these people actually have insurance offered by their employer but they elect to do without preferring to risk a high cost and hoping the government will do it for them. People electing to do without insurance should be excluded from these studies and be left to their own devices when there is a medical emergency. You have a right to be stupid and if you are stupid enough to elect to be uncovered then you should deal with the consequences—rather than casting them upon the fed, the state, the doctor or your fellow citizens.

Barack Obama has claimed that under his system there would be no mandatory switch from private to public insurance. He proposes a government system that would compete with private coverage. It is claimed that this would keep market forces at work in healthcare to drive down costs. Imagine running a business with a competitor across the street. Competition is good for both businesses and for the customer so long as it is honest competition. However, if one company has unlimited resources and no need to turn a profit then there is no true competition (consider the Post Office). Add to this the power that the government has to regulate the industry and you now find a a private individual competing against a monstrosity that easily absorbs the highest of costs while driving other’s costs up through regulation.

Private insurance companies and their clients will find themselves, through taxation, underwriting the public system that they compete against. The private companies will have higher costs from regulation and higher taxes to subsidize the wasteful government system they compete against. Families who choose to pay for their own coverage will discover that in addition to the cost of their own insurance they are expected to pay (taxation again) for those who choose to join the government system.

The losers in this system will be the American people as they see coverage choices dry up. Companies that now offer insurance will find themselves forced out. Employers who offer coverage will find it cheaper to pass that cost along to the government and stop offering health benefits. Workers who receive medical coverage as part of their retirement package will see those go away in favor of pushing them onto the government system.

While discussing back and forth the pros and cons of a government healthcare system, few are pointing out that the federal government has no power to interfere with the healthcare system. This is an affront to the limited government intended by the founders. The federal government was limited to certain powers and responsibilities. Anything outside of these is an issue for the people themselves or the states. We are never going to see a return to constitutional government and the freedoms it guarantees unless we begin telling our elected officials to stay within the scope of their duties. So join me in telling Mr. Obama and the Hip-pocket Congress: “Hands off my health care!”

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Those elected to represent a congressional district answer to their people first (as the sovereign body) and then to the people’s document—the Constitution. The founders knew a strong central government was needed to deal with foreign nations and ensure a strong union between the states, but they feared a federal government without restrictions. Besides establishing the branches of our federal government and defining its relationship to the states and the people the main emphasis of the Constitution is to restrain this new leviathan. For example, the navy is a permanent fixture, provided for in the constitution, while the army must be funded with new legislation every two years. The founders, in effect, placed a sunset clause on something as essential as an army to protect the people from abuse by their own leaders.

The powers of the Congress seem expansive and over the last few generations the federal government has slowly constricted its tentacles upon every area of American life. However, the only power they have is the powers we delegate to them. John Locke in his Second Treatise on Government (135) says:

“First [the legislature] is not, nor can possibly be, absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the people. For it being but joint power of ever member of the society given up to that person or assembly which is legislator . . .”

The power held by Congress is limited to the power we give them. Actions going beyond this endowment illegally violate our rights. These limits are laid out in the Constitution. Locke goes on in that same section to tell us that the powers we give are not only limited by the terms under which we give them, but are also limited to powers that we ourselves possess in a state of nature. Since I have no right to seize my neighbor’s property without just recompense, I have no right to empower the legislature to do this.

Thankfully, the state governments are beginning to see the light and to make legislative demands that the federal government withdraw to its intended legal limits, but this does not absolve the people. We must defend our own Constitution. It is our document, our government and our sovereignty that is being wielded unjustly. We must stop them. But how? First, be educated. Learn the Constitution, get a copy of it and read it. Many organizations, like the Heritage Foundation will give you a free copy. Study history and government, both ours and others. Speak with your kids to teach them why we as Americans do not trust our government and instill this proper distrust in them. Examine your children’s history books and correct the lies they are fed. In this way you will raise kids unfit for slavery. Recognize abuse for what it is and speak out. Beyond this hold your representative responsible and finally whenever the polls are open vote. Your vote should not be just for party but for the constitution, demanding that candidates, even your party’s own, answer constitutional questions intelligently and effectively before you support them.

A loose interpretation of the Constitution is a common tool of movements and politicians to circumvent the difficult process of amendment and prevent a Judicial overturn of popular programs. When striving to create a program or policy in violation of the Constitution it is far easier to reinterpret the Constitution than to amend it. This reinterpretation is made possible by the intricacies of language; languages naturally change over time. New words come in; archaic words drop out; several words change meaning or nuance—even taking on the opposite meaning. This makes it possible for a person to read an old document, frozen in linguistic time, and to use new meanings to either change or cloud the original intent.

Reinterpretation in this way violates the founders’ intent by making the government subservient to the language. The founders created a precise document laying out limits and powers because they had already lived under an “unwritten” Constitution. England’s Constitution was a collection of Common Laws, many unwritten and only supported by precedence. Rights under the English Constitution are legislated—defined and protected by the laws. Rights under our Constitution are ordained—recognized as coming from God and inviolable. In a fluid Constitution there is no protection for rights, because as needs change the interpretation changes and the laws change, what was a right yesterday may be legislated or interpreted away.

Only a strict interpretation based on the original intent of the founders will protect our rights and freedoms. A fluid Constitution is impossible to support or follow because, like nailing Jell-O to the wall, it is a moving target without structure or permanent definition. One simple consideration is oaths of allegiance. In other countries soldiers take an oath to the monarch, to the government or perhaps to the nation itself. When an American soldier takes the oath of service he begins by swearing to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” This document that every soldier swears to defend is not the piece of parchment it is written on—though it is of great value. The Constitution is the words written on it and, according to the nature of written language, the meaning of those words. If we adopt new meanings words and reject the original intent then the document is put into flux. In this type of a scenario the document I swore to defend in my enlistment in 1984 could be a very different document from the one I swore to defend at my re-enlistment in 1988. In its most extreme exercise the document one swears to defend may cease to exist the next day or next minute.

Our nation has been served well for two centuries by a document that has stood the test of time. While demonstrating peaceful government of the people, the US Constitution has inspired scores of nations to demand and secure their own freedom. The only threat to our Constitution is from within. If we allow our elected officials to get away with changing the Constitution to support whatever feels good or gets votes, then we have destroyed the very foundation upon which our freedoms stand.

The Constitution mandates an enumeration of the population of the United States every ten years. This count is used to layout the districts represented in the House. By placing the census under his control he could potentially fiddle with the numbers. Many will counter that he would never do that. I hope they’re right but our system of government is designed to assume the worst. We have checks and balances because power corrupts and the people need protection from those who would trample on the rights of their fellow citizens. The founders understood that Washington would be the best candidate for the first president. Washington himself understood that this office was most likely going to be offered to him and it was the only part of the Constitution that he took an active roll in crafting. Even with one as impeachable as Washington in office the framers of the Constitution chose to keep his power in check.

President Obama needs to understand that even the appearance of wrongdoing must be avoided. This action looks like an effort to circumvent electoral protections. We are a nation of partisans who stand for our rights and assume others want to take them. A couple of years ago I was speaking to a friend from New Zealand. He shared his surprise at American gun ownership and the way we vociferously defended it. I explained to him that though both our nations were of English origin, our founding experiences and the traits they bred within our peoples are different. They trust their government to do the right thing. Parliament is seen as the people’s voice and a bulwark against abuse by the sovereign. In our history, parliament was part of the problem and instigators or supporters of many abuses. We trust the government only within the bounds we have placed upon it. For this reason we insist on our right to bear arms in case it becomes necessary for the people to force the government back into ts prescribed limits. We are a revolutionary nation every watchful of those who could undermine the Constitution.

Mr. Obama, you are our legally elected president and as a result we must distrust you—it is part of who we are. It is your job to earn our trust. So far you have failed miserably. Grabbing the Census, forcing through a huge pet spending package under the guise of stimulus, appointing one who didn’t pay his own taxes to collect ours and picking an international spokesperson (Secretary of State Hillary) whose husband made millions from foreign nations causes us to doubt your character and intentions.