Where has our liberty gone?

They came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
They came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
They came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.
- Martin Niemoller


It would be quite easy to modernize this but I won't, it conveys the same deep meaning now as it did when it was written in the 1940's. Bit by bit, generation to generation our liberty has been quietly stolen. Others with no right to it have come to power under pretenses which were either noble but misguided or outright false and taken things away from us that were not theirs to take. Liberty is something that cannot be touched, tasted or smelled, but when it is gone its absence is obvious.
Think of the "evil" smokers and how they are not allowed to smoke in their own apartments in California, not because the property owner restricts it (which was their option all along) but because an overreaching state government passed a law restricting what they could do behind closed doors. And how was California able to get away with it? Because most folks don't smoke now days and don't care what is done to smokers because it doesn't affect them. An even better example is the laws in some states against sodomy. I know sodomy is still illegal in Texas and Pennsylvania to name 2. Step past the immediate thoughts of the gay rights debate and look at the larger issue... These governments are regulating what 2 consenting adults can do behind closed doors in their own home on their own property. If that is acceptable then what is to stop them from forcing us to install remote control devices in our thermostats so the state can regulate our energy use (in other words how warm or cold our homes are)? That is something the California State Assembly is actually trying to pass right now. Or to use the ridiculous to make my point why then can't the government create and enforce a law requiring the interior walls of all homes and apartments to be painted baby blue? Once we as a society allow our state and federal governments to dictate the goings-on inside our private property the sky is the limit.
Time and again these laws slip in because they seemingly only effect a small percentage of the populations and we Americans have a track record of being terribly short sighted and when it comes to our voting horribly self centered. Though I do not see a Nazi-style genocide in our future, I do fear the slow onset of a totalitarian regime as we pass law after law and regulation after regulation that mirror those put in place by dictators such as Hitler and Stalin. Don't wait until "they" come for you and there is no one left to speak out.

Losing the right to live

One of the current government proposals which scares me the most and really should scare everyone else is government run health care. Think about it for a moment, I mean really think about it. Our founders declared that we were "endowed by our creator" with the rights of "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and that these were "inalienable". Government run health care would essentially eliminate the most important of those three. Without life you cannot enjoy any of your other constitutionally guaranteed rights. When the government has ultimate say in which if any medical treatments and medications a person can receive and at what point an individual will cease to receive care can we really say we still have our right to life? Many right wing commentators have referred to "government death panels" and been accused of using "scare tactics" but what else do you call it? When the government has a panel of doctors (or more likely some computer program that runs cost-benefit calculations) decide whether or not the life of a person is worth the monetary amount it would cost to preserve it and that panel has the power to deny the individual the needed life saving care will we really still have our right to life? The current proposal has a provision banning insurance companies from writing new policies thereby eliminating the option for the individual to opt out and secure medical care for themselves and their families.

Where in the constitution does it say that the federal government even has the authority to implement such a program. I've read the constitution a few times and I've never seen the right to free medical care in there at all! We are given the freedom to make our own choices and it is up to each citizen to decide how best to care for themselves and their families medical needs. Whether they choose to purchase health insurance or pass on insurance and take their chances paying out of pocket is up to them. We are assured the government will establish and maintain armed forces to protect us from invasion and insurrection not that the federal government will establish programs to protect us from our own poor planning or stupidity. Why is it that adults who would be insulted if someone suggested they needed to be told how to get dressed or go to the bathroom seem more than willing to have some politician in Washington D.C. tell them how to live their lives?

The constitution places very specific limited power in the hands of the federal government but defines the rights of the states thus: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people" -the 10th amendment. This means that while the federal government does not have the authority to institute a national socialized health care system the state governments are free to do it. Why is it that none have? It is the beauty of our republic that if for example Ohio wanted to institute a "free" state run health care system they could and Montana's voters are free to decide not to go that same route and continue to leave health care mostly to the private sector. And if I think that any form of socialized health care is destined to lead to a drastically lower quality of care and life, which I do, then I am free to leave Ohio and move to Montana where the government is more in line with my views. We are an extremely diverse nation in what we believe but our Constitution allows for that!

The federal government needs to quit inventing for itself authority that it does not have under the Constitution and stay the heck out of my hospital room!

The Constitution says what now?

It is a source of constant amazement to me the way literate people who have ample ability to read the U.S. constitution seem to have no idea what it says. In fact it seems that few or perhaps none of the people occupying positions in any of the three branches of our government have ever read our founding documents. People, politicians, and Supreme Court justices alike reinterpret the Constitution and Bill of Rights in such ways as to drastically change the intended meaning of the original words. Other times phrases and clauses are attributed to the Constitution that are simply not there. The most common one that comes to mind being the oft cited 'seperation of church and state' which an alarmingly large number of people seem to think is something our founders put into the Constitution to save citizens from ever having to see or hear anything the least bit faith related anywhere other than inside a place of worship. Our founders knew what they were doing when establishing the structure of their new nation. Their writings as well as the Constitution and Bill of Rights themselves make clear the founders intent and the rules by which the United States is to be goverened. Why is it that as a nation our knowledge of our own constitutional rights is so poor that, as we are losing them one by one, we are oblivious to it?