By Anthony Gregory
December 15 is neglected by most Americans for its historical significance as the anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Even worse, American politicians neglect the actual Bill of Rights on a day-to-day basis.
Whether or not the Bill of Rights can ever be an effective means of limiting the government is open to debate. However, the Bill of Rights does offer a fairly good outline of a free society, and it shows how far our country has strayed.
In an America with a full respect for the Bill of Rights, there would be no Federal Communications Commission regulating the airwaves and forbidding certain speech, no Federal Election Commission limiting how much Americans can donate to political candidates or what they can say in independent political ads, no Food and Drug Administration harassment of pharmaceutical and wine producers regarding their commercial speech, no federal laws that have anything to do with religion whatsoever, and no federally established "free-speech zones."
There would be no federal laws disarming Americans, prohibiting airlines from allowing pilots or passengers to carry guns on planes, or limiting how much ammo or what kind of firearms people can buy and own.
There would be no Patriot Act, no secret searches, no spying on telecommunications without a warrant.
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Statement Introducing the Free Competition in Currency Act
By Ron Paul
Madame Speaker, I rise to introduce the Free Competition in Currency Act of 2009. Currency, or money, is what allows civilization to flourish. In the absence of money, barter is the name of the game; if the farmer needs shoes, he must trade his eggs and milk to the cobbler and hope that the cobbler needs eggs and milk. Money makes the transaction process far easier. Rather than having to search for someone with reciprocal wants, the farmer can exchange his milk and eggs for an agreed-upon medium of exchange with which he can then purchase shoes.
This medium of exchange should satisfy certain properties: it should be durable, that is to say, it does not wear out easily; it should be portable, that is, easily carried; it should be divisible into units usable for every-day transactions; it should be recognizable and uniform, so that one unit of money has the same properties as every other unit; it should be scarce, in the economic sense, so that the extant supply does not satisfy the wants of everyone demanding it; it should be stable, so that the value of its purchasing power does not fluctuate wildly; and it should be reproducible, so that enough units of money can be created to satisfy the needs of exchange.
Over millennia of human history, gold and silver have been the two metals that have most often satisfied these conditions, survived the market process, and gained the trust of billions of people. Gold and silver are difficult to counterfeit, a property which ensures they will always be accepted in commerce. It is precisely for this reason that gold and silver are anathema to governments. A supply of gold and silver that is limited in supply by nature cannot be inflated, and thus serves as a check on the growth of government. Without the ability to inflate the currency, governments find themselves constrained in their actions, unable to carry on wars of aggression or to appease their overtaxed citizens with bread and circuses.
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Read more: Statement Introducing the Free Competition in Currency Act
Get Them the Hell Out Of There
By Todd Trahan
There is ample evidence to come to a rightful and just conclusion that a large majority of our elected officials in Washington are not only un-Patriotic but un- American as well. What is Patriotic about sinking this country and its following generations into a debt that may never be able to be paid, most of it to a Communist Country? What is American about politicians that sit in DC and conduct themselves so irresponsibly that we scratch our heads in utter wonderment as we watch them spend more taxpayer dollars on another earmark or pet project? The unconstitutionality of the current set of politicians from the White House on down is unprecedented in our history as a nation. One could certainly point to incompetence. One could also rest his judgment on a purposeful agenda that is designed to have America depart from her constitutional roots. The list could go on and on.
In the movie “Saving Private Ryan” we see the Chief of Staff of the Army- General George Marshall and 3 Advisors in an office as Marshall informs the others about the fate of a family. Three brothers have been killed and there is only one left alive – they hope. Marshall informs the Advisors of his desire to go and find the 4th son and bring him back home so his mother will not lose all of her sons. The Advisors start to speak of how difficult it may be to accomplish this task.
The Chief of Staff goes behind his desk and pulls out a letter and reads it. It is from Abraham Lincoln and it is addressed to a mother, Mrs. Bixby of Boston, who had lost 3 sons in the Civil War. You hear then President Lincoln express his inadequate words of consolation to a mother who had lost so much for the cause of freedom. Marshall then looks up at these men and says these words. “If that boy's alive, we’re gonna send someone to find him - and we’re gonna get him the hell out of there.”
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NATIONALIZING OUR WELL BEING
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Perhaps no notion is more closely tied to national health insurance than the idea of equal access to health care. Every prime minister of health in Britain, from the day the National Health Service started, has said equal access is the primary goal of the NHS. Similar things are said in Canada and in other countries. The British government—unlike most other governments—studies the problem from time to time to see what kind of progress they’re making.
In 1980, they had a major report that said, essentially: “We really haven’t made very much progress in achieving equality of access to health care in our country. In fact, it looks like things are worse today, in 1980, than they were 30 years ago when the British National Health Service was started.” Everybody deplored the results of that report, and they all promised to do better. There were a lot of articles written, a lot of conferences, and a lot of discussions. Another 10 years passed and they pondered another report, which said that things had deteriorated further. Today we are long overdue for a third report, but no one expects the situation to have improved.
It’s true that racial and ethnic minorities are under served in the United States. But we are hardly alone. In Canada, the indigenous groups are the Cree and the Inuits. In New Zealand, they are Maoris. In Australia, the Aborigines. Those populations have more health care problems, shorter life expectancies, higher infant mortality, more health care needs, and they get less health care. When health care is rationed, racial and ethnic minorities do not usually do well in the rationing scheme.
A Canadian study showed vast inequalities among the health regions of British Columbia. In some cases, there were spending differences of 10 to 1 in services provided in one area compared to another. That probably would not surprise most health policy analysts; you just don’t usually get this kind of data. But if we had the data, we would probably find similar inequalities in access to health care all over the developed world. When people have to make decisions about who is going to get care and who is not, they frequently choose the younger patient. Surveys of the elderly show that senior citizens in the United States say it’s much easier to get surgery, see doctors, see specialists, and enter hospitals, than say seniors in other countries.
To think that everyone is going to get the same treatment in a national health care system is both foolish and somewhat naive. People will be looked at on a basis of how they can contribute to society, and those who are elderly, poor or handicapped, will either get overlooked by the system or purged from it. |
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