| Current Poll |
Are you keeping your New Year's resolutions?
View Results
|
|
Story Archives: Obamacare awakes sleeping giant?
- 2013 - 334 articles
- 2012 - 1160 articles
- 2011 - 1177 articles
- 2010 - 810 articles
- December 2010 - 67 articles
- November 2010 - 50 articles
- October 2010 - 65 articles
- September 2010 - 62 articles
- August 2010 - 77 articles
- July 2010 - 58 articles
- June 2010 - 77 articles
- May 2010 - 63 articles
- April 2010 - 85 articles
- March 2010 - 90 articles
- March 31st, 2010 (Wednesday) - 1 articles
- March 30th, 2010 (Tuesday) - 17 articles
- March 29th, 2010 (Monday) - 1 articles
- March 23rd, 2010 (Tuesday) - 15 articles
- March 17th, 2010 (Wednesday) - 1 articles
- March 16th, 2010 (Tuesday) - 16 articles
- March 10th, 2010 (Wednesday) - 1 articles
- March 9th, 2010 (Tuesday) - 19 articles
- March 8th, 2010 (Monday) - 1 articles
- March 5th, 2010 (Friday) - 1 articles
- March 2nd, 2010 (Tuesday) - 17 articles
- February 2010 - 60 articles
- January 2010 - 56 articles
- 2009 - 779 articles
- 2008 - 949 articles
|
Obamacare awakes sleeping giant?
 After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto purportedly assessed the United States — which many in his nation saw as weak-willed and unable to wage an effective war — with these words:
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
I can't help but hope those in Washington who have pushed through Obamacare will one day look back and see all they really accomplished was to awaken a "sleeping giant" that will bring their demise.
It all depends on what kind of nation we are in 2010.
Are we still Ronald Reagan's vision of a "shinning city on a hill" beaming freedom to the rest of the world or have we finally traded our luster to become a European-style entitlement society? We will know by what happens next.
It's just as true today as when Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 that "all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
There comes a time, however, when we have to say enough is enough and rise against those who usurp our liberty, as we did when Jefferson and company met in Philadelphia to send King George III a missive informing him that we just weren't into the whole monarchy thing anymore.
We have witnessed a rising over the last year with the Tea Party Movement, a grassroots ground swell which formed against an out of control federal government and, particularly, against Obamacare. Despite polls showing the unpopularity of Obamacare and countless protest nationwide, they passed it anyway.
Make no mistake about it, Obamacare isn't about keeping people healthy. It's about unprecedented control our rulers are asserting, giving them —literally— life and death control over us. It's an egalitarianism minded folly that will eventually lower healthcare for all, except the exempt political class, and could very well bankrupt our country.
States, including Louisiana, are already gearing up to challenge the federal government on Obamacare.
Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell announced Monday he will mount a lawsuit against the new law, but isn't yet sure if our state will stand alone or join others that are also suing.
Florida, South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Pennsylvania, Washington, North Dakota, South Dakota and Alabama are planning to join together in a similar lawsuit against Obamacare. If Jefferson was still with us, he would be proud to learn Virginia is also suing.
Most states challenging Obamacare are pointing to the Commerce Clause in the Constitution to make their case.
While the federal government can regulate commerce, it cannot regulate non-commerce. In other words, it cannot make people who chose not to participate in health insurance commerce buy health insurance, as Obamacare mandates.
Louisiana has several problems with Obamacare beyond the Commerce Clause.
A few of them were outlined by Louisiana Senator A.G. Crowe, who asked Caldwell for a legal opinion on Obamacare back in January.
They include Obamacare violating the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, often known as the State's Rights Amendment; violation of the Equal Protections Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and funding of elective abortions in violation of Louisiana law.
Crowe has also authored a bill in the Louisiana Senate opposing Obamacare.
Foremost in his bill is opposition of the unfunded mandate of Medicaid expansions, which will burden cash strapped Louisiana and threatens to bankrupt other states like California.
Crowe told me on Monday that his bill has been very popular in recent days.
The fight is heating up , but states' rights have been so degraded that it will be an uphill battle.
There is a hope however, that the federal government has overplayed its hand and states will be successful in rising up and asserting their rights. If the state's don't move now, there might as well not be a Tenth Amendment.
David Vitter has introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to repeal Obamacare.
Curious how he is going to do this without the Republican votes needed, I contacted his office and was told "It is a marathon; not a sprint."
If we wait around for Republicans in Washington to save us, however, it will be a long wait.
It will take the relentless clamor of citizens who still believe in the concept of federalism and the sanctity of liberty if we have any hope of backing down the federal government. That means voting against anyone who had a hand in this in November and making sure we hold the new Congress' feet to the fire in Tea Party Movement fashion.
To push back, we should start by remembering who we are and who we hope to remain.
It might be helpful to further review the founding document by Jefferson, referenced earlier in this column.
Jefferson wrote that our Creator gives us the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and "that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it..."
Washington should remember that the fire of liberty still burns in the breast of tens of millions in this land who are seeing the federal government becoming more destructive by the day. |
|
|
E-mail Story
Print Story
