Our Burgeoning Euro-American Social Democracy

This is a good example of what liberals that lead to social democracies such as those found in Western Europe think of rights. Health care is a fundamental human right which must be provided by the state. Free speech is subject to possible criminal sanctions and potential jail time.

Let's do a logic argument based on our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. We believe (those of us not currently begging the nanny state to care for us cradle to grave) that our rights were endowed by our Creator. This notion is featured rather prominently in a letter some jackass pranksters (according to President Obama's and his ilk's world view) once sent to the King of England and Parliament. We call that letter the Declaration of Independence and those jackasses are our founding fathers. Democrats such as Senator Tom Harkin (D. Iowa) believe that government grants rights. So, government grants the right to health care and therefore must assure that it is provided to the people by universalizing insurance. However, government has not sent me a gun, nor has it provided me the funds to purchase one. And yet, right there in the Second Amendment to a quaint old document we call the Constitution of the United States of America is my right to bear arms.

Now, being endowed with that right by my Creator, I have the right to bear arms. I do not have the right to be given a gun. A gun is a commodity, not a right. So I have to buy a gun. Similarly, in the First Amendment we see that I have a God-given right to Free Speech and to practice my religion without government telling me I can't (note how the government is specifically excluded from interfering with rights in the quaint old document (yes, within limitations)). Does the government have to provide me a forum for my speech? A church for my worship? Nope, commodities.

Health care is not a freeking right. It's a commodity. Government can't jail me for exercising free speech or prosecute me to the extent that such speech does not litterally endanger others. In Europe, the KKK would be jailed. I'm not happy about what the KKK says, but I'm not stuffing them in a jail for having a dumb opinion.

President Obama is moving us to a world where government can give a right, and therefore take it away. These are all the rights and powers supposedly reserved to the States and the People by the Tenth Amendment. This, my friend, is the death of liberty. I am optomistic that it will not happen as we find more and more people in this country suddenly awake to what they stand to lose.