I'm continually amazed, to be quite honest, when I log on and see that people are still choosing to read my blog, even when I go on and on for days about politics in an undeniably amateur way.
I keep wanting to return to my older style of writing and tell you all about how the sewing is coming on, and how the daffodils are sprung up around everyone's mailbox and how I finally made fresh salsa from scratch. But the political times of the day feel so pressing to me and I'm overflowing with thoughts on the matter, which I find I must vent in this blog.
I've been considering, for example, why our Bill of Rights reads in the way it does. No where in there does it state that as Americans we have the right to any commodities, anything that is bought or sold on the market, such as health care, education or housing.
Why? Was this an oversight on their part? If so, should it be fixed now? What happens when it becomes the government's responsibility to provide a commodity to all of its citizens?
In contrast, I can't help but think of the Soviet Constitution and how within that document, commodity after commodity are ensured to them by their government. Was this what ultimately led to its downfall, the starvation and deprivation of its citizens?
Just lately I have finished reading "The 5,000 Year Leap." This is a most excellent and very easy to understand book about the founding principles of our unique and marvelous system of government. The following starts from p. 116:
Those on the receiving end of the program may think this is very "just" to take from the "haves" and give to the "have nots." They may say, "This is the way the government provides equal justice for all." But what happens when the government comes around and starts taking from those who count themselves "poor"? They immediately declare with indignation that they have "rights" in the property the government gave them. The government replies, "WE decide who has rights in things."
The power given to the government to take from the rich automatically cancelled out the principle of "guaranteed equal rights." It opened the floodgate for the government to meddle with everybody's rights, particularly property rights....
The American Founders took a different approach. Their policy was to guarantee the equal protection of all the people's rights and thus insure that all would have the freedom to prosper...
What happened in America under these principles was remarkable in every way. Within a short time the Americans, as a people, were on the way to becoming the most prosperous and best-educated nation in the world...They were also the freest people in the world. Eventually, the world found that they were also the most generous people on the earth...The key was using the government to protect equal rights, not equal things. As previously mentioned, Samuel Adams said the ideas of a welfare state were made unconstitutional:
"The Utopian schemes of leveling (redistribution of the wealth, or social justice) and a community of goods (central ownership of all the means of production and distribution), are as visionary and impracticable as those which vest all the property in the Crown. (Those ideas) are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional." (Wells, Life of Samuel Adams, 1:154)
-The 5,000 Year Leap, by W. Cleon Skousen
So, it was not a mistake at all. It was very intentional. The Founders knew that in providing Americans with the right to their own private property, their right to fail as well as to succeed, as opposed to the right to the things themselves, they were guaranteeing us the most liberty a government can and the best chance at ultimate success and prosperity.
And it worked. We have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; or to make it specific to today's pressing issue, to the pursuit of health care on the free market. The government does not have the right to take over this market and to provide it for us, as they see fit at any given moment.
Yes, by keeping our right to the pursuit of a commodity, we risk not getting it. We risk failure. But I feel that is a far lesser evil than surrendering my liberty, my control and passively awaiting the delivery of that commodity from the government who has taken control of that aspect of my life.
Another words, I would rather risk failure than risk the loss of my liberty.
