Edmund Burke, before the British Parliament way back in March 1775, observed the colonists' fierce "spirit of liberty." He said:
"In other countries the people . . . judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle." He said Americans could detect "misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze."
James Madison put it this way, "The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much, soo to forget it."
Any Republicans or Democrats who "compromise" for the sake of popularity now on this important principle involving future generations should be recalled at the next election cycle!
This is not about a frivolous question of which provisions are acceptable and which are unacceptable. This is about a power struggle between the principles the founding generation were willing to stake their "lives, property, and sacred honor" for, and those who, throughout the history of civilization have arrogated unto themselves power over other people's lives.
The current "issue" called "health care reform," or its equally obnoxious semantic twin "health insurance reform," is just the invasion of liberty by arrogant elected officials which has finally aroused citizens who, heretofore, ignored the decades-long power grab by those who were supposed to protect "We, the People's" constitutional principles.
Now, citizens are seeing that it is a matter of "principle," not an issue of semantics over wording.
They should not allow their elected representatives to be coopted by "blue dogs" or any other "wolf in sheep's clothing" that would allow what may turn out to be the most important watershed moment in the history of American liberty to be further threatened. Now, Conrad and Sebelius, and others, sensing the voter mood are throwing out "compromise" talk this weekend, all to punt for better position down the road. Seize the moment for the sake of posterity and just say, "no"!
A word from the author of our Declaration of Independence regarding citizens and oppressive government might give some backbone to today's citizens:
"The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate . . . the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that they may. . . know ambition under all its shapes, and . . . exert their natural power to defeat its purposes." - Thomas Jefferson
And, for more wisdom from the same source:
" . . . this is a tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sin and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers. . . have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follws that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."- Thomas Jefferson
excellent; thank you both for your contribution.