We sit upon the Great Abyss

Tonight America may change forever.  In a few hours the house will vote on whether to send the senate version of the healthcare bill to the President’s desk.  If it passes, a few hours later, they will vote on the ‘fixes’ to the senate bill that will be sent to the Senate for a vote.  We sit upon the edge of a great abyss, and we feel the Nietzschian compulsion to throw ourselves in.

Somewhere behind us lays the ravaged body of the American dream, murdered by soothsayers with fallacious promises carrying bludgeons of false liberty.  Below us ‘overprotective mother’ welcomes our fall with open arms, wanting to carefully nurture every waking moment of all of her children: ensuring all are equally fed and none is allowed to enjoy what another cannot.  Ahead of us lies a lifetime of slaps on the wrist, timeouts, and punishments for wanting something more.

Beside mother sits the proverbial pie.  No longer do we have to struggle to get our share, the pie has already been evenly divided so that we might each have a piece, we only have to give up everything we’ve worked for to get it.  Just staring beneath our feet, the boredom of our future life already begins to sink into our hearts.  No longer will we enjoy the freedom of the chase, the sheer joy of coming out triumphant after battling to survive.  No more rainy days: only the sunny.  No more snow: only summer.

Should we jump, no one will ever again live the American dream of rags to riches.  There will be no more bedtime stories of pioneer heroes, adventure, and hardships overcome.  Everyone will be sustained, but no more.  The pie has only so many slices, and everyone must get one.

But what if mother is wrong?  What if I need to stumble before I can walk?  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve enjoyed my life immensely.  I’ve lived through poverty.  I’ve lived day to day not knowing if the next was going to be the day my family was tossed on the street with nothing.  I’ve watched as relatives fought, best friends made horrific decisions, and others took their lives.  I’ve made a million and one mistakes, hurt myself and those I care about a million more, but I wouldn’t trade that life experience for anything.  Not for financial security, not for world peace, and definitely not for universal healthcare.  A life without freedom is not a life worth living: and yes, freedom includes the ugly.

I wouldn’t be who I am today if it weren’t for the bonds I share with all the people who shared the same life experiences, but many will fail to see what if anything that has to do with healthcare, so I’ll make it extra clear.

Forcing individuals to buy an insurance policy they do not want restricts economic and personal liberty.  Forcing people to pay for protection or membership they didn’t want used to be the height of un-American: the worst characteristic of unruly gangs and later unions, the target of Great American Westerns and the A-Team.  This “pay up or else” brutality is what most pioneers to came America to escape, and appears as a repetitive theme in the reasons for separation listed in the Declaration of Independence.

Worse, enslaving doctors to a government run healthcare system robs them of all ability to control their own careers.  Since when did Washington have the right to control the workplace?  I don’t want Washington telling me I have to design websites for everyone that asks, meet website quotas, and charge a set price and no other.

Lastly, it takes from me a liberty guaranteed in the constitution by the tenth amendment, which was added to the Constitution as part of the bill of rights by the states before they would agree to ratify it.  It states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

No where in the constitution or in any of its amendments is Washington given the power to control the workplace of any individual, nor any power that could even be interpreted in a convoluted manner in order to obtain that power.  Washington has completely overstepped its bounds and violated the pact.  As far as I’m concerned, if the Constitution is out the door, then so is Washington.  We sit upon the Great Abyss.  Should we jump any direction but as far away from it as possible, we condemn out country to follow in the footsteps of every failed nation in history that lost sight of defending the virtues they were founded upon, and that is My Cup of Tea.