This is How Liberty Dies

On Tuesday of this week the Senate Finance Committee approved a new health care reform bill. There is still some work to be done before the Senate will actually vote on this bill but I wanted to share some of my thoughts before that happens.

Before I talk about the health care bill, I want to share something that Benjamin Disraeli said over 100 years ago. He talked about the cycle of the body politic. This is a cycle that all civilizations inevitably follow.

Everything starts in bondage
Bondage leads to spiritual truth
Spiritual truth leads to great courage
Courage leads to liberty
Liberty leads to abundance
Abundance leads to selfishness
Selfishness leads to complacency
Complacency leads to apathy
Apathy leads to dependence
Dependence leads to bondage

Bondage - The majority of earth's history is about people in bondage. The founding fathers of the United States fled England because they were fleeing bondage.

Spiritual Truth - D&C 101:80 says that the constitution was created by inspired men who were raised up for that purpose. They had great spiritual truth.

Great Courage - Samuel Adams, one of our founding fathers was summoned by Colonel Fenton, in an attempt to intimidate him enough to get him to back down from rallying the minds of the people. Colonel Fenton essentially said that Adams' life could be very comfortable if he were to back down, but it would be very uncomfortable if he didn't. He concluded by saying, "by changing your political course, you will not only receive great personal advantages, but you will make your peace with the King."

Samuel Adams, at the risk of being hanged, had a response that was straight and to the point, "Then you may tell Governor Gage that I trust I have long since made my peace with the King of Kings. No personal consideration shall induce me to abandon the righteous cause of my country. And, tell Governor Gage it is the advice of Samuel Adams to him, no longer to insult the feelings of an exasperated people." He and the other signers of the Declaration of Independence were certainly men of Great Courage

Liberty - We became the freest country in the world. Our Constitution was established "for the protection of all flesh." (D&C 101:77) Today, almost every nation in the world has adopted a written constitution, and the United States Constitution profoundly influenced all of them.

Abundance - We live in a state of incredible abundance. Even those who live in poverty today would look with disdain at the lifestyles of some of the more wealthy who lived in previous centuries.

Selfishness - Unfortunately, our country has become very selfish. Almost 50% of marriages end in divorce. Certainly, there are legitimate situations where a divorce is needed but the majority of those divorces are stemmed from selfishness from 1 or both parties.

Complacency - This is where we begin to condemn the bad in the world from afar. We start to say, "the government should do something about that." We forget that the role of government is not to solve all our problems, we should be solving our own problems.

Apathy - This is where we cease to care enough to do anything at all about our own well being. We think the government will care for us.

Dependence - Today 3 out of every 10 Americans lives on some kind of government handout. We are already at 30% dependency.

Dependency descends to Bondage. - This is where I get into why I share all of that with you. You see, this health care bill would require every American to purchase health insurance. That may not seem like a super big deal, but let's go back to the Constitution for a minute.

The very same document that was given to us by inspired men grants certain rights to congress. Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 states: "[The Congress shall have power] To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;" So the constitution gives government the power to regulate commerce between the states.

Health Care is a multi-state industry so it's fair enough to say they have the right to regulate commerce when it relates to health care. But wait a second. Requiring every American to buy health care goes a little bit beyond "regulating" don't you think? If congress had the right to tell us what to buy, why did we need a stimulus package? Why didn't they just pass a law requiring everyone to buy American cars or to put our money in certain banks, or to buy certain newspapers? I don't think that wording in the constitution gives any justification for that level of government control. You can see the slippery slope that this bill puts us on. It reminds me of the quote from Star Wars episode 3 where Amidala says, "This is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause." Our nation is slipping from dependency to bondage. Contact your representatives to assure this doesn't happen.