#109
“Sound familiar?”
IN DEFENSE OF COMMON SENSE
By Hetty Gray
March 26, 2012
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…”
This week the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court begin to hear oral arguments on the Affordable Health Act, better known as Obama Care and their decision affects each of us.
Clear opposition to the law is the firmly held assertion by the countless Americans that their federal government has no business telling anyone to enter into a contract, and an insurance policy is just that — a contract.
It seems as if the three components of that familiar phrase with which I began this column are already either in jeopardy on dead on arrival. Life? Well, it is legal to kill unborn children, so there’s one down. Moreover, if Obama Care is ruled to be in sync with the U.S. Constitution, seniors’ care will be rationed (as it is in England and Canada) — again lives put at risk at the hands of “bean counters” obsessed with creating a “Nanny State.”
Liberty? With each passing day, via Executive Order or some unelected and roundly unaccountable Czar, we lose our liberty. The situation reminds me of a beaver, or that determined “ant and the rubber tree plant” that Frank Sinatra immortalized in song. Chip by chip, nip by nip, the tree of liberty is eaten away — and with it the way of life that our forefathers so desperately wanted to guarantee to each one of us.
The pursuit of happiness? Oh, sure, it’s still there, in spades. Have you noticed the movement to allow men to marry men and women to marry women? Then, add a plethora of behavior once deemed taboo in civilized society and now accepted in the name of “political correctness,” or worse yet, “tolerance” and you have a picture of a society degrading by the day!
My grandparents and parents would have tolerated none of this. I fear that untold numbers of our ancestors are turning over in their graves when witnessing the America of today.
The law labeled “affordable” in its very title is anything but affordable. Critics claim that numbers were skewed in order to keep the initial estimate below one trillion dollars and that very expensive portions of the law were not used as a base line. A recent estimate is that, once implemented, this behemoth of a law will cost a family $20,000 a year. Sound affordable to you? Hardly.
I hold out hope that Justice Elena Kagan will recuse herself, since she was a prime mover of the law before she was appointed and confirmed. It is a clear conflict of interest. Time will tell.
Meanwhile, I will hold my breath and pray (yes, critics of faith). I know I am not alone and, with the rest of you that oppose this law, I hold out hope that the court will stop this expansion of government control before it destroys the economy and the nation we love.
Current members are Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Bryer, John Roberts, Jr. Samuel Alito, Jr., Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
If you feel helpless, you are not solitary in that thought. Here’s an option:
www.toddyoungforcongress.com has a petition for you to sign. Congressman Young will forward the signatures and urge the Supreme Court to strike down Obama Care. The page comes up immediately and it only takes a few seconds to fill it out.
Remember those nine names. They are the sole arbiters of the law in this nation and now —more than ever — they hold the American dream in their hands.
I generally end a column with this phrase: Think about it. If you have to think about THIS dangerous overreach of the federal over individuals represented by their states, you aren’t thinking at all.