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Blog PostsOn Healthcare and Limited Government
By Michael McGehee at Sep 17, 2009 |
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Rightwing nutjobs like those who had their 9-12 protests and my own congressman, Joe Barton, a “Ranking Member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee with jurisdiction on health care issues” (this is a codeword for a dirty rat bastard who makes a living off of taking huge campaign contributions/bribes from insurance and oil companies in to silence the needs of the general population and to maintain the status quo) like to talk tall about their fondness of the constitution and their opposition to so-called “big government.”
Now I will only mention it here in passing but corporate welfare and the defense budget are some of the best examples of pork that can be pointed to and neither Joe Barton or the 9-12 catfish people (as Steve Hunt likes to call them) seem opposed to it. We spend nearly half of the world’s military budget but only comprise five-percent of the world’s population. We have nearly 1,000 foreign bases and are seen on a planetary scale as the biggest threat to global security.
So when these catfish people ask where in the US Constitution it says we should pay taxes for healthcare or when Joe Barton says he “strongly opposes” single-payer because it conflicts with “limited government” I think it is important to point out how absolutely full of shit and ignorant they are.
Article 1, Sec. 8, Clause 1 states,
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes […] to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States… [Emphasis added]
Of course this doesn’t mean that they have to but since these folks are so enamored with what the “founding fathers” thought it is a fair and reasonable assumption that if they didn’t think “providing for the general welfare of the United States” was a good thing they wouldn’t have given “The Congress” the power to do so.
Again: “Common defense and general welfare.”
I have no qualms with that.
I too think we should have a “limited government.” It should be limited to providing basic social services like (physical and social) security, education, roads, postal services, healthcare, etc.
Maybe I am wrong, though I sure as hell wont admit it, but just maybe wars of aggression – which is a polar opposite of “common defense” – and predatory insurance companies – what with almost 50 million uninsured, countless more underinsured and 60 of us dying each day from lack of insurance (and let me stress that having insurance isn’t all that great since what we have is Wealthcare, not healthcare, and the difference being the more wealth you have the better care you get so…) bankrupting our country seems to be the opposite of what our “founding [bigoted, rich, white] fathers” had in mind.
And that brings up an interesting thought. Charles Beard, the American historian, noted that the Constitution was specifically tailored to the economic interests of those writing it: privileged white men. So if these privileged white men who had slaves, were butchering native inhabitants to steal their land, and who saw the general population as ignorant beasts who needed to be marginalized in the political arena (so “as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority” as Madison put it) still saw that Congress should provide for their “general welfare” then what does that say about the moral integrity of Joe Barton and the 9-12 catfish people?
To be continued…
