The Affordable Health Care Act

The Affordable Health Care Act (a.k.a., Obamacare) may not be so affordable if we believe what certain Republican politicians and some economic experts and doctors are saying about it. But then, it may just work out like a kind of stitched together Frankenstein monster. Only time will tell.

The Republicans would do well to just let go. Tell their constituency that they did the best they could but the President and the Democrats rebuffed them at every attempt for compromise. Then let the Democrats own it. If it fails then all the fault will be on them, not the Republicans.

But this is what I find most interesting. If Obamacare is so good, as the President and the Democrats have been trying to convince the average American, why then did Congress exempt itself from that Act? 

Further, the Supreme Court of the United States is exempt from Obamacare along with all federal employees and 729 private companies and unions. (Click on link, above.) This is a puzzlement.

Actually, this smacks of elitism, of the actions of a new aristocracy, the political class and their cronies.

It is unprecedented that for the first time in the history of this once great nation the government is forcing people to buy a product from... the government. The original wording of Obamacare allowed a person who refused to buy this product, or show proof of having "valid" health insurance, to be fined. The Supreme Court twisted that around and said, no, it wasn't a fine. That would be unconstitutional. It was a tax. There, all nice and neat. The government can tax you, under certain circumstances, but they can't fine you for not buying their product. (In the end it's the same thing is it not?)

Well here's what I think of the Supreme Court. It's a political animal. You can't be nominated for the Supreme Court, let alone have that nomination confirmed, unless your political beliefs are in line with the presiding political powers.

Everyone forgets that the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was constitutional. That Act allowed slave owners, or their agents, to go into "free" states and search for runaway slaves. If found, the slave would be shackled in irons and taken back to his "master."

You may say, oh well that was 1850 and has nothing to do with today. Those people were different then. Not true. The Supreme Court of 1850 was a political animal doing what the political powers wanted. The Supreme Court of today is just as much of a political animal. Their decisions are not necessarily based on the straight-forward meaning of the U.S. Constitution. It's all kind of like a discussion of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" or, even better, Bill Clinton's statement that "it all depends on what the meaning of is, is." If that didn't spin your head around then you deserve the government you're getting.

So, Obamacare is the cure-all for our health care problems in America but the new aristocracy and their cronies don't think it's good enough for them. I say, if it's the law of the land, a law passed by Congress, then Congress and all the government must be forced to use it themselves. The law must apply equally to all people.

This nation is still a Constitutional Republic (barely). It still hasn't become a kingdom or fascist police-state (yet). The members of Congress, the Supreme Court, the federal employees, and the cronies of the political class are not above the citizenry, the "common" people who must fund and pay for Obamacare under threat of force.

The members of Congress, et al., are of the common people, the citizenry, also. To think otherwise, to think that they are special because they were elected or appointed to government office, is to believe in aristocracy, a ruling class who are better than the rest of us, which is exactly what the exemption from Obamacare means. They think they are better than the rest of us. The unmitigated hypocrisy and arrogance should scare us all. The mask is slowly being torn off the face of tyranny.

Star Chamber in America

Does anyone remember their history and what the Star Chamber was? From the late Fourteenth Century until the mid-Seventeenth Century there was a court in England that met in secret. It decided if someone was guilty of a crime against the crown. There were no witnesses, or indictments, only government agents presenting their case to the court. The court, the Star Chamber, had the last word. It became a tool of the rulers--the English Monarchy--to deal with their political opponents.

Today, in America we have a Star Chamber, it's called the FISA Court (Foreign Intelligence Surveillence Court). There are no witnesses, no indictments, only government agents presenting their one-sided cases to the judges.

The FISA Court, along with the NSA spying on all Americans--the PRISM program--looking at all the emails, internet connections, credit card use, and any electronic communications from any American citizen to any other person, American citzen or not, in the world--makes for the real spector of tyanny in America.

The ancient Roman poet Juvenal asked the question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? A literal translation is: Who will guard the guards themselves? Can we trust our civil servants who more and more each year become our civil masters--those who would rule us for our own good whether we like it or not--to not misue their powers? I think not. The recent IRS scandal has proven that.

One so-called Libertarian, Greg Gutfeld of The Five, a Fox cable news program, defends PRISM, saying they're not looking at the content of the emails and so forth. The PRISM program is like looking only at the outside of a letter mailed through the "snail mail" of the U.S. Postal Sytem.

But think. What would the colonists of the original thirteen colonies have thought if the English government, looking for anti-government revolutionaries (terrorists), had put agents in every post offices to write down the "to" and "from" addresses of all the mail. And if they had put check points on all the roads to stop and search all the people traveling to see if they were carrying mail, and then wrote down from whom and to whom the letters were being sent, without opening the envelopes. Do you think the colonists would have thought that to be a gross invasion of their privacy. Of course they would have.

Why don't Americans today--and I mean a huge majority of Americans--rise up and tell the government to stop this domestic spying without out probable cause, a Fourth Amendment violation.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This is a pretty clear and straight foward statement of the rights of the people. No "unreasonable" searches without "probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched... ."

Is the collection of the so-called meta data by the NSA PRISM progam from all the people of the U.S. "unreasonable"? The vast majority of these people are not suspected of committing a crime, yet their private electronic business and messages are being collected and stored by the U.S. Government, without "warrants" being issued and without "probable cause," and without being "supported by oath or affirmation" of the government agents and agencies responsible for this domestic, police state spying.

The reason Americans don't rise up against this basic Constiutional violation--regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court might think (they are a part of the FedGov problem after all)--is threefold.

First, the average American has been brainwashed by public schools into believing that the authority of government, the nation-state, is proper and good even when there is plenty of evidence that it is not.

Second, the U.S. government's monetarily guided international policies by large international corporation that have interfered in the governments of other nations has caused many people of the world to hate the U.S.-- so-called global terrorists or radical Islamic terrorists.

Third, the people are not just afraid of global terrorists. No, they are also afraid of the U.S. government. There are so many laws and regulations that if the U.S. Government had enough man power they could arrest and charge every person in America for one crime or another. And, as Thomas Jefferson said:  "When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."

In the United States today we have more people who fear the government and very little to no fear by the government of the people. We have a state of tyranny which has not yet been fully crytallized but eventually, if not stopped, it will be and then we will have a full-blown police state. The NSA spying on all Americans is part and parcel of that tyranny and when--not if--we do become a full-blown police state all that collected data will become very valuable to the rulers.

Finally, I have to ask the question why all this spying by the NSA didn't detect and stop both the World Trade Center tragedy or the equally tragic, even if on a smaller scale, of the Boston Bombing? The lack of stopping these atrocities speaks volumes about the efficiency of the FedGov and their rights-violating agencies.