3-30-10 The Constitution

This isn't really one of those controversial subjects, at least not as much so as my last few posts. I took AP Government in high school and learned a lot about America's governing document as well as some court cases that help it shape our legal system. The thing is, that is rare knowledge today. Not a lot of young people (or older people) opt to learn about the Constitution, and then when something huge like health care reform happens, they all scream "This is unconstitutional!" When, really, it's not. Those words alone are the siren call of the uneducated, angry American, who, more often than not, is conservative. I have called things unconstitutional before, because they actually are. I wrote a paper about the water-boarding of prisoners at Guantanamo bay and how it was unconstitutional based on previous court cases involving non-citizens, as well as the Geneva Convention. Turns out Obama outlawed it in January 2009, a year after I wrote the paper.

So what about health care reform? Is there a chance that all the people calling it unconstitutional are right, and that it will be repealed in the future? I highly doubt it. Thanks to Facebook, the average conservative's opinion on health care is incredibly obvious to me. I've seen people say things like "The government can't make me pay MORE taxes for that!" and "We have a constitutional right to freedom!" or "What if I don't want health care? Obama shouldn't decide for me!" I hope whoever reads this can plainly see the error in the first two "arguments" against the legality of health care. If not, allow me to elucidate.

So, Mr. Joe Sixpack, the government can't make you pay taxes? Especially not if the money goes to undeserving other people? I suppose welfare and social security are completely foreign concepts, then. And, the government really can tax you for whatever they want. Thanks to the Boston Tea Party (and I don't mean that tea party for religious wingnuts who have no idea what the actual Tea Party was) which was a reaction to Britain government placing a tax on tea in America. Though the authoritative relationship between England and the Colonies was questionable at the time in that America was becoming bit of a rebellious teenager to Mother Britain, Americans agreed that they shouldn't be taxed by a government that did not directly represent them. Although a few people in 2010 may feel their government doesn't represent them, they do. American citizens voted for the senators and representatives who vote on and occasionally draft bills that the President must sign or has already proposed in order to be enacted. The entire basis of our representative government is that our Legislative branch acts in the best interest of their electorate. If you don't like your senator, maybe you should go out and vote next election. In summary, as long as a bill for taxation of things is passed in the House, Senate and signed by the President, they can take your money for whatever they want.

Argument number two, freedom. Apparently, we have a constitutional right to it. This is either an uneducated statement or a vast generalization of the specific freedoms granted to us by the First Amendment. They are Freedom of/from Religion, of speech, press, petition, and assembly. If we had "a constitutional right to freedom," there would be absolute anarchy in the USA, which, after a long enough cycle of chaos and danger, would loop back around to forming a basis for a government according to John Locke's Second Treatise of Government. According to this theory, in a state of anarchy people will begin to fear for the safety of their unalienable rights and will give up certain powers and make crude laws to protect them. This, of course, can go on and expand to full-blown Democratic or Parliamentary government.
That's not important. Even if we did have a constitutional right to "freedom," which is a very broad term, I'm not entirely sure that health care reform is encroaching upon it.

And then there are people who just don't want health care and feel they are being forced into unnecessary spending. This may be the one argument I have very little to say about, but only through thinking in selfish, Lockean manner. If one, as James Madison said, extend the sphere and begin thinking in a classical republican manner, the realization should be that one's fellow man is being neglected. Now I must point out that the term 'classical republican' is in no way a contrived jab at conservatives or the republican party, but is in fact a theory of government most well documented by Plato. In essence, the classical republican theory explains that in a democratic setting men will work together and make sacrifices not for himself, but for the preservation of his country and his fellows. This can also be summed up by taking a few words from Star Trek II: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one." Health care reform, in this sense, is a very classically republican piece of legislation. The people of the nation pay a small amount so that everyone can afford to go to the doctor.

One last reason my Facebook friends are getting upset over this thing is that it funds elective abortions. Instead of making this entry twice as long I suggest you read my previous post for my stance on that whole mess.

Now I would like to present some facts on the health care bill, but doing so would basically be plagiarizing this Huffington Post article. This article presents the bill in a very straightforward manner, and I will leave it to you to form your own, hopefully informed, opinions.