In wandering around the blogs this morning, I ran across one which poses the following question on a blog called Stepping Back:
My initial, kneejerk reaction was to leave comments galore which answer this question. The problem is that my wordy answer would serve to litter the blog’s comment section with a soliloquy which should be aired out on my own blog instead of that of someone else.
Q: What freedom have we lost?
A: None………..yet.
There are plenty of people out there who are convinced their freedoms were extinguished with the passage, enhancement, and enactment of anti-terrorism legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Acts (I and II) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). At the same time, proponents of that mindset are hard pressed to provide you with the language in any one of those pieces of legislation which literally spells out the ability of government or any of its entities to strip you of a freedom or right. Don’t get me wrong though. They will try. They will either give you a loving spoonful of copy pasta from articles such as Secret Patriot Act II Destroys Remaining US Liberty, or direct you to the article so you can read the whole thing for yourself. The problem with most of these articles is that their authors come across as conspiracy theorists who believe Big Brother is alive and well. You will see plenty of one sided analysis with no reference to the actual language which backs up the claim.
Another tool they will use to convince you your freedoms have been taken will be to refer to a plethora of news stories where the rights and freedoms of an individual were infringed upon as a result of something like the Patriot Act. Each of those instances tends to result in a misuse or misinterpretation of the act itself. Every time such an abuse has happened, language in the legislation which enabled such infringement has been found to be non-existent.
I still continue to look for that elusive language which takes away my rights, however the search has been fruitless.
Q: ..And why do we blame Obama?
A: Because Obama’s behavior indicates he wants to take our freedoms away.
The answer to my first question was that we haven’t lost any freedom yet. The concern is that an erosion of various freedoms has begun as the Obama Administration and Congress have put their plans for this country into motion. If they are successful, there are freedoms you have now which will go by the wayside. Nowhere can this be seen more than in their push for a nationalized healthcare system.
The bills being pushed through both sides of Congress right now take away your freedom to manage your own health care needs. Are you among the 1.8 million Americans who can afford health insurance, but choose not to hold it? Maybe you’re among the 8.4 million 18-25 year olds who are in their prime and don’t feel you need it yet. Better yet, you may be part of the 9.4 million Americans who are temporarily without coverage due to a job switch or unemployment. Even still, you may very well be one of the 3.5 million Americans who are eligible for a government run health care program, but you have just chosen not to sign up for it. At the same time you may not have signed up any one of your 8 million eligible children for similar services. If my math is right, that’s approximately 31.1 million Americans who have made a conscious choice not to carry some sort of insurance for their healthcare needs. For the record, those numbers come by way of a political cartoon by Michael Ramirez which can be found here. Under the plans proposed in Congress which Obama would most likely sign, the freedom of any one of the 31.1 million Americans who have exercised there freedom not to carry health insurance would be eradicated with the passage of this legislation. Bare in mind that this claim is not to be lumped in the same category as some of the reactionary claims about the anti-terrorism language I discussed earlier. Even though various members of Congress and the current administration don’t appear to have read the content of these bills, others have. For just a sampling of everything that is wrong in the healthcare legislation, go read what Betsy McCaughey found in the bills.
There are plenty of other examples out there of what is being done with our freedom by the Obama Administration. Some of the examples take a little bit of work to see them as an erosion of freedom, and others come closer to hitting the mark. I won’t go into those though, as they leave open to more interpretation. On the other hand, the continued move to nationalize healthcare in the manner which has been proposed will definitely serve to hijack the freedoms you have now in favor of the government making decisions about your life.
