Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
Today, Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna announced that he would be joining a law suit against the Democrat's health care reform bill. Governor Christine Gregoire wasted no time attacking him for that decision. Fortunately, it is his decision to make, not hers. The Attorney General represents the State of Washington and its citizens, not the governor.
In fact, he has a sworn duty to defend the interests of the State of Washington when, in his judgment, its rights have been infringed. And only blind partisanship could claim that they have not been infringed by the health care bill.
We have this annoying document called the Bill of Rights. Some of you may remember it. It consists of the first ten amendments to the Constitution. The tenth amendment states quite clearly that any powers not explicitly granted to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states and to the people.
Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to mandate that the citizens of the United States must purchase a specific product. Yet the health care bill attempts just such a mandate by requiring that everyone must purchase a health insurance policy, or be punished for not doing so.
This is, as we stated back in early November, the first step on a very slippery slope. This is a very dangerous precedent to set. There is no telling where this will end. Why, you might end up being told that you had to buy florescent bulbs for your lights instead of incandescent ones! (Oh, wait - I guess we started down this slippery slope quite some time ago, didn't we?)
The loss of individual freedom has been likened to the "frog in the pot" phenomenon: if you try to drop a frog into boiling water, he'll fight like the dickens to get out of it. But if you put him into cool water and gradually turn up the heat, he'll sit there and die before he realizes that he's in danger.
Maybe people are finally waking up and deciding it's gone too far. I just hope that Rob McKenna and the other state attorneys general can get us out of the pot before it's too late.
Thanks for listening.
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The political musings of an ordinary, middle-aged American guy trying not to get smothered by the pervasive liberalism here on the Left Coast.
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About Me
- Sid Herron
- I live in the suburbs of Seattle, one of the most liberal cities in the nation. Home of "Baghdad Jim" McDermott. Largest city in a state that decided that it was just too much to expect voters to actually show up at a polling place, show identification, and prove that they were eligible to vote before casting their ballots. Instead, we went to an all-mail system. The argument was that it would save a few bucks. And, no, it won't increase voter fraud - what on earth would make you think that? There have been times when I've been sorely tempted to pull up stakes and move to the heartland - maybe one of those "flyover states" like Oklahoma - but I was born in Washington, dang it, I grew up here, and I happen to like the scenery enough that I refuse to concede the Pacific Northwest as a lost cause. I believe in God, and I believe in the existence of evil. I believe that there is an ultimate standard of right and wrong - it isn't merely what society decides it is at any given moment in history. And I believe that the Founding Fathers were pretty smart guys.
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