We are berated, ad nauseam, with imprecations that America is the only advanced nation that fails to have universal health care. This statement is often followed by the rueful remark that the debate over government controlled health care has been going on without progress for 60 years and, ipso facto, it is time to settle it.
All right, let's do that. Let's look a little deeper. Why is there no settlement of the issue, and why is America unique in its obstinate reluctance to follow the example of our older cultural brothers in Europe?
When a debate continues for decades without resolution, it is prudent to consider the deeper underlying assumptions. Principles which underpin the arguments are likely being ignored and marginalized rather than addressed in a forthright manner.
America is the only advanced country whose founding assumption is popular sovereignty. This is a proposition that stands with hardly a seconding voice throughout the contemporary international community. Yet it is the taproot of American exceptionalism.
Even here, however, the principle of government subordination to the people is by no means universally accepted. It has never been firmly ratified by our political class, those spiritual descendants of Europe's nobility. Our self-styled elite appear to view with dismay their countrymen's continuing preference for self-rule.
Thus arises the question of corporal ownership. For Americans, the answer has been settled. Since the terrible bloodletting of the Civil War, and now excepting military service, ownership of one's body is a matter between the individual and God, with no intermediation by government.
Yet assertions are now being made that government should have responsibility for, and thus authority over, the maintenance of our bodies. Be aware that support for such a view is opting for veterinary medicine, for you are now accepting the moral status of a domestic animal... [snip]
The wisdom expressed in the Federalist Papers began with the insight that men are not angels. The system that the authors designed placed liberty at the head of other considerations. The Founders were determined that concentrations of power should be confounded.
The view of human nature recognized by the Founders is now in grave peril. Whither goes America? Was liberty merely an 18th-century fad, or is there still something exceptional about our country?
[If we cede this most intimate and irresistible level of control to the mush heads in Washington we could literally lose the ability to ever get it back. Consider, Canada has had its government run system for 40 years now, and every election cycle the poor status of that system is the #1 issue. They create panels and study groups and inquiries again and again, to no avail - it's government. If we're foolish enough to start down that path we deserve what awaits where it will inevitably, inexorably lead.]
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