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"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." --Thomas Jefferson

Pelosi and pals may yet fail on health care

INSIGHT

"It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master." --novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

GOVERNMENT

"Suffice it to say that if government attempts to control our total medical spending, sooner or later, it will have to control us. ... Like the politicians, most people are oblivious to F.A. Hayek's insight that the critical information needed to run an economy -- or even 15 percent of one -- doesn't exist in any one place where it is accessible to central planners. Instead, it is scattered piecemeal among millions of people. All those people put together are far wiser and better informed than Congress could ever be. Only markets -- private property, free exchange and the price system -- can put this knowledge at the disposal of entrepreneurs and consumers, ensuring the system will serve the people and not just the political class. This is no less true for medical care than for food, clothing and shelter. ... The belief that [politicians] can take care of us is rank superstition. Who will save us from these despots? What Adam Smith said about the economic planner applies here, too: The politician who tries to design the medical marketplace would 'assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.'" --ABC's "20/20" co-anchor John Stossel

RE: THE LEFT

"Politicians can throw rhetoric around about 'bringing down the cost of health care' or they can even throw numbers around. But the numbers that politicians are throwing around don't match the numbers that the Congressional Budget Office finds when it analyzes the hard data. An old advertising slogan said, 'Progress is our most important product.' With politicians, confusion is their most important product. They confuse bringing down the price of medical care with bringing down the cost. ... Nothing is easier than for governments to impose price controls. They have been doing this, off an on, for thousands of years -- repeatedly resulting in (1) shortages, (2) quality deterioration and (3) black markets. Why would anyone want any of those things when it comes to medical care?" --Hoover Institution economist Thomas Sowell

FOR THE RECORD

"Isn't the point of the Democrats' push to reform the health care system based on establishing health care as a right? That's what the politicians say of course. But in reality the result will be the exact opposite. Part of the problem is that most Americans don't understand what a right is. A right is not a guarantee that the government (i.e., other people) will provide you something for free. We have the right to engage in religious expression, but that doesn't mean that the government pays for the construction of the church. We have the right to peacefully assemble, but the government doesn't promise to supply your transportation. You have the right to keep and bear arms, but don't expect the government to provide you with a free firearm and bullets. You have the right to free speech, but the government won't grant you free radio or TV air time. What makes something a right is not whether the government can force somebody else to pay for it. What defines something as a right is whether the government can or cannot prohibit you from doing it. (President Obama notoriously called these 'negative liberties'.) If the government can't stop you from doing it, then it's a right." --columnist Rich Hrebic

POLITICAL FUTURES

"This is big, what's happening. President Obama appears to have misstepped on a major initiative and defining issue. He has misjudged the nation's mood, which itself is news: He rose from nothing to everything with the help of his fine-tuned antennae. Resistance to the Democratic health-care plans is in the air, showing up more now on YouTube than in the polls, but it will be in the polls soon enough. The president, in short, may be facing a real loss. ... His news conference the other night was bad. He was filibustery and spinny and gave long and largely unfollowable answers that seemed aimed at limiting the number of questions asked and running out the clock. You don't do that when you're fully confident. Far more seriously, he didn't seem to be telling the truth. We need to create a new national health-care program in order to cut down on government spending? Who would believe that? Would anybody? The common wisdom the past week has been that whatever challenges health care faces, the president will at least get something because he has a Democratic House and Senate and they're not going to let their guy die. He'll get this or that, maybe not a new nationalized system but some things, and he'll be able to declare some degree of victory. And this makes sense. But after the news conference, I found myself wondering if he'd get anything." --columnist Peggy Noonan

LIBERTY

"Americans beware. You are not free. Worse, you are being made more and more a slave each day by the very people who tell you incessantly that you are. In fact, the very word itself, FREEDOM, has become your enemy, as it is bandied about proudly and loudly, and distracting you from the encroaching tyranny all around. The word freedom has replaced the substance of freedom that was your birthright, and that is no more. Of course, Americans were never completely free, which is expressly why freedom was so long sustained on these shores. Our Founders knew what freedom is: The natural, God-created state of man, completely unrestrained by the conventions of other men. They also knew that such pure freedom was never practically experienced, and that if it was, it could never be sustained, because it would naturally and instantly consume itself as the powerful and strong exercise of their will without restraint upon the weak. Pure freedom replaces itself with tyranny, rapidly and violently in a shockingly Darwinian fashion. From the chaos of pure freedom rise despots and kings. So what our Founders concluded, through study, meditation, and debate, was that for freedom to last and to perpetuate itself, the natural freedom each man is born to must actually be restrained in one, and only one, regard -- sort of a Golden Rule of Freedom: The free man must give up his freedom to encroach upon the freedom of other free men." --Big Hollywood writer Jeremy D. Boreing

THE GIPPER

"Governments that set out to regiment their people with the stated objective of providing security and liberty have ended up losing both. Those which put freedom as the first priority find they have also provided security and economic progress." --Ronald Reagan

OPINION IN BRIEF

"Today, many in Congress are again saying they are outraged at the possibility of 'targeted killings' of al Qaeda leaders by U.S. intelligence operatives. Why this should be so is puzzling. America's military forces have properly and legitimately been hard at work killing terrorists and destroying their capabilities since the murderous attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Obviously, however, in the war on terror, al Qaeda leaders do not conveniently dispose themselves on military battlefields, so the intelligence community's clandestine efforts appear perfectly suited to the 'war in the shadows' that terrorists typically employ very well. Surely the terrorists care little whether they are being killed by CIA agents disguised as peasants or by grunts in camouflage uniforms and dirty combat boots. America was attacked with deadly force on Sept. 11 and before, and we are entitled to respond in self-defense, including using deadly force, until the threat from the terrorists and their state sponsors is ended. These are principles both moral and legal in the United States. Americans think their government should provide for their 'common defense,' in the Constitution's phrase, and they have little patience with politicians who cringe at taking the necessary steps to do so, in both defense and intelligence. The Obama administration ignores this widespread and entirely understandable thinking at its peril." --former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

(To submit reader comments visit our Letters to the Editor page.)

Editor's Note: Mr. Alexander leaves for Alaska today, but has provided analysis in response to Obama's accusations about police "acting stupidly" when they arrested his old friend, Henry Louis Gates Jr. Stay tuned for Alexander's Essay to be published later this afternoon.

"I read my first Patriot Post essay moments ago -- Alexander's Second Amendment defense. I teach World History at Texas' largest public educational institution and consider myself well spoken and a student of our wonderful Constitution. Yet, with the most humble respect, I must take a moment to praise Mark Alexander's article! I owe a family member dinner for introducing me to The Patriot Post." --Austin, Texas

"Are not the courts the constitutionally authorized arbiters of the constitution's meaning? I checked, and Alexander is not on the Supreme Court." --Cambridge, Massachusetts

Editor's Reply: The courts have ruled both ways, for and against incorporation. However, I do not need the courts to inform me of those rights "endowed by our creator" because our Founders enumerated them in the Bill of Rights. In fact, what the courts are doing now is precisely why many Founders argued against the enumeration of such rights.

"The Constitution notes, in Article IV, Section. 1, 'Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.' If my driver's license is good in all 50 states, why not a concealed carry permit?" --Port Republicm, Maryland

Editor's Reply: This point has been argued, but I would add that the Bill of Rights does not enumerate "driving" as a fundamental right endowed by our Creator! It does enumerate the right to keep and bear arms.

"While we are supposed to be ultimately protected by the Second Amendment in our right to bear arms, we can no longer depend on the courts to provide us that protection. I'm all for using the Second Amendment as a permit to carry, but am not willing to sacrifice my family's financial security while I sit in a prison cell for carrying 'illegally.' I provide physical security for my family through (dubiously) legal means by obtaining a carry permit from my state. I wish I had your faith in our 'justice' system." --Auburn, Michigan

Editor's Reply: If I implied that I have faith in the courts or our justice system, let me dispel what you inferred: I DO NOT.

"I, for too long, did not understand the right to keep and bear arms. I used to believe the argument of reasonable restrictions on weapons as a necessity for ordered society, until I realized it is of no concern of the State what I chose to possess. It is anathema to my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to restrict my ability to protect my inalienable rights. More fundamentally, it is of no concern to my fellow citizens what I deign to keep and bear as long as I do not exercise my rights at the expense of another's rights. For the State to place any restriction on my right to keep and bear arms is tyranny." --Albany, New York

"Hi, my name is Jessie. I'm 11 and I live in Maine. Me and my dad both read The Patriot. I think the Patriot helps explain what my dad is talking about all the time. I also thinks it makes sense. I find Patriot Humor very amusing. Thank you!" --Winter Harbor, Maine

THE LAST WORD

"Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care -- especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure. Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else's Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore. On the other hand, it's a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan. ... You don't have to conjure up fantastic visions of how health care would be delivered in this country if we bought it ourselves. Just go to a grocery store or get a manicure. Or think back to when you bought your last muffler, personal trainer, computer and every other product and service available in inexpensive abundance in this capitalist paradise. ... Isn't food important? Why not 'universal food coverage'? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us 'free' food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the 'food crisis' in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan. Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care -- and health insurance -- on the free market." --columnist Ann Coulter

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit -- Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot's editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)