(03-28-2012 05:17 PM)stdatwmu Wrote:  Well, to clarify... I believe that national, universal healthcare is the correct thing to do from a moral standpoint and should be considered a right in this country. I realize that not everyone shares this opinion.

With all due respect stdat, "rights" are are only "rights" because the Constitution says they are "rights". The Constitution is what provides any and all power that the federal government enjoys. It breaks down, in the various Articles, what the authorities of the three branches of government are, and at the same time describes limitations of those branches.

Unfortunately stdat, I fear that the majority of Americans do not understand the Constitution, and America's dependence on the strength of the Constitution to preserve the tremendous prosperity that we have enjoyed for more than 200 years.

Individual rights were foremost to our founding fathers when they discussed and drafted the Constitution. They never intended to create or even imply any obligation by the government to "provide" for individuals. Indeed, quite to the contrary. They intended, and clearly expressed, that the federal government was to be limited, and its principle objective was to preserve the individuals freedoms; which include the right, among other things , to contract, and to acquire and preserve property.

Our founding fathers wisely understood that, unless we had a Constitution which expressly limited what the government could do, government and its power-brokers (legislators, presidents, kings) would get fat and ignore the rights of individuals. Really what the the government is supposed to do is allow individuals to seek and achieve prosperity through free enterprise, with as little interference as possible.

Monarchs and dictators force people to do what they dont want to do. That is not the "American way"; because our Constitution protects us from that.

"Moral" rights or obligations are for individuals to choose on their own. If you want to buy insurance for needy people, then feel free to do so (perhaps if the government would eliminate the entitlement system, and thus take less from you paycheck in taxes, you will enjoy more "take home" pay to spend charitably). But if someone in this country has a different concept of where his money should be spent, he should enjoy the freedom to make that decision on his own.

And by the way, the drafters of the Constitution even contemplated the possibility that the government might get leaders who lost sight of individual rights and the Constitution. That's why they included the Second Amendment; which didn't guarantee the right to bear arms for the purpose of "self protection", as many would have you believe, but did so, rather, so that individuals could collectively form militias and take arms against tyranny. In other words, so they could conduct revolution if and when our constitutional rights are being compromised by our own government.