The 2nd Amendment "Because" Clause

I have been waiting for the opportune time to write about my theory of the 2nd amendment, and since Vice President Cheney has accidentally shot his friend while hunting quail (not Dan Quayle), we know that the gun control Brady freaks will be out in full force extolling the dangers of scatter guns. I suppose now is as good a time as ever to float this.

Keep in mind that this is a theory based on my own observations and what knowledge I have of the subject. While it is no secret as to the intent of the Founders in regards to the right of the people to bear arms, as is evident in Federalist 28, written by Alexander Hamilton, some supporters of gun control will use the "Well Regulated Militia" rationalization. This rationalization for denying citizens their guns dictates that the Founders never intended for anyone but the militia to have the undeniable right to bear arms.

And here comes the place where my theory develops. A well-regulated militia is exactly why the Founders wrote the 2nd amendment. But not to preserve the militia, but rather the amendment was written to preserve the right of the people to keep and bear arms to protect themselves from the regular army.

One has to consider the standpoint of the Founders when writing this. First of all, the law of the King was enforced by his military, oftentimes at the point of the bayonet. The Founders understood that taking the arms of the citizenry gives an unfair advantage to the government who controls the regular army. The whole purpose of the Bill of Rights was to preserve certain rights considered inalienable that the government, given the right conditions, could alienate and bring the citizenry under the subjection of tyranny.

Consider the proximaty to the two adjacent amendments. The 1st amendment guarantees the right to speak out against the government, either verbally or in press, to practice religion freely with no establishment of a national religion, and to assemble peacefully for whatever the purpose. The 3rd amendment guarantees the right of the citizenry to turn aside troops asking for quarter in peace time, and even in time of war unless prescribed by law. If one considers the order of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, one can see a pattern that may have been experienced during pre-Revolution America by political dissidents against the crown of England.

A dissident would speak out against the King, or facilitate an unlawful assembly, whether religious or not. The local government would send the military to enforce the law of the Crown, ensuring the punishment of dissidents. Troops would storm homes through force, taking the possessions, livestock, and rations of the owners of the home. Home owners would be forced to allow for the quartering of the troops. Troops could seize documents and property without warrant. Trials were conducted with prejudice against the charged. Judges appointed by the King and accountable only to him would preside over the trial, and punishment sometimes was cruel and intolerable, not be-fitting of the crime, but meant to be examples to other dissidents. In a nutshell, you have the logic behind the first eight amendments.

And what would give these rights the teeth needed to fend off tyranical government? The 2nd amendment, if read within this context, would guarantee the right of the people to keep and bear arms so that the well-regulated militia, who is under the authority of the President, would not so easily run roughshod over the rank and file citizenry.

If one word were added to this 2nd amendment, the meaning would be clearer. Though I am not suggesting that the Founders should have written it differently, this one word may cut the legs from under the Brady freaks:

(Because) a well-regulated militia (is) necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

The Founders were not foolish and realized that given the opportunity, other nations would try to take advantage of the borders of the United States. Therefore, they realized the necessity of the a regular army and navy, and stated so within the original articles of the Constitution. It was not necessary to re-affirm the necessity of the regular army and navy in the Bill of Rights, but rather it was necessary to affirm the right of the people to protect themselves from danger, including the regular army.

We have fallen far away from the Tree of Liberty planted by our Founders. Madison, Hamilton, and others would no doubt shed bitter tears to know that some of their posterity would willingly concede the rights that they fought for, nor have the will to take arms to defend them as they did.

Who Is Responsible For Our Healthcare "Crisis"?

Much is debated concerning healthcare these days, largely due to our aging population of baby-boomers. Everything is debated from availability of healthcare, who should pay, how much should be paid, and much more. Prescription drugs have came to the forefront of debate in recent years, the culmination to this point being our "Fights like a Republican, but governs like a Democrat" president floating the Ford Pinto of healthcare legislation, the Medicare Prescription Drug plan. This Hillarycare-lite legislation was a lemon before it left the factory.

Regarding this drug plan, I was priviledged to have the educational experience of attending a local town hall meeting held by Congressman Nathan Deal, a Republican from Georgia, and the congressman for my district, a couple of years ago. At this time, this legislation was in its infancy, but was in the press regularly. Rep. Deal was questioned heavily on the logic of government involvement in healthcare and the Constitutionality of the legislation in general. Rep. Deal's answer was basically, "Someone is going to pass a drug plan for Medicare, and if we do it, then maybe it will not be as bad as it would if a Democrat congress would pass it in the future."

Behind this legislation is the perceived drive of individuals to have government involved in their healthcare, mainly at the paying end. No one wants to pay for their doctor's bills. They want someone else to, be it the Federal government or a health insurance company.

Health insurance is socialism in its most basic form. People of all ages contribute, in the form of premiums, some amount of money to a pool, from which funds are distributed to health care providers and to defray administration costs. Premiums vary little dependent upon health issues, so basically everyone pays the same premium. In some plans, after one pays for a family plan of 3 or 4 individuals, additional individuals in the family are covered by the premium. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

And so, a single, 30 year-old male who has an annual checkup every two years will pay as much or more per individual for healthcare premiums as the 50 year old woman with a bad heart, four children under the age of 18, and in love with her OBGYN.

As is the experience with the healthcare plan of which I am a member, every year brings higher premiums with less service. This is because healthcare costs are rising exponentially year over year, and this because of our aging population and lack of competition. The only logical end to this madness is that one pays an outrageous premium and gets no healthcare in return. And many people do.

So why are costs so high? Lack of competition is a big component of high health premiums. Many plans will pay "reasonable" fees for services from approved physicians in the plan. But you get what you pay for, and as it stands, you get about the same thing with any physician to which you go. Physicians have to run patients through as if at a cattle sale to turn a profit, and the result is a sub-par experience, short and impersonal.

But because of the restraints of most health plans, one has no choice but to take the one-size-fits-all approach. And this is the trade-off for someone else paying for your healthcare.

The solution? Abolish the need for health insurance by paying for your own healthcare. Easier said than done, I know, but the only insurance one should need would be for catastrophic occurrences, such as hospitalization, an event that is tightly managed by your HMO or PPO now. Tax-free health savings accounts are available to contribute for your own healthcare and not another. If the current insurance and Medicare structure were obsoleted, physicians would have to compete more for patients. Rather than Wal-Mart care, you could have range of Dollar General care to Sax Fifth Avenue care, depending upon what you would determine to be the cost/benefit of such care.

But people are too busy nursing the government breast to see that the cause of our healthcare crisis is them.

Budget Cuts, Smudget Cuts

Our President has now released his budget proposal for the fiscal year of 2007. According to the story, the budget is a proposed $2.77 Trillion (Yes, that is a "T"). One of the actions of this budget is to trim back increases in existing line items. In Washington, this is called a "budget cut".

Allow me again to define "budget cut" in Washington terms; a reduction in the rate of growth of an existing line item of a budget.

An example would be as follows. Let us suppose that your household is Washington, D.C., and one of your line items on your budget is "entertainment". This is the money that you set aside to eat at restaurants, go to the movies, bowling, etc. You have other line items in your budget that are necessary for the existence of your house. "Entertainment" is a line item that has been in your budget for years, and your constituency, which is your family, has come to expect the benefits of "entertainment". In other words, they feel "entitled" to entertainment.

Let us further suppose that your spending is in line, year after year, with your revenues. In other words, you have a balanced budget, taking in no more that you spend. Let us further suppose that you have a cost of living increase of 4% on average; therefore, all things being equal, all line items on your budget have a 4% spending increase annually.

But this year, you must replace your roof. The normal budget for home maintenance will be short the necessary funds to replace the roof. To maintain a balanced budget, you must trim in another area. You determine that if you increase your spending in entertainment by 2% instead of 4%, then you can increase your home maintenance line item to cover the cost of roof replacement.

You have just cut your budget for entertainment.

So what do you do. If you were Washington, D.C., you would borrow the money to repair the roof from someone outside your home. In other words, you would create a deficit, so that the entitlement of entertainment for your family would meet the expected rate of growth.

If your children were Democrats, and most likely Republicans as well, they would be screaming about how disenfranchised they were by the "cut" in their entitlement, how the rich parents are just getting richer, and how discrimination against children is still rampant in your home.

And so it is in Washington. What would it be called if the rate of growth was negative? Maybe revolution.

You Can't Do All of Your Shopping At Wal-Mart

Apparently, Wal-Mart is being sued again. But this time, it is to attempt to force Wal-Mart to sell the morning-after pill.

Wal-Mart doesn't sell Playboy magazine either. Nor does it sell a number of other items.

Wal-Mart purposefully does not sell a number of items due to attempting to maintain a persona as a family-friendly store. Wal-Mart does sell contraceptives of other sorts, as well as some "R" rated movies in the video section, but for the most part, the chain has steered clear of controversial items.

Now, I personally believe that an individual or corporation has a right to decide what they sell, when they sell, and to whom they sell it. The market will decide if the decisions made by the company were right. For example, and I know this may not be politically correct, but if Lester Maddox Chicken wants to serve only white customers, then that is their right. They stand to suffer lost opportunity of revenue due to this decision, but if they are willing to suffer the consequences, so be it. You also have a right to allow whom you want in to your own home. Why should a place of business be different?

Likewise, businesses should be allowed to sell what they want. What if beef farmers sued Chick-Fil-A to force them to sell ground beef hamburgers? We would find this ridiculous, as we should. If one wants a hamburger, go to Burger King, Wendy's or McDonalds.

And so if you want to buy the morning-after pill, go to CVS, who, according to the article, is the largest pharmacy chain in the state of Massachusetts, where the lawsuit was filed.

This is no more than a pathetic attempt by Wal-Mart-hating liberals to take another shot at the chain. And why?

1. They are the number one retailer in the world, proving that free enterprise is the only workable economic system.
2. They are not unionized.

Look for many more attempts by liberals to use the force of the government, particularly the courts, to further their socialist agendas.