PING: Republicans/Conservatives (non-trolling)

[AgPete]

I tend to agree with albionmoonlight. I just feel that giving health care to the citizens of your country is the right thing to do, especially when it's a country such as the United States. Most of the first world countries have instituted socialized medicine. (And socialism, communism, whatever term people want to use is not a bad word in my opinion, I wish our country could think out of the box on some issues.) I don't know if anyone has heard of the plans which import Canadian medicine because it's so much cheaper, but apparently Canada is having to cutback because too many Americans are buying medicine and causing shortages. I think it's a sad statement on American healthy policy when we have to drain another industrialized country's medicine cabinets because our system is so crazy. It's a naive view of the world, but I always thought America was about doing the right thing, and providing health care for your citizens is doing the right thing. We all end up the same, we might as well make the best of this world and the people living on it while we have a chance. I would gladly pay higher taxes for a broad national healthcare plan. While I'm at it, I'd like to take out the percentage of my taxes that pay for the crazy war on drugs, corporate welfare or another pointless budget priority and contribute it to the new health plan. For those that don't trust government regulation of anything, yes there will be waste, yes there will be a pointless bureaucracy just like any government institution from the national to state level, but I feel government should provide basic humanitarian services when its private industy cannot. Even though my faith in humanity lessens each year, I still believe in doing the right thing for mankind. I guess the sad thing about the entire socialized health care argument is that movement against it (including the backlash against Clinton's proposal when he was first elected) can probably be traced back to campaign donations from those that stand to lose from healthcare regulation more than they can a politician's political philosophy.

[ShagVT]

Originally posted by wbonnell
What makes the Constitution sacrosanct? Were these men gods? We capitalize the name Founding Fathers as if they were infallible dieties. Why are the ideas of men dead 200 years necessarily valid? If society requires new laws, it should not be bound to a document drafted by conspiring men centuries earlier. The mere notion of being a "Constitutionalist" is analagous to being a "fan boy". The Constitution may be the greatest of its kind, and it may be as valid today as it was 200 years ago, but that doesn't mean it's infallible.

I resent the "fan boy" label here. Yes the Constitution was written by men who lived in another era. They had their issues. And they certainly were politicians. But the fact remains that the Constitution is the law. In recognition of their fallability, they included a process by which the Constitution could be amended. If there is a power that the people think the government should have that is not expressly enumerated, an amendment should be ratified.

Originally posted by Blackadar
In addition, I don't believe Republicans are Constitutionalists at all. Any true Constitutionalist also takes into consideration the Declaration of Independence as a founding document. The Declaration of Independence lays out the WHY we were founded. The Constitutuion lays out the HOW we were founded. You cannot have one without the other.

This includes the phrase "WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". That phrase also indicates that something done to promote that would not necessarily be illegal.

Well, I will not disagree with your first statement at all. Republicans have shown since they came to DC that they are just as happy at the trough as the Democrats. They realize that their personal power is directly proportionate to the size and influence of govenment and they have backed off their 1994 promise to cut back government.

I will, however, disagree with you that conservatives in general do not consider the motivation of the writers and focus too much on the hard text. Aside from the above point that the text is in fact the law, I think there is at least as much insight into the motivation of the founders by reading the Federalist Letters. It is clear that the government was intended to be a minimalist government, where the real power to decide major societietal virtues like socialized medicine would belong to the states.

As I believe I have said several times now, I am not altoghether opposed to a prescription drug benefit. I merely think that the correct way - the Constitutionally intended way - would be to let individual states decide their own health benefits for seniors.