No, not the 5th – the 10th. The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States provides protection to the states from encroachment by the federal government. The federal government has become more and more involved in our everyday lives from the college football bowls to the compulsory low-flush toilet bowls in our home.

Liberals and Progressives would have us believe that the federal government is the ultimate authority and they delight in expanding its powers and limiting the freedoms of individuals and states. They believe the Constitution is some type of “living, breathing document” that has outlived its usefulness.

Conservatives know that the Constitution and other founding documents are the foundations of our freedom. The Tenth Amendment is critical to states rights and the last line of defense against the intrusion of federal government. The founders knew that a large federal government could become too powerful and overstep its function.

As stated in the U.S. Supreme Court decision of United States vs. Sprague (not Howard) of 1931, “The Tenth Amendment was intended to confirm the understanding of the people at the time the Constitution was adopted, that powers not granted to the United States were reserved to the States or to the people. It added nothing to the instrument as originally ratified.”

There is an ongoing effort, and rightfully so, to reject the mandates and infringements of the federal government upon the states. Keep in mind that the states created the federal government, not the other way around.

Like Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and Utah, Tennessee’s House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution to urge Congress to recognize Tennessee’s sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment. Part of that resolution is as follows:

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”; and

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and

WHEREAS, the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states.

The Tenth Amendment allows Congress to pass only laws that fall within their constitutional authority. The Constitution only gives Congress the authority to make laws that pertain to certain issues such as taxation, international commerce, currency regulation, the federal Judiciary, and the armed forces to name a few.

That’s it – no healthcare, stimulus, bailouts, education, welfare, etc. For example, Congress was granted the power to promote the general welfare of the nation by the Constitution. That means that Congress should provide laws that are in keeping with the principles of the self-governed.

It also means that Congress may provide legislation that acts in the general “best interest” of our nation. It doesn’t mean that everybody should get a welfare check on the first of the month.

The Constitution also grants Congress the authority to make laws necessary and proper for the carrying out of their enumerated powers, which is a clause that has been manipulated to grant the federal government authority far beyond what our founding fathers intended.

The federal government has been steadily expanding their authority in areas the Constitution has not authorized. Congress has ignored the Constitution by imposing health, environmental and educational mandates on states.

The most recent federal health care proposal will be by far the most serious overreach of Congressional power. Congress is well known for passing unfunded mandates down to states. This top-down approach is unsustainable and unconstitutional.

We send representatives to our state capitals and Washington and often refer to them as “lawmakers.” The fact is – we rarely need any new laws. We just need to abide by the ones we currently have, cut spending, cut taxes and let the free market system that our founders established flourish as it did in the past.

If we take those steps, we will once again make America the greatest economic force in the world, the land of opportunity and a beacon of liberty and freedom for all who wish to come here legally and assimilate. We will give people the opportunity to become successful, not by the hand of government, but by their own hand.

At the same place the American Revolution began over 200 years ago, a political revolution began this month.  In liberal Massachusetts, Americans who believe in capitalism and free enterprise have rebuffed the far-reaching arm of the federal government and the socialist agenda proposed by the current administration.

Just as they did over 200 years ago, Massachusetts’s citizens said “no” to tyrannical rule.  They are rejecting the radicals, leftists and liberals who are trying to control our lives.

Like most Americans, voters in Massachusetts are tired of the bailouts, the high taxes, the company takeovers, the bribes, the backroom deals, the payoffs and the nationalization of everything from the student loan program to health care.

Also, Americans do not appreciate other Americans going around the globe denouncing or criticizing our country.  We also don’t feel like we have to bow or apologize to any other country.

Let’s define a few ideologies before we continue because it seems many of the Left do not understand Socialism and Statism that have promoted their progressive agenda throughout history.  Here they are according to Webster:

Socialism: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Examples of socialism are: government ownership.  Government administration.  Promoting the collective over individual liberties.  Spreading the wealth.  Sound familiar?

Statism: concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often extending to government ownership of industry.

Examples are: Stimulus.  Pork projects.  Burdensome regulations.  Surrendering local authority to the federal government.   These are commonplace in our federal government today.

Capitalism: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.

Free markets.  Competition.  Private or corporate ownership.  Investments.  These are the ideas upon which America was founded.

If we build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to our door.   We don’t want the mousetrap taxed to death, our mousetrap company bailed out or the government taking it over to run it in the ground.

We want to be left along to use our talents God gave us and take advantage of the opportunities given to us by Capitalism and the free markets.

The dictionary also states that in Marxist theory, Socialism is:  a transitional social state between the overthrow of Capitalism and the realization of Communism.  Scary stuff.

But one of the harmful ideologies that we are dealing with in America today is Progressivism.  Whose your daddy?  To Progressives, it means the federal government.  To John Edwards, it has another meaning.

Progressives are made up of both Democrats and Republicans.  Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt and FDR were all Progressives and all believed in an immense federal government.  The federal government creates no wealth, it only takes from producers to give to others and whatever the federal government gives, it can take away.

Americans are angry and they should be.  We see our freedoms eroding daily.  We see terrorists like the panty-bomber given Miranda rights, which are reserved for the protection of U.S. citizens. We see terrorists brought to our shores as we spend millions on them to provide lawyers and a platform to spew their hatred and vitriol.

In the Massachusetts election, President Obama insulted all of us who have owned or driven a pick-up truck.  Days later, he had to use a teleprompter to speak to a group of 7-yr. olds in their classroom at school.  The kids should have been insulted too.

America has awakened and rejected the “change.”  We now know that change was nothing more than a euphemism for big government.  In one year, this administration and Congress has tripled the federal deficit – that’s change you can believe in.

Hopefully, the political revolution will take us back to our roots and back to Capitalism. Time is running out and we must contact our representatives in Washington and let them know what we think.

Progressives have never had the window of opportunity to enact their Socialist agenda like they’ve had during the past year.  I think I just heard that window shut.  It sounded like the shot heard ‘round the world.

Are you still at the North Pole?  Are you floating on a piece of ice with all of the polar bears because of global warming?  How is Mrs. Claus?  Is she a good swimmer?

I’ve been a good boy all year.  I live in Tennessee and I watch the news on TV all the time.

I’ve been told not to use the word “Christmas” any more because I might offend someone, so for this “holiday,” all I want is a copy of the U.S. Constitution.  Is there still a U.S. Constitution, Santa?

You see Santa, when I watch those people in Washington, D.C., I don’t think they have a copy of the Constitution and I want to make copies and give it to all of them.  If they read it, they wouldn’t spend all of our money and vote for things that we don’t want.

They give away more free stuff too than you do Santa.  But, someone told me that all my friends and me would have to pay for all the free stuff they give away to those who won’t work.  I only have two dollars.

I know you and the elves work hard all year.  Maybe, all of you should sign up on welfare and you wouldn’t have to work anymore either.

But, I don’t know who would deliver the presents if you did that.  Could Congress start another government program for that too?

I heard someone ask Congressman Clyburn on TV where healthcare was in the Constitution and he said,  “Well, it’s not in the Constitution. There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the Federal Government has got anything to do with most of the stuff we do.”

On second thought, I don’t know if giving out copies of the Constitution is a good idea or not.  I think some of them have read it, but just don’t care.  Maybe, you should bring me a puppy instead.

Signed……a little Tennessee boy……..

P.S.  I will leave a granola bar and skim milk for you because my president says you are too fat and are exhaling too much carbon dioxide.  Also, the reindeer are emitting too many greenhouse gases, so please start driving a hybrid.

Dear little Tennessee boy,

Ho, Ho, Ho!  Yes, Tennessee, there is a Constitution.  You just don’t understand how things work in Washington.

I bring gifts the elves work to produce each year.  They call that capitalism.  You see, there are many in Washington right now that don’t like capitalism.

Those folks are the ones who want to take money from your mommy and daddy who work and give it to people who don’t work and third-world countries with dictators.  Your president calls it “spreading the wealth,” but here at the North Pole, we call it socialism.

Those people in Washington want to act like Santa and give stuff away, but they don’t have anything to give away, so they have to take it from your mommy and daddy.  Then, they use that money to buy gifts for people so they can get re-elected.  Ho, Ho, Ho.

That’s why it is so hard for your mommy and daddy to make ends meet.   They have to pay taxes, so the people in Washington can spend it on bailouts, stimulus, welfare, healthcare, global warming and things that are not in the Constitution.  If they got to keep more of their money, they could give more to help those who are really in need.

Those people in Washington take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.  If they had read it, they would know that their job is to provide for national defense and infrastructure that citizens cannot provide for themselves.

But, in reality, little Tennessee, most of those in Washington just want to get re-elected.  They don’t really care about the people or they wouldn’t take $500 billion out of Medicare that helps the elderly.

Those people in Washington also talk about all the jobs they have “created” and “saved,” but we both know there is only one Creator and Savior, Jesus Christ.  He is the reason we have Christmas and you can still say Christmas (for now).

So, little Tennessee, I don’t really think it will do any good to give them a Constitution.  I don’t think they would like it as a present.  I don’t even think that a lot of them like America.

So, what kind of puppy would you like?

Merry Christmas and Happy Climategate,

Santa

Earlier in his administration on Nov. 28, 1861, Lincoln had ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.  After that, there became an increasing interest to have Thanksgiving the same day in all the states.

Our country was in the midst of a civil war in 1863, therefore, Lincoln’s Proclamation of Thanksgiving contained many references to the ongoing strife of the war.  Based on the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, following is a condensed version of the proclamation:

The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget…the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity…the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict.  Even with needful diversions…to the national defense, we have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.  The axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements and population has steadily increased.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens…and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln and written by

Secretary of State William Seward.

If Lincoln were alive today, I believe his proclamation would read more like this:

The year that is drawing toward its close is filled with empty promises of more entitlements under the guise of “health care reform,” “stimulus” and “clean energy” further increasing dependence and expanding a voting bloc who looks to the government for their every need.  We pray the time will come when our politicians agonize more over the next generation than the next election.

Even though we are the strongest military power in the world, political correctness will no longer allow us to identify and bring our enemies to justice.  We have eliminated the word “victory” in reference to military campaigns against terrorists who wish to destroy our country.  We now give rights granted under our Constitution, solely reserved for our citizens, to those terrorists.

While we still enjoy economic stability and prosperity, there are those who wish to curb it with new taxes and programs for those who do not want reap the rewards of their labor, yet desire goods and services paid for by the sweat of others.

Aircraft, ships and vehicles have enlarged our borders and our population has increased.  While we welcome those from foreign lands with open arms who come here legally, we have failed to secure our borders from those who wish to do us harm.

Nevertheless, due to the Divine Providence of an almighty God, we have been exceedingly blessed as a nation.  Although attacks from our enemies outside our borders have put us on the defense, we realize our most dangerous enemy is the one within the confines of our sovereign nation.

Only Divine intervention will curtail those who wish to use our right of free speech to indoctrinate our children with socialism and Marxism at movie theaters and various schools throughout our nation.  Our Heavenly Father has been merciful to us, but those who hate our country now have such a powerful influence on our children that only He can demonstrate what must be done to reconcile ourselves to His will.

I hereby invite my fellow citizens all across our God-given land to join with me on the 4^th Thursday of November to observe a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to the Most High God from whom all blessings flow and implore Him to help us heal our wounds by bringing us together so that we may once again become the United States of America.

Are these headlines from the ice age that killed off the dinosaurs?  No, they are headlines from around the U.S. – this October.   They are headlines that are hard to find in the state-run media because those headlines don’t support the “global warming” agenda of the Left.

Records are being broken all over the world and I’m not talking about Disco or Air Supply – I’m talking about record cold temperatures.  Last year, snow fell on Baghdad for the first time in anyone’s memory.

The earth’s average temperature only has risen 1.3 degrees over the past 100 years and has been dropping for the past 10 years.  The environmental leftist groups say that is due to global warming.

So, it’s global warming if it’s too hot and it’s global warming if it’s too cold.   Maybe, they will come up with a new expression like “climate change.”

Many scientists recognize that any global warming is neither man-made nor urgent.

Al Gore’s net worth went from $2 million to $50 million since he left the White House by making movies of polar bears floating adrift on a small piece of ice and telling us of rising temperatures and oceans.

However, hurricane activity has dropped and temperatures are colder.  Maybe, Gore should win the Nobel Peace Prize for Propaganda. Or, be appointed Propaganda Czar!

At a recent global warming conference, he refused to answer questions about inaccuracies of his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, to the filmmaker, Phelim McAleer.  They cut off McAleer’s microphone and all Al Gore could do was mockingly ask him about Polar Bears dying.

By the way, Al, the Artic pack ice has grown over 25% in the last two years and the polar bear population has increased over the past 30 years.  In reality, the polar bear should grab a Coke and chill out.  On the other hand, the earth really does have a temperature – it’s cold.

Our own Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) noted Gore is personally invested as a partner in the firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, which may benefit from the climate bill.  You’re right, Al, the debate is over – you know how to make money using scare tactics.

Earlier this year in March, one of the largest global warming public protests ever in the U.S. was in a massive Washington, D.C. snowstorm.  Protestors stood shivering in the cold with their gloves and hats on while holding their Green Jobs and Stop Coal signs.

Last year in October, snow blanketed London as the House of Commons debated global warming.  It was their first October snow since 1922.

While we are debating healthcare reform, lurking in the Congress is an $845 billion Cap-and-Trade tax bill.  The U.S. Energy Information Administration economic models predict the cost would approach $7,000 per household per year!

In an interview last year with the San Francisco Chronicle, Obama acknowledged under his cap-and-trade proposal, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”  He was right.

Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX) said of the Cap-and-Trade tax bill, “One estimate is that it will raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation, and boost gasoline prices 74 percent and natural gas prices 55 percent.”

The Congressional Budget Office also warned Congress that the Climate Bill would also cost jobs.  Has Congress completely lost their minds?

If the government spending more money would create more jobs, why haven’t we been doing that for the last 200-plus years?  It was just announced that the federal deficit would triple in 2009, yet the unemployment rate continues to climb.

As Reagan said in his 1981 inaugural speech, “In our present crisis, government is not the solution, government is the problem.”  It still holds true.

You know where I’d like to put my carbon footprint – right on the behind of the United Nations Climate Change Convention.  The United Nations is the only group that will benefit from our tax dollars being spent on this global warming hoax.

Al Gore will go down in the annals of time with Chicken Little and the Boy Who Cried Wolf.  Man up, Al.  Put your global warming toys in your lock box.  It may be inconvenient, but it is the truth.

It is being done with radicals in Congress and the White House setting up a shadow government using czars to usurp the authority of Cabinet members and Congress.   Even Hillary has complained.

It is being done with the state-run media, which ignores over a million tea party protestors in Washington, ignores the corruption of radical groups like ACORN, ignores the czars with extremist ties and ignores the corruption and out-of-control spending in Congress.

It is being done by taking our tax dollars and giving them to others through bailouts, special favors and entitlements.

Thomas Jefferson said, “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the Government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

Would you mind if someone robbed you, spent your money and took the credit for everything they did with it?  Politicians call it “investments.”  The Bible calls it stealing.

As the New Hampshire flag states, “Live Free or Die.”  We have to stand up and say, “too much is too much.”

Our federal deficit grows at rate of  $20 billion per week!  Politicians love to talk about “doing it for the children.”  Leaving them riddled with our debt is “doing it to the children.”

Jefferson also said, “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes.”  We’re passing ours on to future generations.

We can’t sustain this type of spending.  One has to wonder if that is the plan.  “You never want a good crisis to go to waste” is part of the Cloward-Piven strategy as is “making a weak economy even worse.”

The Cloward-Piven Strategy is named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Cloward and Frances Piven.

Their goal was to overthrow capitalism by overwhelming the government bureaucracy with entitlement demands.  The created crisis would provide the impetus to bring about radical political change.  Ring a bell?

Is this the change that 53% of the people voted for?  Do we actually want Socialism?  Is this the change that Obama was talking about when he said he was going to “fundamentally transform America?”

By definition, Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution and exchange should be owned and regulated by the community as a whole.  Think “collective.”

In Marxist theory, Socialism is a transitional social state between the overthrow of Capitalism and the realization of Communism.  Remember the Cloward-Piven strategy?

Liberals and big government proponents want the same government that has bankrupted Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to spend over a trillion dollars on a government healthcare takeover that may bankrupt our country.

Conservatives know that a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.

We have to be Constitutionalists and stand up for the principles and beliefs upon which this country was founded.  Our founders were willing to put their lives on the line for our country – are we?

In 1943, four chaplains aboard the USAT Dorchester representing four religions were seen holding hands, praying and singing as their ship sank in the Northern Atlantic.  They had just assisted in evacuating the ship, calming down the soldiers and loading them on the lifeboats after giving away their life jackets.

These were men of the “greatest generation.”  Now, it’s our turn

Are we willing to get off the couch and call or write our Congressmen?  Are we willing to get on our knees and pray for our country?  Are we willing as the Revolutionary Flag stated, “Appeal to Heaven?”

If not, we are going to lose our Liberty.  We are going to lose our country.  This is a time in history that we will look back on one day and wish that we had done more.  We will wish that we had made that call to our Congressman, went to that town hall meeting or contacted the White House.

The Tea Party March on Washington was a wake-up call.  Stop the out-of-control spending of our money.  Stop the corruption. Stop the madness.

Our democratic republic may be in its final hour.  If our voices are not heard now, they may be silenced forever.

All over the country, real Americans with real concerns are turning out in record numbers to voice their opinions on not only healthcare, but also the exponential expansion of the federal government with more control over our lives while spending more of our hard-earned tax dollars to do it.

The debate has turned from healthcare reform to health insurance reform.  The next thing you know, they will be saying “climate change” rather than “global warming.”

While attending a local town hall meeting, I finally realized what the state-run media has been telling us about those angry mobs.  Everyone, including myself, should have been put in a pillory and have rotten fruit thrown at us for questioning the out-of-control spending in Washington.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called these protests against government-run health care “unamerican.”

She also said protestors were carrying swastikas and jokingly referred to us as astro-turfers.  Get it?  Not grassroots people.  You’ve got to love a good football analogy.

At our local town hall meeting, I saw people concerned about losing their rights and their country.  Of course, there are always some who think that the government is an ATM machine and want more.  Most of us just want them to keep their hands out of our pockets.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said town hall protesters were evil-mongers using lies, innuendo and rumor.  He is a leader.

Katie Couric, the unbiased CBS announcer, referred to them in a more enlightened way when she said town hall protests were a result of “fear and ignorance.”  As Earnest T. Bass would say, “you’re just being nice.”

Also, President Obama tried to be diplomatic when he said, “But I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking.  I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.”  Was he talking about Reid and Pelosi?

Anyway, let’s throw the 1^st Amendment out while we get this government-run healthcare passed.  And it has to be done immediately before the American public gets to read it.  As Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel says, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

So far this year the government has taken over the auto industry, the financial companies, the student loan programs and when cap and trade gets passed, they will control the energy companies.  What’s left?

In 2009, the government has exercised great restraint with our hard-earned tax dollars by passing a $3.5 trillion dollar budget, the $800 billion stimulus bill, the $900 billion cap and trade and now we are told to shut up while they spend another $1.5 trillion on a cash-for-clunkers healthcare program.

President Obama’s plans to reform the healthcare system in the U.S. are a “threat to democracy,” according to Congressman Wally Herger from California.

He’s right.  If this was just about healthcare, they could enact tort reform and other regulatory measures to increase portability and accessibility.  It’s about control.  It’s about power.  It’s about increasing their voting block.  It’s about expanding government to keep people dependent on it, not only for healthcare, but also for jobs.

Government run healthcare has not worked in Tennessee, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Canada or England.  When TennCare, for example, overspent their budget, what did they do?  Kick people off the rolls.  Get the picture?

The White House just announced that they had to increase their budget deficit projection by $2 trillion.   Recently, the Veteran’s Administration mistakenly sent out letters to 1200 veterans telling them they had ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s, a fatal neurological disease.   Are these the people you trust to cut costs and provide excellent healthcare?

All throughout the Bible, citizens frowned upon tax collectors.  As a substitute, we now have liberal members of Congress.  Instead of thanking us for their job and being a watchdog for our tax dollars, they stand in front of us and tell us that they know how to spend our money better than we do.

My favorite comment at our local town hall meeting came from one of the government takeover supporters who at the end of his question time said, “Socialism – we need to embrace it.”  Sorry – not this American.

So, the government that can’t run a “Cash for Clunkers” wants to run a government healthcare program?

Obamacare sounds like it will take some patients off the road with, as the president calls them, those tough “life-ending” decisions that could save $500 billion in Medicare costs.

With Medicare and Social Security projected to go bankrupt in a few years and all the other successful programs like public housing, why shouldn’t we entrust our healthcare to a bunch of federal bureaucrats?

Maybe, we could just sit down with the doctors and have a few beers.  During the summit, we might be able to persuade them to quit yanking the tonsils out of kids that come into their office with a sore throat.

The Canadian Healthcare system is a good case in point.  In Canada, if a patient needs CT Scan, they can get you in the next day.  There’s only one catch – you have to buy your food at the pet shop.  Humans have to wait a month.

In Canada, a lady was told she would have to wait 4-6 months to have arterial surgery.  She came to America, had it immediately and the doctor told her that she would have died within two weeks.

One town in Canada actually has a lottery and if you are chosen, you get a primary care physician.

The average wait in an emergency room is 23 hours.

In England, you have to wait in line for days to register for a dentist.  Many pull their own teeth with a pair of pliers and vodka.  Also in England, you are 5 times more likely to die of breast cancer and 8 times more likely to die of prostate cancer.

In regards to older patients, Obama said, “At least we can let doctors know this (procedure) is isn’t going to help.”  Who are “we”?  Does he have a medical degree?

Here’s how their system works.  Your chance of getting certain procedures is based on taking your life expectancy and dividing the cost of your treatment.  It is called the “comparative effective research” which is also known as “rationing.”

Your healthcare could be denied if you don’t fall under the guidelines or as President Obama said, “you might be better off not having the surgery and taking a painkiller.”   Why not just give us all a morphine pump when we hit 65?

The World Health Organiztion ranked our healthcare system #1 in the world and Congress and the Obama Administration have set out to destroy it.  A recent poll showed that 85% of Americans said they were happy with their healthcare.

Room for improvement?  Sure.  But, why not address the areas of concern instead of forcing the type of healthcare that Congress and Obama have already stated they would not make use of themselves? Because it is not about healthcare – it’s about power and control over our lives.

As for the 45 million without healthcare coverage, approximately 15 million of them are illegal immigrants and 15 million are 18-35, healthy and could purchase it, but choose not to do so.

The other 15 million with pre-existing conditions or inability to purchase coverage deserve our attention.  Why aren’t we concentrating on them?

So, if you want the bureaucratic “Health Benefits Advisory Committee” in Washington making the decisions on your healthcare instead of you, your family and your doctor, you’re going to love Obamacare.

How are we going to pay for it?  That’s the best part.  Taxpayers get to pay $1 trillion while cuts in Medicare pays for the other $500 billion.  Just a thought – if we can save $500 billion a year in Medicare, why aren’t we already doing it?

Also, under Obamacare, every five years after you start receiving Medicare, you will be required to attend a counseling session on how to end your life sooner.

It sounds like Dr. Kevorkian will be doing the counseling.  If you become a burden to society, it’s time to pull the plug.

Scary stuff.  But, when you have someone leading the country that voted against an Illinois bill in 2003 called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which permitted babies born during botched abortions to be given medical treatment and allowed to live, is it surprising?

The beginning of the colonists’ struggles took place in 1607, thirteen years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.  Three ships, Godspeed, Susan Constant and Discovery with 104 brave souls arrived from London 4 ½ months later at what is now known as Jamestown Settlement – America’s first permanent English colony.

Having boarded the ships, I’m astounded they endured the journey, much less the hardships that followed, however, in 1619, the colonists created the House of Burgesses patterned after the British Parliament.

Later, in 1699, the House of Burgesses moved to what is now known as Williamsburg and in 1770 became the Virginia House of Delegates.  It was the first form of representative government in the colonies.

Some of its distinguished members were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry.  In 1769, the House of Burgesses was dissolved by the governor (who must have been a liberal) because they were speaking out against the oppressive British taxation.

At this point, Paul Harvey would have said, “you know the rest of the story.”

While touring the hallowed grounds of Williamsburg, the campus of William and Mary, the Capitol or the places the founders met in private, the taverns (where we now pay the tab), I reflected, “what would the founders think about our country today?”

Thomas Jefferson once reminded his fellow citizens that their happiness and prosperity rested upon a “wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

Does this sound anything like our government?  Unless he was buried in Chicago, he would be rolling over in his grave today.

Jefferson went on to say in 1816 that the tasks of the federal government were few: government should restrain individuals from encroaching on the equal rights of others; compel them to contribute to the necessities of society and require them to submit their disputes to an impartial judge.

Jefferson also stated, “When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions.”  Why, then, do we need 1300-page bill written by staffers and lobbyists that no one reads?

The possibility of an out-of-control government was addressed in a quote attributed to George Washington, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force: like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master.  Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”

While observing the Independence Day events, the period costumes, the unnamed horsemen riding into town declaring “news from the North” and later listening to the reading of the Declaration of Independence just as it was read in 1776, I am convinced that the founding fathers were indeed inspired by Divine Providence.

Just as the creation of the earth could not have been some “random event” after some “big boom,” neither could the founding of our country have been a random event in history.   How long it will endure will be determined by the perseverance of those who see our country as Reagan did: a shining city on a hill.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as he left Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin was asked by a lady, “Well Dr. Franklin, what have we got – a Republic or a Monarchy?”

He replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

I stood in the Williamsburg Capitol House of Burgesses in the spot customarily occupied by one of our founders, Patrick Henry.  He, of course, is best known for his famous statement, “Give me liberty or give me death.”  One day, Americans may be faced with that choice again.

The last night in Williamsburg, VA, was spent at the Kimball Theater watching the play, “Jefferson and Adams.”  Incredibly, Jefferson and Adams both died on July 4^th on the 50^th anniversary of our great republic.

Jefferson died earlier in the day, but Adams was not aware of it as he was taking his last breaths later that day while asserting, “Thomas Jefferson still lives.”  Indeed he does sir – indeed he does.

Patrick Henry, the “give me liberty or give me death guy” said, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Or how about John Jay, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court and one of the three men responsible for our Constitution?  “Providence has given to our people the choice for their rulers and it the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”  Oops!  Another right-winger.

Also, I think James Madison had something to do with that old pesky Constitution that keeps getting in the way of the liberal agenda.  He stated, “We have staked the future of all of our political institutions…upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

Of course, Madison did not want them hung in the courthouses or schools because someone might stop, read, obey them and not steal or kill because of them.  That would be unconstitutional.

Then there was John Quincy Adams on July 4th, 1837, addressing an Independence Day crowd, “Why is it that next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day?”

“Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth?  That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?”  Weren’t all these men atheists and Deists?

In a 10-year university of Houston study of the Founders and 15,000 quotes, they identified 3,154 quotes made by the Founders and had identified the sources of those quotes.  They discovered that 34% of Founders’ quotes come directly out of the Bible and 94% were either directly or indirectly from the Bible.

From 1690 to 1900, the New England Primer was the first and most-used textbook in America.  It used Bible verses to assist students is memorizing the alphabet.  There were even questions about the Ten Commandments in the back of the book.   Shocking indeed!

What about that “separation of church and state” to which the ACLU and the liberals allude?   It would be much more effective if it were actually in some founding document.

It was in a letter from Jefferson’s to the Danbury Baptist Association on Jan. 1, 1802, because they were worried that the Congregational Church was going to be established as a national denomination.  When in context, it shows that the founder wanted to use Christian principles without establishing a national denomination.

However, if you repeat something enough, like hope and change, many will eventually believe it.
In the Church of the Holy Trinity Vs. United States in 1892, the Supreme Court ruled, “ Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and must embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind.  It is impossible for it to be otherwise.  In this sense, to this extent, our civilizations and our institutions are emphatically Christian.”

In that ruling, they quoted 87 precedents including quotes from the founding fathers.  70 years later in the 1962 ruling to ban prayer in schools, the Supreme Court cited 0 precedents.

Although the ruling lacked historical or legal precedents, liberal and progressive judges only need precedents when it promotes their activist agendas.

The following year, they banned school Bible reading.  They stated that “If portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could be and….had been psychologically harmful to the child.”

I’m glad we took that New Testament out of public schools.  Look how much it has traumatized those children in Christian schools!

In a March 27, 1854, House Judiciary Committee Report, it stated, “In this age, there is no substitute for Christianity…. That was the religion of the Founders of the Republic and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.”  According to a 2007 Pew Poll, 78% say it still is.

On the campaign trail, Obama stated, “Folks haven’t been reading their Bible.”  Apparently, some folks haven’t been reading their history book either.