By Mark Rhoads -
In his 1961 Inaugural Address, President John F. Kennedy said, "The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God."
I doubt that many "progressive" Democrats in 2017 could agree with that statement by a Democratic icon of 56 years ago. JFK had studied the ideals of the founders of the nation but most modern Democrats are ignorant of those ideals.
Today, liberals or "progressives" as they prefer to call themselves, use the term "rights" in such an intellectually dishonest and slovenly manner as to invent a word that is completely subjective. For example, they say that people have a "right" to health-care insurance. Where did that right to buy an insurance product paid for by the government come from? From the unlimited imagination of utopian socialists who worship the government as their secular god.
Like the God of Abraham and Moses, their secular god is also a jealous god that demands that no other god is allowed to be superior to the elites who run the government.
Liberals fear the rejection of the idea of universal coverage for health care insurance regardless of whether or not everyone needs an insurance policy to follow a healthy lifestyle. They claim the repeal of Obamacare now being debated by the House and Senate Republicans is a violation of what they claim is a "right" to health care insurance coverage. They are joined in an unholy alliance with for profit doctors, hospitals, trade associations, insurance companies, and even the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to reject any dissent from the fantasy that redistribution of wealth disguised as a public good is moral even in the face of the Seventh Commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Steal."
Redistribution of wealth is a form of stealing because it takes from one person to bestow on another person in the name of a "right" that does not and never has existed in natural law. In a free society, people have the right to be free to provide for themselves and their families including the right to work for a healthy lifestyle but not the right to an insurance product.
The individual mandate on all citizens, just because they live here, to purchase a product that they might not need or want is why Obamacare has always been immoral and cannot be fixed or ever be compatible with personal freedom.
But as someone who loves personal freedom, I have to concede that socialism is often more politically popular than freedom because it seductively promises so many services to so many Americans and makes them think it is "free." To make people really understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch is a very hard job of long-term education.
Socialists have been winning the education wars for many years and it will be a long road back to freedom. The battle to restore freedom must come from the outside idealists because career-loving incumbents in both parties cannot lead the fight because staying in office is their most important value.
