Government-Run Health Care: The Early Days

From the London Gazette of 18 November 1672....

"His Majesty [Charles II] has commanded that notice be given that no persons whatsoever do come to be healed of the King's Evil unless they bring a certificate under the hands and seals of the ministry and churchwardens of the parishes where they inhabit [stating] that they have not been touched before. [No pre-existing conditions!] And His Majesty requires that the ministers in their respective parishes keep a constant register of such persons to whom they give these certificates." [A clear invasion of privacy!]

England has the best health care system in the world! Write your Member of Parliament forthwith to protest against this unnecessary enlargement of government bureaucracy and unwarranted intrusion into the sovereign-subject relationship!

[The quotation above appears in Jeffrey Kacirk's "Forgotten English" calendar for 2009.]

Remembering Armistice Day

Before there was Veterans Day, there was Armistice Day.

That's what they used to call it when I was growing up, remembering the armistice that went into effect at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 -- the armistice that marked the end of the horrific four-year slaughter known as the Great War.

Now we call it Veterans Day, and it's a time for remembering and honoring not only all those who once served in our armed forces, but all those who are doing so now. The trouble with honoring our warriors, though, is that we end up honoring our wars as well.

I remember a scene from a 1964 film called The Americanization of Emily, written by Paddy Chayevsky: Charlie Madison, an American naval officer stationed in England during World War II, is having tea with his English girlfriend, Emily Barham, and her mother. Mrs. Barham seems to be in denial about her husband's death in the war, believing that he is still alive and nobly fighting on for God and country....

CHARLIE: I don't trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham. It's always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is. It's always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parade.

EMILY: That was unkind, Charlie, and very rude.

CHARLIE: We shall never end war, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on ministers and generals, war-mongering imperialists, or all the other banal bogeys. It's the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers. The rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widow's weeds like nuns, Mrs. Barham, and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices. My brother died at Anzio.

EMILY: I didn't know that, Charlie.

CHARLIE: Yes, an everyday soldier's death, no special heroism involved. We buried what pieces they found of him. But my mother insists he died a brave death and pretends to be very proud.

MRS. BARHAM: You're very hard on your mother. It seems a harmless enough pretense to me.

CHARLIE: No, Mrs. Barham. No, you see, now my other brother can't wait to reach enlistment age. That'll be in September.

MRS. BARHAM: Oh, Lord.

CHARLIE: It may be ministers and generals who blunder us into wars, Mrs. Barham, but the least the rest of us can do is to resist honoring the institution. What has my mother got for pretending bravery was admirable? She's under constant sedation, terrified she may wake up one morning, and find her last son has run off to be brave. I don't think I was rude, or unkind before, do you Mrs. Barham?

I think it's important that we not "perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices." I think it's worth remembering that Veterans Day started out as the commemoration of the end of a war. If only it could be so again.

Are you opposed to Socialism?

If so, then you should immediately do the following:

1. Take your children out of public school.
2. Delete the police and fire department numbers from your speed dial.
3. Return all your library books.
4. Tear up your Medicare/Medicaid cards.
5. Stay off the public highways.
6. Refuse to pay your taxes.

OR... Disregard the preceding nonsense, and take a few minutes to find out what Socialism really is. Here's one of many places you might start:

Thomas Jefferson's Prophecy

Thomas Jefferson, who affirmed our "unalienable" rights on July 4, 1776, knew that those rights were not guaranteed. In 1781, while the war for independence was still being fought, he noted that although the present times were marked by an enthusiasm for the rights of the people, this would not be so forever. With an uncannily accurate look into the future, he wrote:

Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless.... From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.

Many people will quote from the Declaration of Independence today. Most of them will stop after the phrase "... life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But it's what comes next that makes the Declaration one of the most radical political documents ever written:

... that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it....

Today, 233 years later, our rulers have become corrupt, our people careless, save in the sole faculty of making money. Will our rights revive, or expire in a convulsion?