I recently saw a film clip on the news of U.S. Rep. John Lewis addressing the House of Representatives. He gave an impassioned speech about the “right” of every American to affordable health insurance.

I have a question for Mr. Lewis. If you take government out of the equation, where or how does one obtain this right?

The Declaration of Independence declares that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. It continues and lists those rights as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is no place outside the socialist progressive agenda of the modern-day Democratic party that you will find health care assumed as a right.

The pursuit of happiness allows a person whose liberty — which by the way is established by our founding documents — to work and sacrifice to obtain that which makes the individual happy. If health care makes them happy, then it is their responsibility to work and sacrifice to obtain it. Only those who are truly incapable of providing for themselves should be eligible to seek such benefit from charitable or governmental sources.

Mr. Lewis needs to read further in the Declaration to understand that government derives its rights and powers from the governed. Government is not the bestower of rights and power, but the recipient. The Declaration also empowers the people with the right to alter or abolish government whenever it becomes destructive of the rights for which it was established, which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Do not be misled by the politicians, pundits or press. The election in November is not about jobs and the economy. It is about the foundations of our republican form of government.

Will we turn the corner, irreversibly toward socialism? Will we return to the values and freedoms that allowed us to become the great United States of America? My yard sign will say, “Socialism or Republicanism, your choice Nov. 6.”

Thomas Day
Buford