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What a restful sleep it has been as we lounged dreaming sweetly in the freedom that was bought for us with so dear a price. With our tacit consent, our federal masters have been fulfilling their apparent reason for existence, tirelessly heaping law upon rule, regulation upon policy, statute upon subsection until none among us but the most specially educated can comprehend their meaning and implication.
But that is not all. To enforce those rules, a vast cadre of neo-mandarins has been cloned and empowered. There are czars of diversity, banking, schools and nearly a hundred other areas, and beneath their all-searching eyes, an even more numerous army of commissars increasingly ply their daily regulatory trade. These persons are not elected, and many of them remain unknown until we feel the weight of their regulatory boot upon our neck.
We share blame with the primary perpetrators of our increasing servitude, for we allowed our (Republican and Democrat) elected representatives to return to their districts several times each year to gleefully report on the many new laws they have sponsored or championed. We applauded when they espoused our personal favorites, grumbled when we disagreed, and sent them or others like them back year after year to repeat the performance.
Did we ever arise and demand that they oppose further tinkering with the republic? Did we once admonish them to just go back to Washington and be vigilant for our sakes, to protect our fast-eroding freedom, to diligently insure that the uncountable multitude of existing laws were fully understood and implemented before another truckload of constraints was dumped upon us?
Now comes health care reform, more than 1,000 pages of it. How many among us have ever read a thousand-page book, much less a body of convoluted legal exposition? Even if we were inclined to undertake such a serious task, how could we comprehend a document that is intentionally kept hidden from our prying citizen-eyes?
This so-called reform, when fully exposed to the light, will amaze us with its obvious failure to address the concerns for which it was allegedly conceived. It, like all such secret works, will be riddled with unforeseen consequences, many of which will be antithetical to its alleged intention to benefit us as citizens.
It is quite late and if we fail to fully awaken now, we may have overslept the last hour wherein we can retain our precious freedom. Perhaps if we are stirred to fitful consciousness we finally see that our house has some leaky plumbing, but to fix that problem some are preparing to torch the whole house. The conflagration will be no accident, and if we allow it to burn unchallenged, we will surely rue our inaction.
Michael J. Riemann
Gainesville
There’s nothing un-American in standing up for right to life
I disagree with Kyle Shook about the recent pro-life rally in Gainesville being "un-American." What is truly un-American is the slaughter of innocent, pre-born children whose only crime is being unwanted.
I don’t have a problem with women not wanting children, but when they commit the act that produces a child, I do have a serious problem with them committing murder to get rid of the "inconvenience."
I am definitely in favor of women having control of their reproductive rights, but abortion should never be used to control reproduction. With the availability of a wide range of contraceptives these days, there should be very few unwanted children.
Contrary to Shook’s philosophy, I also believe God doesn’t approve of abortion and I don’t hesitate to bring religion into the argument. There are instances where people have sacrificed their children to idol gods by burning them. God condemned this practice, and I see very little difference in this practice and what goes on today. Abortion sacrifices these precious little ones on an altar of pleasure just as much as "passing them thru the fire unto Molech" by burning them.
God told the prophet Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee and ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." This says to me that God has a plan for every life that is conceived and I believe the child should be brought to birth.
Of the 50 million-plus children that have been murdered in the womb, I wonder how many brilliant doctor, engineers, architects, teachers, etc., were included. We’ll never know until we stand before God in judgement. Then we’ll know for sure whether He gave His approval to abortion. I don’t believe he does and I choose to err on the side of caution.
Bethel Midgett
Gainesville