Representative Government is Replaced with Absolutism.

Today, the President of the United States and Congress celebrated the passage of "landmark" health care legislation. In a crowded White House East Room a beaming President Obama signed the United States National Health Care Reform Act into law while numerous senators and representatives looked on.

Although this is not the first time that the US federal government passed unpopular legislation into law, this is clearly the most egregious example from both a procedural and financial standpoint.

Thirteen US states Attorneys General have filed lawsuits against this legislation to challenge it's constitutionality. This is rapidly being seen as a "state's rights" issue. States, who are not able to print money like the federal government can, are wondering how they are going to pay their share of this huge expansion of government involvement in not only the regulation but also the financing of the US health care industry.

Even as he signed it the American people remain firmly opposed to this law as shown in this poll by Rasmussen on March 21st, 2010. 54% of Americans oppose it, while only only 41% are in favor with about 5% undecided.

The manner in which Congress passed it, using a procedural rule instead of a straight up and down vote, has incensed many Americans.

The American people have been left with a rancid taste in their mouth. Even many Democrats are unhappy with this bill, albeit for reasons other than my own. They are also disgusted by the manner in which this law made it through the legislative process. Many of those who voted for it were quite literally offered sweetheart deals for their districts or states in order to entice them to vote for it. In the real world, these are called "bribes".

We have been lied to. How can any reasonable person think that adding 31 million people to the health care system, many of them being persons already very ill, to a health care system with no provision for adding doctors, nurses or facilities to the same system will not result in increases in costs for all? Well, Obama, Pelosi, Reid and a host of other progressives have sold us that bill of goods. Now we'll see.

Why is it that progressives believe that for good "social" programs to work they only have to provide access to those who have little or none, without also working to improve the quality? And damn the consequences.

Why couldn't they also include some cost controls?

Whey couldn't they make the FDA drug approval process less expensive or less intrusive?

Why couldn't they put in some reasonable limits on malpractice lawsuits?

Why couldn't they put in some stronger consequences for filing frivolous lawsuits.

Why couldn't they put limits on how much of a class-action settlement lands in the attorney's bank account instead of the plaintiffs?

Why couldn't the government allow enhanced competition by allowing us to purchase insurance plans from across state lines?

Those are cost controls and none of it is in any of the 2000+ pages of this monstrous intrusion into the private lives of 80% of American taxpayers who are happy with our current insurance plans.

Today, I no longer feel like a citizen of the United States. I feel like a subject of King Barack I and his Parliamentary Lords Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. The federal government has become exactly what Thomas Jefferson and other founders feared it would be.

Thomas Jefferson said "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. " There was never an intention by our Founders for our nation to be a democracy. Yet that is exactly what the Progressives want. He further said "A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government." Well, this new legislation is certainly going to take more of my "bread". Count on it.

On a more local note, whereas Arizona had finally balanced their budget deficit, the moment that USNHCRA became law we were once again $400 million in the hole, because the law requires that we restore 310,000 people to Medicare/Medicaid. Where's the money coming from, Your Majesty? Should we stop ALL road construction? How about if we just close ASU or NAU? No? Let's fire some more state troopers, or eliminate more positions in the National Guard. No?

There is a scene from the Mel Gibson movie "The Patriot" where the South Carolina legislature is debating whether or not to join the rebellion against Great Britain. One of the representatives states: "Our rights are being trampled by a tyrant 3,000 miles away". Mel Gibson's character responds: "Tell me, Mr. Howard, what's the difference between one tyrant 3,000 miles away or 3,000 tyrants 1 mile away?"

Are we at that point? Is our federal Congress no longer working on behalf of their constituency? I argue that it may have been that way for some time and that we are now only waking up to that reality.