Brian
Freedom’s Lighthouse
8/18/2013
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Related: Rand: Dir. of Nat’l Intelligence ‘Greatly Damaged’ Credibility of Intel Community
…Clapper had told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the NSA did not collect data on Americans, and after Edward Snowden leaked information about the NSA programs, he told NBC News that he gave the “least untruthful answer possible” at the testimony in question…
Legislating by the Executive: Obama Calls Health Insurance a ‘Right’
…So I’m going to keep doing everything in my power to make sure this law works as it’s supposed to. Because in the United States of America, health insurance isn’t a privilege–it is your right. And we’re going to keep it that way.
This edges into the territory of Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 attempt to float a “second bill of rights.”
In his campaign to implement a second bill of rights, Roosevelt tried to create all sorts of new rights out of whole cloth. Among other things, the 32nd President tried to make “adequate food” a right, owning a home a right, having a job a right, and he also tried to make a right of “adequate medical care.”
Few in 1944 embraced FDR’s second bill of rights because it clearly would have upended the American way of life as created by our Founders and codified in the U.S. Constitution.
Instead of relying on the American tradition of leaving each person free to affect his own life, FDR’s new bill of rights would have required people to do things for other people–often a violation of their own freedom…
…The American left has been looking to put government controlled healthcare into place since well before Roosevelt’s days. But this “right” of health care is, of course, no more in keeping with American principles now than it was in 1944.
