Sad, since the track record of government-run health care systems includes runaway costs, lack of available doctors for patients with the government cards, mountains of bureaucratic red tape, fraud, and inconsistent and ineffective care for those who need it. Doctors don’t receive adequate reimbursement from programs like Medicare to cover their costs, so they limit the number of Medicare patients they take – meaning that people who receive government health care have government cards, but no medical care. They often wind up in the local hospital emergency room for non-emergency care because that is the only place that cannot refuse them. This is the most expensive and least effective way to provide health care.

Everyone knows that this is happening. And government officials sigh, shake their heads in sympathy, and then continue to work on expanding the program that caused this problem in the first place. Because in the eyes of Washington, the only answer to every problem is to give the government more authority and control.

But what if we looked in a different direction? A direction that focused on giving people who need medical services actual medical care, instead of just a medical card.

Consider this. The private health care industry in America is the best in the world. The relationship between the private insurance companies and the medical professionals works, and patients with private insurance have open access to the care they need.

So why is the government setting up its own, competing, medical care system? Why don’t we just provide those who are currently using one of the government medical cards with a voucher to purchase private insurance?

The government costs would be controlled and predictable, eliminating the enormous health care costs to the taxpayer. Right now, if a Medicare patient suffers a major heart attack, the American taxpayer pays for every penny of his medical care. But if the government was providing a voucher to allow that Medicare patient to purchase his own private health insurance, the cost to the taxpayer would be the cost of the voucher, no matter what medical problem the patient might encounter.

There could be no threat of rationed care. The government can’t ration what it doesn’t provide. Patients would be purchasing the insurance that covered them to their satisfaction, and could change companies if they were dissatisfied with the services.

Patients could actually see a doctor instead of being forced into the emergency room. Doctors do not limit the number of patients with private insurance that they see because they get reimbursed at levels that allow them to keep their practice, so patients can see the same doctor regularly. This cuts costs and improves the quality of care.

Such a system would require a few changes in the red tape of insurance, such as removing arbitrary geographic barriers, and allowing those with the government voucher to become a “group”, so they would be guaranteed access to health insurance.

But in all the discussion in Washington, there is not even a mention of a solution that focuses on ensuring that those who need care, actually get care. Instead the debate rages around how fast government can assume more control of health care delivery in America.

In the case of the five-year-old, no one is surprised by the rule-breaking and no harm is done.

But as five-year-olds become adults, they learn that real competition begins with an equal application of the rules.

For example, imagine that one NFL team decided that their opponents had to play every game with 5-pound weights strapped onto their ankles, raised the opposing field goal uprights by 25%, and insisted that the opposing coach share his offensive playbook with their defensive coordinator.   There is not a team in the league that would agree to those terms, and not a football fan in the nation who would expect that agreement.  In fact, the outcry would be deafening.

Yet, in the international marketplace, that is exactly what is happening.

China subsidizes costs for Chinese companies that export goods to America, imposes tariffs of up to 25% on American goods coming into their country, and insists that American companies who open plants in China share their technology with Chinese scientists.   America does none of these things to China, allowing Chinese products to flow into our markets with no such restrictions.  As a result , in 2008, China sold over $337,000,000,000 more than she bought in her trade relationship with America (as reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis).

When a business sells more than it buys, the business prospers.  A prospering business hires, so employment grows.  But when a business cannot sell its products, it dies.  A dying business releases employees, so employment declines.  The Ame rican trade deficit with China means that American businesses are not selling their products.  It is therefore no surprise that American businesses, particularly in the manufacturing area, are closing.  And the loss of American jobs cited by the Bureau of Labor Statistics now numbers in the millions.

And what is China doing with its surplus cash?  In 2008 Chinese monetary authorities purchased more than $400,000,000,000 in United States and other foreign currencies.  In fact, China holds about $2,000,000,000,000 in foreign exchange reserves, with most of that in the form of United States securities.  That means that in addition to the trade dollars that are flowing from America into China, China is receiving interest payments from the United States government and investors on the trillions of dollars in American debt that she has financed by using the income from that trade.  And of course, China pays no taxes on all that income.

This is not free trade.

This is China deciding that sh e can play by a completely different set of rules in the international marketplace.  Rules that ignore balance or fairness.  Rules whose only result is that China can shout, “I win!” in her competition with America.

One can understand China’s desire for victory in the marketplace.  What is impossible to understand is why America’s leaders stand by and allow it to happen.

Over the years, the expression became a catch phrase for those government officials who overstepped their bounds.

When America was created, the drafters of the Constitution carefully distributed the powers of the government among three branches to prevent any one branch or individual from acting as if there were no limits. This check-and-balance system was designed to keep everyone within pre-set boundaries.

So, for example, when the Office of Inspector General was created in 1978, for the purpose of allowing for independent audits of federal agencies and expenditures, the law specified that it would require the agreement of both the President and Congress to remove or transfer an Inspector General, and that the reasons would need to be set forth in writing at least 30 days before any action could be taken.

The intent of the law was clear. Auditors must be independent.

President Obama, however, has decided that this law does not apply to him. In the past month, he has single-handedly removed 3 Inspectors General from office, without following the established rules. In each case, the removed IG had been in the process of uncovering questionable activity in the course of the audit.

The 3 Inspectors are:

> Gerald Walpin, who blew the whistle on the Mayor of Sacramento, causing his organization to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars for misuse of federal community organizing funds. The Mayor has been given no penalty, but Mr. Walpin has been fired.

> Neil Barofsky, tasked with watching over the financial stimulus spending. Mr. Barofsky was first denied access to Treasury documents he requested in the course of his audit, and then informed that he would lose his position in early July.

> Judith Gwynne, in charge of the International Trade Commission, actually had documents forcibly removed from her office by ITC personnel. Less than 3 hours after a Senator complained about such actions, Ms. Gwynne was informed her contract, which expires in early July, would not be renewed.

Not one of the three IG removals was conducted in accord with the provisions of the Inspector General law. The message is clear — no questions are to be asked about how this administration conducts itself.

And although the particular issue here is financial, this is NOT a financial problem. It is a philosophical one. As the IG situation illustrates, we have a government that does not believe that it is subject to the same laws as the citizens. We have a government that believes that it is above any law.

We are not going to solve this philosophical problem with an accounting debate. Just like Jefferson and his counterparts, we need to understand that while unfair taxation is an obvious sign of tyranny — it’s tyranny itself that is the problem. Focusing on one symptom while ignoring the disease is like handing a person with pneumonia a bottle of Vapo-Rub.

King Louis may have believed that he was the state -– but here in America, the state is “we the people”. It’s time that we remind those in Washington of that reality.

Those others were pastors.  And they spoke in the pulpits of the American colonies -– passionately and eloquently defending the ideas expressed in the American Declaration.  Men like Jonathan Mayhew, John Wesley, Moses Mather, John Witherspoon, Richard Price, Jonathan Edwards, and Noah Webster, who used the voice of the church to explain why tyranny was indefensible, and how King George’s actions constituted tyranny.

As America grew, the churches were not silent bystanders.  They spoke, often and clearly, about the issues confronting this nation.  They spoke against corruption, no matter what office the corruption arose from.  They spoke about the need for diligence in protecting America’s freedoms.  They called attention to injustice, and demanded its correction.

Their input reminded everyone, government official and citizen alike, that there is an authority higher than the state; an authority to which all are equally accountable; an authority that does not bend with the political winds, but judges by unchanging standards of right and wrong.

But in 1954, then-Senator Lyndon Johnson orchestrated the addition of certain language to the IRS tax codes.  The language said that, for the first time in American history, the churches were to be silent on issues that were “political”.  A church that dared to speak out would be punished.

Under the 1954 standards, every single one of the sermons delivered in support of the work of our Founding Fathers would be considered illegal.

What happened?

The answer is both simple and frightening.

Government grew, and it wants to keep growing — in power and in size.

And for government to continue its growth, it must silence any voice that reminds the citizen that there should be a limit to the authority of the state.  The church is pre-eminent among those voices because the church, by definition, represents the REAL ultimate authority.  The denomination does not really matter in the eyes of the state — no matter what name a particular religion gives to that authority figure, every religion is based on the premises that 1) this authority exists and 2) it is higher than the government.

No government intent on growth can tolerate this.  So as the government grows, so does the hostility to the church.  Today we not only have a ban on church speech, but some elected officials even insist that churches cover any religious symbol on their own property if a government program or person is in attendance.  After all, that symbol might remind someone that the government is accountable to Someone.

The fact that the government worries so much about silencing the churches seems ridiculous.  After all, no pastor commands an army, and no local reverend can actually change any vote or remove any official just by speaking about it from a pulpit.  No citizen has to join a church, or attend its services.  And any pastor will tell you that those who do attend do not listen to and heed his words every time — response is purely voluntary.

But whether an individual responds or not, the voice of the church is a constant reminder that government is not the ultimate authority, and should have limits.  It’s a voice that needs to be protected.

The federal government has been invading the rights of the states to direct policy and programs for decades.  The invasion has been cloaked in gold – federal dollars are made available, the states were given the opportunity to voluntarily apply for the dollars, and if their applications were accepted, they  received the federal funds to implement the program.  Since the application process was a voluntary one, the Tenth Amendment was not violated.

Over the years, the gold flowed freely from Washington to the various state capitals.  Money was provided for programs in every social and economic area, from education to criminal justice to energy.  New programs brought new money, in a dizzying stream.  There was gold everywhere.

No one seemed to notice that every ounce of the federal gold came with federal chains.  Or that the federal chains remained when the federal gold ran out.

There are many chains.  The first binds the ability of the state and its local governments to direct their own policy. For example, since the federal government began offering its gold to the states for education, it has gained control of over 50% of the decisions made in local school districts.  And that control came with bargain prices – federal dollars account for less than 5% of the funding in that local district.

The second binds the states and local governments financially.  For example, when the federal c rime bill came out in the 1990’s, it provided money for 100,000 additional policemen to be hired throughout the country.  The federal press releases and talking points strongly emphasized this wonderful program that would enhance law enforcement at the local level – sending the clear message that increased federal involvement in state and local criminal justice systems was a great benefit.  Any state that would choose not to participate in the program obviously did not care about keeping its citizens safe.

What was not mentioned was a small detail of this program – the federal funding ran out in 2 to 5 years.  So all the policemen hired under this program would be fired when the federal dollars ran out.  Unless the state either raised taxes, or applied for a new federal program.  If the state fired the policemen, it was not “tough on crime”; if it tried to raise taxes it faced the wrath of the citizens; but if it applied for the next federal program it could avoid both of these nasty consequences, even though it was accepting more federal chains in the process.

With each new application, the state was re-agr eeing to comply with all former federal policy directives, and then accepting the new ones that came with the new funding.

And every time the cycle was repeated, the states became more like the miner in one of the old coal towns, who mined 16 tons and became a “little bit older and deeper in debt”.

Until the South Carolina Court decision, everyone focused on the gold and pretended not to see the chains.  That pretense is no longer possible.  Even golden chains are chains.

Now that we see them, the question is what will we choose to do about them?

In the final analysis, Americans are free to think, and speak, whatever they believe.  Justice Sotomayer does not lose any of her personal rights in this area as a result of her nomination.  The issue is not that she has personal opinions — everyone does.  The issue is how her personal opinions will affect20her decisions as a judge.

To answer that, we first need to have a better understanding of exactly what those opinions are.

We know that the Judge believes that ethnicity and gender affect one’s ability to make sound decisions. We don’t know how, exactly, each ethnicity/gender combination fits into her hierarchy of ability.  She has, to this point, only explained the relationship between two such groups.

The media frenzy does not help us to completely understand her parameters for making judgments about the relative intelligence or worth of the various ethnic and gender groups in America.  Well-developed questioning will.

So in her confirmation hearings, Judge Sotomayer’s belief that some groups of people are more able than others is the “given” of the discussion.  The goal of the hearings should be to help us understand that belief clearly and completely before we entrust her with a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

For example, does the Judge believe that Latino women and white women are equally able to make good decisions?  What about Latino women and Latino men?  Or white men and white women?  Or white women and Latino men?  In other words, does she believe that women are more able than men, or that Latinos are more able than whites?  Or both?

She did not mention other races or ethnic groups.  How do they fit into her hierarchy of ability?  Where do African American women, or men, fit in relationship to Latino or white men and women?  Or Asian men and women?  Does the Judge believe that those of Irish, or Polish, or Russian, or native American descent have differing levels of ability?   How large is the difference?  Does it always apply, or can a person in one of the “lesser ability” groups rise above their presumed station to make decisions equal to someone in a more able group?

Will this hierarchy affect Judge Sotomayer’s interaction with other judges, or attorneys, or plaintiffs, or defendants?  How will that difference occur, and to what extent will it affect her decisions?  If Judge Sotomayer perceives, for example, a white male attorney as less able than a female Latino attorney by virtue of his ethnicity and gender, will his arguments before her be given the same level of consideration

as those of his opponent?  Or will the Judge’s hierarchal screen of ethnicity/gender differences affect the way she receives, and evaluates, the i nformation?

The saying, “Justice is blind,” is more than an old adage.  It means that the provisions of law do not change with the background of the person.  It means that on the scales of justice, each person is judged as an individual – no matter what “group” he might belong to.

Judge Sotomayer has told us that, for her, the group matters.  She has, in effect, removed the blindfold from Lady Justice.

In this case, sight is not better.

The federal government believes that America is the former.  All policy decisions should be made in Washington, from energy to education to welfare to health care.  The states are simply the implementation offices of those federal policies.  They may be provided with some of the funding necessary to accomplish the implementation, at least for the start up period, but funded or not, their duty to implement what Washington mandates does not change.

An increasing number of states are beginning to insist that the proper model for governing America is the franchise.  Washington has a limited and defined authority, but outside of those limits, the states should be determining and implementing policy.  The voice of the states asserting this is still small, but it is growing.

The dissenting states cite the Tenth Amendment as their basis for disagreement with the federal corporation model.  What exactly does the Tenth Amendment do?

The words are simple:  The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

It is often referred to as the State’s Rights Amendment.  It is actually a declaration of a system of government.  The key is in the last 3 words — “to the people”.

The men who wrote the Constitution understood the incredibly corrupting power of big government.  So they developed a system to push power DOWN the ladder of power, putting decision-making authority in the lowest level of government that could actually make and carry out an effective decision.

Those last three words mirror the first words in the Constitution, “We, the People”.  The intent is consistent –- the structure of the government should ensure that the voices of the people being governed are heard.  For that to happen, the business of governing should be conducted as locally as possible.

A citizen can attend a local government meeting with minimal effort.  He can visit his county officers as well.  He can reach his state capital, visit his representative and senator there, and return home in the same day.  But for most of the country, a visit to Washington is a major undertaking, so the average citizen does not ever make the trip.  So the higher up on the ladder of power the decision-making rises, the less likely those in authority are to be visited by a citizen.

If that citizen does decide to speak out on an issue, the same backwards relationship between the voice of the citizen and the responsiveness of the government applies.  At the local level, a citizen might be one of several hundred, but by the time we get to the US House of Representatives, that citizen is one of 360,000.

And if the citizen decides to get involved by running for office, the differences are almost overwhelming.  She can successfully run for local office by visiting her neighbors one-on-one and listening to their concerns and suggestions, making government “by the people” a working reality.  But at the federal level, the enormous amounts of money and media required today keep most citizens from even attempting the effort – concentrating power in the hands of an elite, and unresponsive, few.

If we truly want to return America to a system of government that respects and responds to American citizens, we need to embrace the totality of the Tenth Amendment, and insist that decision-making authority be moved down the ladder and back to us.

Grandmom poked her head in, saying that cookies had milk and eggs and flour in them, so they really were like a flat biscuit and therefore the wonderful grandchild should certainly be allowed to have the cookie.  It would just be like starting dinner early.

The mother looked at Grandmom in surprise and confusion.

“Who are you, and where were you when I was growing up?” she exclaimed.

The older woman smiled and said, “When you were little, I was in charge of making sure you learned discipline and nutrition, but now I am the grandmother and I get to spoil the little ones while you get to raise them.”  Then she joined her grandchild in a chorus of “Please!”

Mom laughed and the little one got his cookie.  That time.

Welcome to the Nanny state, where America is building a government that behaves like Grandmom.

We want our cookies, whether it is the appropriate time for a cookie or not.   We don’t want to hear about delay or denial.  We don’t really care how much the cookie costs, as long as someone else is paying the bill.  We aren’t interested in how eating today’s cookie will impact our health tomorrow.  And we want to eat our whole cookie without having to share.

When a discussion about government programs arises, everyone is “against them because they are a waste of money”, until someone happens to mention the specific program that the “everyone” doing the complaining is receiving a benefit from.  Then “everyone’s” conversation changes to a defense of the one necessary and beneficial program (his) and a complaint about all the other ones.

A Mom would point out the contradiction between the two positions.  A Mom would explain that while “everyone” is getting a benefit from one program, he is paying for all the programs.  A Mom would encourage “everyone” to take the steps necessary to achieve independence.

A grandmother however, would not.  Neither does the Nanny state.

The Nanny state makes excuses so the citizens can keep receiving their cookies.  The Nanny state steps between parent and child to provide that cookie over the objections of the parents.  The Nanny state provides enough cookies to keep the citizen from feeling hungry for real nutrition and working to create real meals.

Citizens of a Nanny state, like children fed on a diet of cookies, begin to develop the symptoms of obesity – they get lethargic.  As long as the cookies keep appearing, they have no motivation to change their behavior.

The difference between our story and the Nanny state is that in our story, Grandmom understood Mom’s role, and supported it.   She did not overrule Mom, she stepped into a different role in the family structure.

The Nanny state does neither.  In the Nanny state, Mom is a problem.  So the establishment, over the past two decades, has moved from considering motherhood the highest vocation to calling those who spend their lives raising the next generation “just” mothers.  And it has happened so quietly that most mothers don’t realize the extent of the loss of respect until they are on the receiving end – usually from their own children.

Mothers are the first line of defense against the Nanny State. This Mother’s Day, we need to strengthen that line.

Both were complaining about the negative messages their children were receiving from friends and acquaintances. The children were hearing the messages loudly and clearly, but the adults sending those messages had no idea of the negativity they were transmitting.

The messages were also couched as questions.

In the first mother’s case, the message transmission sounded like this:

Mother: I have 6 children, 5 boys and a girl.

Message (usually said with a smile, and in the hearing of the children): I bet the girl was the youngest.

In the second case, the message sounded a bit different:

Message, Part One: Congratulations! How many will this make?

Mother: This will be number five.

Message, Part Two (said while looking at the four little girls): I bet you are hoping for a boy this time.

The mothers compared notes, and wondered if the messengers knew what they were telling the listening children.

In both cases, the little ones who were not the oldest had asked their mothers if they were “mistakes”.

Because this is what the children heard.

“When my mother had me, she was really trying to have someone of the other sex, so I was a mistake.”

In the case of the first mother, the error and hurt in the message were easy to fix. Obviously, the 4 younger sons weren’t attempts to have a daughter since the daughter already existed. So she began to answer the messengers by re-affirming the value that each of her children had. When asked if the daughter was the youngest, she smiled back and said that she had not had a son, 4 mistakes and a daughter. She had a son, a daughter, and 4 more precious sons.

For the second mother, the message’s hurt was more direct, since there were no sons. So she began to answer that she was hoping for another daughter, since the ones she had had brought her so much joy and happiness. And she confided to her closest friends that if she were to have a son, she intended to have at least one more child so her middle daughters did not think they were errors in an attempt by their mother to have a boy.

The messengers were not evil people. They did not intend to hurt a child. But, intention or not, they did.

Our society no longer looks at children as gifts from a loving God. They are now commodities. Parents are entitled to one of each, and if one of each does not arrive in the correct order, societal permission is given to “try again” for a matched set.

But no one has stopped to listen to the message that this mentality sends to the children — children who hear that they were nothing more than failed attempts to reach that “matched set” goal. No one, except the mothers who see the hurt in the eyes of their little ones as the message, “You are a mistake”, hits home in their minds and hearts, has stopped to think of the children at all.

It’s time that we did.

At each of the gatherings, the words and actions of our Founding Fathers were often cited by the speakers. The words were eloquent and moving.

But the most important thing to remember about those words is that our Founding Fathers followed them up with actions. They did much more than protest.

We can also do must more than protest. We can vote.

In just 4 weeks, Pennsylvania voters can go to the polls and select the men and women who will sit on the appellate courts of our state. There are 3 – the state Supreme Court, the state Superior Court, and the state Commonwealth Court.

The power of those who wear the robes of the judicial branch is vast. It was court decisions that gave us abortion, gay marriage, and God-free school zones. It is a court that will finally determine the legislative redistricting of Pennsylvania. It is a court that rules on the constitutionality of gun laws and tax laws and reform laws.

And while a representative, both state and federal, must stand for election every other year, a judge elected to one of Pennsylvania’s appellate courts has a term of 10 years. The length of term was designed to allow judges the freedom to make decisions based on the law, without political pressure.

Unfortunately, those intent on recreating America in a new image discovered years ago that what they could not achieve legislatively, they could accomplish through the fiat of a judge. They have worked tirelessly to fill the benches of the appellate courts with judges who did want to interpret the Constitution, but wanted to rewrite it. We are now witnessing the fruits of their labors.

But in 28 days, we can take the first steps in taking our country back – just by exercising our right to use the ballot box. To find out who the judicial candidates are, visit www.pavotesmart.com. They have a list of the candidates running for each of the three appellate courts, the Bar Association rating of each, and a questionnaire each candidate filled out. From there we can visit the web sites of the candidates we are most interested in, or call their campaign offices with our own questions.

In 28 days, we can make the rhetoric of the tea party a reality in the ballot box. That is when the politicians will begin to worry – and electing judges who believe in the values and constitutional limits that build this nation is a critical first step. If we don’t have judges who will uphold the Constitution, any legislative effort at reform is doomed to fail.

The Tea Party ball is over. The work of reform is before us, beginning with the 2009 primary election. In the 1770’s liberty was born because Boston protests led to Philadelphia political reality. Our Founding Fathers are counting on us to repeat that process today.