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Health & Fitness

Our Eroding Freedom

The natural rights our forefathers fought and died for are being stripped by the politicians we elect. Get involved today!

Once again, the freedoms and liberty this country was founded on are under attack. In the wake of a rash of recent school shootings, the shooting at a theater and a mall, more people are calling for gun bans and restrictions. Politicians nationwide are looking to strengthen laws to prevent you from using a phone while driving. Some cities have gone so far as to limit the size soda you are allowed to purchase with your meal. Cities and states are trying to force you to pay for new stadiums for their sports teams, and creating a ‘bed tax’, taking a percentage of patient revenues from hospitals, to prop up Medicaid. While doing all this, the State Legislature refuses to enact any meaningful ethics rules on themselves.

The founders of this great nation fled at great burden and cost to a strange new world to escape the types of taxation without representation we are being continually confronted with. They left to find a better life, to be able to live free, to be able to make simple choices for themselves. Our founders never would have imagined that the government would be able to mandate what size drink you could buy. They certainly were not in favor of a ‘bed tax’.  And while the bed tax is designed to help fix a gaping hole in the state Medicaid budget, shouldn’t we instead find long term solutions to reduce Medicaid costs instead of stop gap measures to support our over spending problems.

Our founders were very clear on their opinion of gun control. The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution address the issue very plainly stating, “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  There is nothing I can add to that. It does not get any simpler, yet our elected officials are considering laws to directly infringe upon these rights.

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While our founders could have never imagined a law regarding cell phone usage in a car, I feel confident saying they would have opposed it. We already have laws against wrecking your car into another, laws against not maintaining your lane, laws for every conceivable action you can make while in a car. A new law is not only redundant, but it unfairly punishes people, gives police tremendous new power to stop innocent people without cause, and awards the makers of these devices with a windfall of accessories sales by forcing the public to use hands free devices they previously did not want. These laws do nothing to prevent the other, maybe more distracting issues, like eating, grooming, changing radio stations or cd’s, children crying in the backseat, or the dancing sign guys on the side of the road.

Our freedom is under attack in the name of security, but Dwight D. Eisenhower said it best “If you want total security, go to prison. There you are fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.”

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