With teachers like that...

A letter in today's WSJ


The health debate isn't just about health or the role of government in the economy ("Health Debate Isn't About Health," Capital Journal, Aug. 11http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124993227709320287.html ). It is about the Constitution, liberty and the future of the republic. As a high-school government teacher for 11 years, I have read the Constitution thoroughly and completely hundreds of times. The Constitution is about limiting government—keeping it as small and unobtrusive as possible. It is about the government protecting property, not taking away from one group to give to another.

As our government gets further away from those basic principles, we move toward the tyranny that the Founding Fathers hoped to avoid. The health bill may be well-intentioned, but it gives government sweeping powers to make health-care decisions concerning everything from preventing life (abortion) to ending it (end-of-life counseling). It may not intend to put the government between the physician and the patient but it gives the government unprecedented power to do just that.

There is no authority in the Constitution for government to take over our health care, just as there was no authority in the Constitution to take over General Motors or take taxpayer money to bail out failing banks. The government decided to throw the Constitution under the bus during the last year of the Bush administration, and the current administration has driven the bus back and forth over the document. The people of this country have a right to be angry and fearful for both our liberty and the future of our republic.

David Williams

Fairfax, Va.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970203863204574346791469518508.html

that disqualifies FReepers and fundies and other general idiots from teaching, except at clown college.

the Constitution said something about the President having to get the advice and consent from the Congress before he - oh, what was it? - went to war.

War. You know, that thing where we reply to an attack on our country by going after the country that attacked us.

Wait.

What?

Who?

Yes, that's right. We invaded and occupied Iraq without the advice and consent of the Congress.

Damn it.

Where's the Constitution when we need it?

And what about women voting?

Where is THAT in the Constitution?

Oh, and that right to bear arms?

Wait.

Do amendments count?

Because, really, if we're going to stress Constitutional purity here, as these people who bleat that they want to go back to the country "that our forefathers gave us," then none of the amendments should count because they're nothing but the stuff that socialists, or communists, or fascists, or nazis did to try to get around the pure intent of our Founding Fathers.

I'm SO sick of all these impure Americans who won't live the way our forefathers wanted us to live, dammit.

(On principle, I refuse to insert a sarcasm emoticon here. I just can't. ...............)