Can you possibly be any more dramatic?
Probably. I use the extreme to prove a point. Liberty is NOT safe. You can have absolute freedom (no laws, no government) and have practically no safety as a result. Or you can have absolute safety, but at the cost of zero freedom. The trick is where to compromise, to allow maximum freedom while guaranteeing a reasonable level of safety.
We're talking about health insurance here.
Maybe YOU want to stick to that topic, as narrowly as possible, because that way you can ignore the fact that nothing comes without a cost of somekind attached. However, the topic of this particular thread is whether or not the federal government has the Constitutional authority to mandate the purchase of health insurance.
To want people to have health insurance and offer to help them purchase it, if need be, is hardly a loss of liberty.
And now, as is typical, we get to the lying and prevaricating and obfuscations. This is NOT about "helping" people who need the help to attain affordable insurance. We could have done that by simply expanding Medicaid. (It's not like the feds actually worry about affording something if they decide to do it.) It is about FORCING people to buy insurance whether or not they feel the need or desire for it. There are more methods than leaning on mommy government to cure our woes. Especially when many of those woes can be laid at the feet of an obtrusive government bureaucracy in the first place.
Again, I ask, what liberty is lost by purchasing health insurance? Virtually everyone will require medical care at some point in their life and who knows when an illness or accident will occur?
The liberty to decide for oneself. I know, that is not a big liberty in your book, with mommy government to tuck you in at night, read you a nigh-nigh story, and make sure you get up on time in the morning. MANY younger, healthy people are quite willing to forgo insurance because of the low probability they will need it. Many others choose the option of limiting their insurance to catastrophic coverage, for the same reasons. These are the people the mandate targets: forcing them to pay for insurance, even though they are not likely to need it for decades. We are building our entire HCR package on the backs of the younger generation who are already having enough trouble just trying to get themselves established.
As for government being the answer there has been sufficient time for private enterprise or individual persons to deal with every social problem that has arisen. Unfortunately, charities and other private initiatives, while doing good, do not and can not deal with problems the way governments can. We know that because they haven't.
You right about one thing: they do not do it like government does. Government invariable causes more problems with their "solutions" than leaving the original problem alone. From welfare to racism to healthcare, the government steps in, and their "solution" invariable does more to secure more government authority than it goes to actually solving the problems we face, and in many instances deliberately exasperating the situation as an excuse to gain yet MORE government power.
Why wouldn't the government want to try and protect people from the vagaries of life? That is what community has been all about since the beginning of time; helping one another. That is what has resulted in progress; working together.
If, in your mind, government and community are the same thing, then there is little use in discussing ANYTHING with you. You are hopeless. Community is PEOPLE helping people. It is NOT people demanding their government help people.
I don't understand your concern regarding those seeking power for their own purpose. Appointments to government are determined by the people and terms are rather short considering ones lifespan. The rules can be changed every four years if that's what the people desire.
Granted, some will take advantage of situations, however, on the whole the benefit to society far outweighs the errant individual.
Change WHAT? It does not matter which party or group or political philosophy is in charge for how long. Once they manage to swindle the people into giving away some of their liberty for some perceived safety, the government will NEVER willingly relinquish the additional power they gained. The current administration is perfect proof of this fact. They were all about how BAD the FISA laws are, how BAD Guantanamo Bay prison is, etc. etc. etc. Then they got in power and EXTENDED the powers claimed under FISA, continue to use Gitmo, and in general either kept or expanded the very authorities they were disparaging while Bush was in power. They ALL desire MORE power, and the more we give them, the more they will take until there is nothing left to take. It may take generations to erode our liberties to nothing, but we are most definitely headed that direction. And that is EXACTLY what the Constitution was desigfed to prevent. And it COULD prevent it if we forced our government to actually obey the damned thing.
We must have differing definitions of "absolute power". Surely insisting one have medical insurance is not absolute power. There is no obligation to use the insurance. No one is forced to obtain medical services. What can possibly be considered corrupting about having medical insurance when we have 50 or more years of numerous examples of other countries doing similar?
As I've asked many times show my one country where government medical has been revoked. Show me one country where there is a legitimate opposition to government medical. Just one example.
Do you ever get tired of "Gee whiz, EVERYONE is doing it!" Try an ADULT form of logic just once. We are not lemmings.
And, in case you haven't noticed, MANY nations who went to your precious mommy-government system are starting to have trouble keeping it going.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124958049241511735.html
http://www.west-info.eu/cuts-to-the-french-health-service/
http://www.frumforum.com/tough-choices-for-french-health-care
http://www.physorg.com/news197643116.html
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_581789.html
Even in Canada:
http://cupe.ca/arp/05/1.asp
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-677674.html
Services are being cut back. Many times in other threads you have DEFENDED the idea that certain aspects of care are "not needed" and therefore should not be part of the system, yet in the same deluded breath turn around and claim that the systems you support would not result in any compromise of care quality. Which is it? Can a government system provide the levels of care available under the "pay or suffer" (a descriptor which is, BTW, one more liberal scare mongering LIE) system, or can they not do so?
Seems they can't, since you defend your view with a claim that "luxuries" are not needed for quality health care.
