Delegates and alternates elected at the 2010 BPOU conventions will receive their convention calls in the mail prior to the convention with additional details.

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Congress is ignoring two crucial factors in its debate over health insurance. One is the reality that the problem is not health insurance, but high medical prices due in part to market distortion caused by federal entitlement programs and income tax policies related to health insurance.

The more crucial issue is that the proposed federal health insurance mandates are unconstitutional in principle and in detail.

You have a constitutional right to be secure in your person, property and papers. That means that no government has any authority to search or demand your health insurance or medical records unless there is probable cause that they are related to a criminal matter.

You have a right to a federal government limited to the powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution. The power to mandate individual or employer-based health insurance is not among those powers, nor can such power be properly derived from the power “to collect taxes…to promote the general welfare of the United States” or even the power to regulate interstate commerce.

Congress is proposing variously disguised taxes on those who do not have health insurance. These are direct taxes, which are prohibited by the Constitution unless apportioned by state, yet they cannot be apportioned since uninsured persons are not apportioned. Therefore these schemes are illegal.

Congress also wants to criminalize lack of health insurance as intent to defraud health care providers; this is as absurd as declaring gun ownership proof of intent to murder.

It is up to each of us to sternly remind our senators and representatives that they are acting outside their legal authority, and demand that they cease and desist.

In his Your View published Sept. 4, Scott Urban attempted to connect government-provided health care to natural rights and our nation’s founding documents. His letter was littered with noble-sounding words and emotional appeals, but was wholly inaccurate, in my opinion.

Health care is unequivocally not a right. It’s especially not an American right, as Urban stated several times. Are those living in other countries somehow less worthy? Life, liberty, and property are rights; health care is a responsibility. Don’t confuse the two. Unlike rights, health care (and other goods and services) must be provided by someone. I have no more right to free health services than I would to a free shopping cart full of groceries. Whether I need a dozen eggs or an MRI, it is my responsibility to pay for them. If you need eggs or an MRI, please don’t use the government to forcibly and anonymously extract money from me to pay for what you’ve received.

Government “charity” is not charity at all, and it has destroyed real charity and created a permanent class of dependents. Urban appealed to the Constitution’s general welfare clause to legitimize federal provision of health services. This clause is a common excuse for government to do nearly anything it wants, as someone always benefits whenever the government hands out other people’s money. General welfare is not doing nice things for individuals, but for the good of the Union as a whole.

The Constitution does not and cannot grant fundamental rights, nor can any document or proclamation – it instead prohibits our government from interfering with the rights that all people already have. It is this that made America unique and allowed liberty to flourish.

The original version of this letter, before awkward editing by the Free Press staff, is available here.

Leigh Pomeroy’s April 4 letter blaming the Republican Party for the current financial mess largely misses the mark. I certainly have no illusions of innocence for the Republican leadership, but they are nowhere near wholly responsible, as Pomeroy surmises. The partisan blame game distracts us from the underlying issues.

The economic meltdown has been brewing for decades, not years, and while its direct causes are numerous, they not difficult to see once you begin to look in the right places.

The root cause is the failure of Americans to read and understand why the Founders established our republic the way they did, and our similar failure to vote for leaders who uphold the principles enshrined in our Constitution.

This venerable document is treated by most of our elected officials as little more than a historical curiosity, but if we want to persist as a free nation we must heed its words. It is a rule book for our government, but they haven’t been following the rules. Now we are paying the price in lost liberty and a crumbling economy; the road to our current financial hell was paved with good intentions.

Pomeroy is correct to be wary of our government’s actions to get us out of this mess. They are guaranteed to fail and will likely relegate the United States to an economic backwater for a decade or more.

I suggest that we look for answers to the people who saw this coming, rather than to those who proclaimed our economy to be strong right up until the moment it fell apart. Fortunately for us non-economists, the answers are not complicated. Read Tom Woods’s new bestseller “Meltdown”, watch Peter Schiff videos on YouTube, or peruse Mises.org.

Whatever happened to the America where government would not interfere with our lives and livelihoods unless we encroached on others’ liberty and property? Where we had the prudence to save for our own homes, health care, and education? Where we went to our families, churches, and charities for help in time of need, rather than asking government to extract it anonymously and forcibly from our neighbors?

What happened to the America where taxes were recognized as taxes, despite the many clever labels attached to them? Where we understood that the rich are the owners of the stores, factories, and offices where we work, and that voting an ever-larger “fair share” out of their pockets is a good way to get them to move away and take our jobs with them?

What happened to the America where businesses and banks that made too many mistakes cleared themselves away to make room for better ones to grow? Where hard work and entrepreneurial vigor were more profitable than political connections and lobbying groups? Where the Treasury actually contained treasure and the Federal Reserve didn’t conjure trillions of dollars without even the courtesy to tell us who got the money?

What happened to the America where state legislatures didn’t bow to the Federal government’s every demand under the threat of losing funds? Where the states asserted their Constitutional right to be different from each other, and upheld their Constitutional duty to keep the Federal government from growing too powerful?

Government must be restrained if Liberty is to be retained.

This Letter to the Editor was published in the July 4, 2009 issue of the Lake Region Times.