The Dictatorship Begins on Jan. 1st, 2014

On January 1st, 2014, the Individual Mandate contained within ObamaCare goes into effect. This mandate will make a dictator out of the US President overnight.

I do not make this claim lightly. For a power being granted to a leader to be considered dictatorial, there are three requirements that must be fulfilled:
The power must give absolute power to one individual.
The power must be totalitarian in scope.
The power must be irrevocable.

Absolute Power for One Individual

When the Individual Mandate goes into effect, all Americans will be required to purchase “proper” health insurance plans, or will be forced to pay a tax. All health insurance companies will be forced to only offer “proper” plans to their customers. It will be considered illegal to offer an insurance plan that is not considered “proper.”

So you ask, what’s wrong with proper insurance? There’s a catch: The Secretary of Health and Human Services has sole authoritative power to determine the contents and requirements of a “proper health insurance plan.” The Secretary of Health and Human Services (currently Kathleen Sebelius) reports directly to the President, must follow all of his Executive Orders, and can be fired by him at any time, so that he can appoint a new one of his choice.

In other words, the President maintains a dictatorship over the definition of the “proper health insurance plans” that we are all forced to buy. The President can also force health insurance companies to boycott any health care providers (doctors and hospitals) that try to cater to individuals who choose not to buy health insurance. They already use this method to force health care providers to offer major discounts to Medicare patients, and they could easily use this method to prevent those resisting the Individual Mandate from obtaining any form of health care at all.

So the choice we all end up with is: buy one of these “proper” health insurance plans defined by the President, or be punished through the complete deprivation of health care. This is the enforcement mechanism.

Totalitarian in Scope

But this only affects health care, and health care is special, right?

Wrong. There is no legal requirement in the ObamaCare law that the definition of a “proper health insurance plan” must only include measures relating to health care. Already, Obama has declared that every health insurance plan must provide contraception, which is only as relevant to health as our choice of food, car, home, or any other choices we make in our lives.

The President can easily decree any other purchasing mandate, requiring us to buy a GM car, or buy broccoli, or buy houses in specific areas, or buy certain newspapers, or subscribe to a propaganda newsletter touting the president’s achievements, or join a union. The President can also use his power over insurance coverage to retaliate against groups who do not support him. For instance, the President might put clause in your insurance plan that states that you lose coverage for some number of conditions if you buy a gun, or spend too much money supporting his opponent, or live in a wealthy neighborhood.

From a legal perspective, this law gives the President the totalitarian power to force any activity, or punish any activity, under the threat of loss of health care. All he has to do is say that it’s a part of your insurance plan (which would rapidly lose all relation to health care other than through its enforcement mechanism).

Irrevocable Power

What about the separation of powers? Checks and balances? Congress has already surrendered its power by delegating the power to define “proper” insurance plans to the President’s appointees. The Supreme Court has already taken a whack at this law, and bizarrely ruled the Individual Mandate constitutional so long as it only makes use of economic incentives, rather than prison sentences to enforce its goals. But of course, those economic incentives can be just as damaging as prison sentences. The only branch of government that has the power to stop this law from becoming a dictatorship is the Executive Branch. Only the dictator can prevent the dictatorship (or a 2/3rds majority in both houses of Congress to override vetoes, but that’s the stuff of legend). The separation of powers and all the checks and balances have been thwarted.

As humans have learned throughout history, once a leader gains dictatorial power, it is extremely difficult to remove him, even if he is subjected to periodic elections. Under a dictatorship, information is controlled, and political opponents are destroyed, as in Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. The means of production are given to political allies, and elections are stolen, as in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and Chavez’s Venezuela. The citizens may even begin to worship their leaders out of a sense of dependence, as in Stalin’s Soviet Union, Maoist China, and North Korea.

Our only hope for avoiding dictatorship is to get ObamaCare repealed before January 1st, 2014. Obama will not do it. If we cannot remove Obama from office, either in the November election, or through impeachment prior to 2014, the United States government will become a dictatorship.

If you’ve been wondering what would drive a libertarian like myself to support a conservative like Mitt Romney, this is why. After the Supreme Court upheld ObamaCare, the gravity of the situation became clear: it’s all on us to pick the right president. Unlike Gary Johnson, Romney can beat Obama, and unlike Obama, he has pledged to repeal ObamaCare. Certainly, there is always the chance that Romney is lying and would keep ObamaCare. But if he does, he loses the support of his base, and the legendary 2/3rds majority in Congress may manifest and repeal the dictatorial powers over his veto.

This is our last chance. We, the People of the United States, must remove Barack Obama from office in order to save our freedom from an untimely death.

The Individual Mandate Oral Arguments

The oral arguments over ObamaCare are here:

Day 1 deals with whether or not the Tax Anti-Injunction Act bars legal challenges against the mandate until the “tax” goes into effect.

Day 2 deals with the constitutionality of the Individual Mandate.

Day 3 deals with the constitutionality of the Medicaid eligibility expansion, as well as the severability of the Individual Mandate.

By my evaluation, it looks like 6 out of 9 justices (including Sotomayor) are ready to strike down the mandate and at least 5 justices are ready to take down the whole Act with it. The Solicitor General simply could not articulate any sort of consistent limiting principle that could allow the mandate power to derive from the Commerce Clause without giving the federal government unlimited power. Additionally, the whole Act is such a massive monstrosity that passed by such narrow margins that the Justices did not feel comfortable trying to evaluate which portions of the Act would have passed without the mandate.

However, progressive pundits have been fighting back, saying that the limiting principle is there, and the Justices just weren’t listening. They say that the health care market is unique because “Health care is market that everybody will be a part of and must be administered in an emergency basis. NO other market has such a consideration.” This exact statement comes from a progressive on the forums who heard this argument from Sam Seder on a progressive radio show. I’ve heard similar statements coming from numerous other progressives.

The thing is, I have to question whether any of these progressives are actually reading the oral arguments before chiming in like this. Solicitor General Verrilli and Justice Ginsburg tried to make exactly this argument, and it didn’t hold up under scrutiny. First of all, how a service must be administered in order to be most effective or most financially sustainable (e.g. unexpectedly or paid for in advance) is a matter of whether or not a certain act is a good idea, not a matter of whether or not it’s legal. As Justice Kagan once pointed out, the questions of whether or not a law is stupid and whether or not it is legal are completely independent of one another. If the constitutional portions of the law are stupid unless something that cannot be constitutionally justified on its own merits is passed along with it, it doesn’t alleviate concerns of unconstitutionality. As one of the other Justices pointed out (I forget whether it was Roberts, Scalia, or Kennedy), there are plenty of constitutional ways Congress could completely break the economy, and that doesn’t justify unconstitutional action to alleviate those problems deliberately created by Congress. So if Congress doesn’t want to pass a stupid law, they simply should not try to pass a stupid law, not try to violate the constitution in order to make a stupid law a little less stupid.

So, on to the second “unique” factor. “Health care is market that everybody will be a part of.” The Justices brought up a couple of problems with this claim. As Kennedy described, government could define the market that it’s regulating as “the food market,” which everyone will unquestionably be a part of at some point. Would that allow Congress to mandate that everyone buy broccoli? What about the housing market? Can the government force everyone to buy apartments rather than houses? And the transportation market? can the government force everyone to buy a GM car? The information market? Can the government force everyone to buy the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal?

And what about Christian Science followers? Obtaining any kind of health services is against their religion, so that means that not everybody will be a part of the health care market. At best, you can only say that “most” people will be a part of the market. Justice Kennedy nailed Verrilli with this one, and then went on to ask what percentage of the population has to be engaged in a market in order for the government to decide that it can assume that everyone is participating in the market. Is 90% good enough? What about 70%? If we’re letting the government create mandates for everyone regarding markets that only “most people” participate in, then can it also create mandates about the electronics market? Can they force everyone to buy a Macbook? What about the movie market? The cell phone market? The energy market? Is there any market Congress can’t touch?

As Justice Kennedy pointed out, if nobody can find a limiting principle, then the Individual Mandate cannot possibly be considered constitutional.

Keeping Track of Obama’s Attacks on Liberty and Fiscal Sanity

I recently had someone on the forums ask, “Why do you think Obama is such a bad president?”

Well let’s see…

• Obama wasted over a trillion dollars on a failed stimulus based in an economic hypothesis that was already discredited in the 1970′s.
• He used additional taxpayer money to prop up his own personal investments (such as Solyndra), which later failed spectacularly.
• He pushed through and passed a monstrous law giving his health secretary Kathleen Sebelius absolute dictatorial control over the health care services in this country, while raising costs for all Americans.
• He has kept the budget deficit above $1 trillion because his socialist sentiments have led him to refuse to cut any sort of spending or government programs.
• He has maintained a crusade against the job-creators and innovators in this country, threatening them with higher taxes and greater regulation at every turn.
• He has altered the patent system to give patent rights to the first-to-file the patent application for a thing, as opposed to the first to invent the thing.
• He signed the “Food Safety Modernization Act,” converting the FDA from an organization that levies fines against food safety violators to an organization that actively micromanages and harasses food producers, defining the procedures they must use. Under this law, hundreds of Amish farms were raided by regulators in SWAT gear with assault weapons, all for the “crime” of selling raw milk and raw honey.
• He nationalized the student loan industry, confiscating student loans from banks so that students in debt now owe the Department of Education. Students who have missed payments recently have been raided by regulators in SWAT gear with assault weapons (notice a trend here?).
• He has encouraged his Federal Reserve Chairman to continue printing money, even as inflation in necessary goods that all Americans must buy, such as food and gas, soars above 8%.
• He has refused to reform Social Security, which continues to grow exponentially in costs.
• His head of the Department of Justice, Eric Holder, sold thousands of fully automatic assault weapons to Mexican druglords in a failed sting operation (Operation Fast and Furious) while arguing for greater gun restrictions on US citizens. He lied about his role in overseeing this operation, yet still holds his job.
• He has inflamed racial tensions, crying “Racism!” against anyone who is critical of his authoritarian socialism.
• Obama has violated numerous court orders, and was actually held in contempt of court for his defiance in maintaining his illegal ban on oil drilling.
• He continues to fancy himself a dictator, contemptuous of constitutional restrictions on his power, openly admiring the way the People’s Republic of China keeps their citizens submissive to the State…

This is just what comes to mind off the top of my head. There’s certainly plenty of room to expand this list and provide more details.

Krugman and Social Choice

Paul Krugman is at it again (emphasis mine):

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Representative Ron Paul what we should do if a 30-year-old man who chose not to purchase health insurance suddenly found himself in need of six months of intensive care. Mr. Paul replied, “That’s what freedom is all about — taking your own risks.” Mr. Blitzer pressed him again, asking whether “society should just let him die.”

And the crowd erupted with cheers and shouts of “Yeah!”

The incident highlighted something that I don’t think most political commentators have fully absorbed: at this point, American politics is fundamentally about different moral visions.

Now, there are two things you should know about the Blitzer-Paul exchange. The first is that after the crowd weighed in, Mr. Paul basically tried to evade the question, asserting that warm-hearted doctors and charitable individuals would always make sure that people received the care they needed — or at least they would if they hadn’t been corrupted by the welfare state. Sorry, but that’s a fantasy. People who can’t afford essential medical care often fail to get it, and always have — and sometimes they die as a result.

The second is that very few of those who die from lack of medical care look like Mr. Blitzer’s hypothetical individual who could and should have bought insurance. In reality, most uninsured Americans either have low incomes and cannot afford insurance, or are rejected by insurers because they have chronic conditions.

So would people on the right be willing to let those who are uninsured through no fault of their own die from lack of care? The answer, based on recent history, is a resounding “Yeah!”

Think, in particular, of the children.

So Mr. Krugman is right about one thing: At this point, American politics is fundamentally about different moral visions. However, the question of which visions is where Krugman is being deliberately misleading. Krugman frames the issue as a binary choice between two moral visions:

Option 1: Society saves the man.

Option 2: Society lets the man die.

But that doesn’t at all represent the moral question here. Libertarians do not want “Society” to just let the man die. Krugman’s mistake (which he repeats frequently, unashamedly, and deliberately, refusing to be corrected) is his tendency to equate government with “Society.” A more honest representation of the choice would be something like this:

Option 1: Government is responsible for determining whether the man lives or dies.

Option 2: Free individuals are responsible for determining whether the man lives or dies, and may voluntarily choose according to what they believe is right and fair.

Whether “Society” is comprised of government or an association of free individuals does not determine whether or not the man lives or dies. Rather, the choices that people make within each of those moral frameworks makes that determination. So who do you want to be making those sorts of determinations? Free, voluntarily associated individuals? Or the entity that gives us so many wonderful engines of bureaucratic incompetence like the DMV?

Think, in particular, of the children!

Here’s what Obama is gonna do if he stays for 4 more years

He will continue doing much of what he’s done for the last 2.5 years. That means:

More indefensible bureaucratic expansion. [link]
More regulation of company mobility to prevent profitable enterprises from fleeing Democratic majority states to search for more freedom elsewhere. [link]
More economic failure, leading to Carter-style stagflation. [link]
More debt growth, as he resists all attempts to steer the country away from an imminent Greek-style crash. [link]
More moralistic nationalization, enforced through militarization of the US police forces, pushing us towards a Soviet-style police state. [link] [link] [link]
More corrupt abuses of executive power, bordering on illegality. [link] [link] [link]

If you want to continue these disturbing trends, to disregard liberty in favor of a Soviet-style socialist nation under a government with totalitarian control over your personal life and endeavors, then by all means, vote for Obama in 2012. But if you want change- economic recovery and the restoration of the values of liberty -then for your own sake, vote against the Democrats!

Ezra’s Point About Vinson’s ObamaCare Ruling

In this article, Ezra Klein argue that the weak point in Judge Vinson’s ruling resides in his use of argument from first principles to suggest that power without logical limit cannot be a correct interpretation of the Necessary and Proper Clause.

Klein points out that Vinson’s argument contradicts the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Gonzales v. Raich, according to the dissenting opinion. In Gonzales v. Raich, Justice Stevens concluded that the power to ban marijuana growing locally existed because it is necessary and proper to help control interstate commerce. Justice Thomas disagreed, saying that granting this power allows the government to regulate “virtually everything.” Ezra is arguing that since this ruling stands, and since some Supreme Court justices think this ruling grants unlimited power to the government (albeit, different justices), then an argument against the Necessary and Proper Clause granting unlimited power to the government cannot stand until the Raich precedent is overturned.

First of all, Justice Stevens is a making a pretty weak argument here- the Necessary and Proper Clause specifically only allows powers necessary and proper for “bringing into execution” Congress’ other powers. His reasoning is that enforcement of bans on interstate trade becomes difficult when the product can be produced within the states. This alone is a stretch- the same logic would allow the government to massacre the entire populace, under the presumption that this would be the only way to get rid of all the murderers. This reductio ad absurdum is a logical problem the Supreme Court will have to deal with someday, so it wouldn’t be out of line for a District Court to question Stevens’ logic.

Even so, Justice Thomas is also incorrect, because the Raich line of reasoning doesn’t apply to the question of forcing people to get health insurance. People going without health insurance doesn’t make it harder for the government to enforce any of the other provisions within the PPAC Act. The Act does not legislate a requirement that all insurers must stay in business. Including such a requirement would violate the 13th Amendment. As stated numerous times by the defendants, the Individual Mandate provision is necessary to prevent prices from rising, and/or to prevent insurers from going out of business. Yet, neither of these effects aids in enforcement of other components of the law. So the Raich ruling, while being of questionable logic, doesn’t actually provide the precedent for truly unlimited regulatory powers as Justice Thomas feared. It may allow virtually any regulation to be put in place, but not for any reason. The reason must be a matter of enforcement of independently-granted constitutional powers, as opposed to an attempt to bring about a desired effect.

In fact, the entire defense of ObamaCare relies on ignoring this distinction between desired effects and enforcement capabilities. However, to do so has absolutely no precedent and no justification. Judge Vinson’s ruling is entirely consistent with the ruling in the Gonzales v. Raich case.

Virginia Federal Judge Rules Individual Mandate Unconstitutional!

The arguments are based on the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and General Welfare Clause of the Constitution, which I reproduce here:

[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes

The Congress shall have Power – To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Here’s the gist of the ruling:

The Necessary and Proper Clause coupled with the Commerce Clause lets Congress enforce any law assisting in the enforcement regulation of interstate commerce. However, it does not allow Congress to enforce any law necessary to make a certain regulation have a certain effect.

So, Congress has the authority to do whatever is necessary to enforce the “preexisting conditions” coverage mandates on insurers, but if that makes the market “implode” as Kathleen Sebelius’ representation argued it would in the absence of an individual mandate, that doesn’t give Congress an excuse to implement an individual mandate not otherwise allowed by the Commerce Clause. Enforcing the individual mandate may help the market function better when the other, constitutionally-allowed regulations are simultaneously in place, but that has nothing to do with the actual enforcement of those other, constitutionally-allowed regulations. Hence, the Necessary and Proper Clause cannot be used to argue for the constitutionality of an individual mandate as a necessary component for “carrying into Execution” the Commerce Clause regulations.

Additionally, the ruling states that the Secretary’s suggestion that an individual’s inactivity on health care inevitably leads to economic activity later on “lacks logical limitation” and “could apply to transportation, housing, or nutritional decisions,” putting it outside the realm of Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

Finally, the mandate is not allowed under Congress’ power to lay taxes, because it is structured as a penalty, not a revenue-gathering measure. If this measure were to work perfectly, then it would generate zero revenue, as everyone would avoid it by buying health insurance. The Secretary made exactly this argument with regards to her Commerce Clause defense. Hence, it cannot be construed as a tax, must be considered a regulatory penalty, and is not allowed through the General Welfare Clause.

So there you have it. That is why a Virginia Federal Judge has ruled the individual mandate unconstitutional.

—————

On a side note, I also would like to call attention to this line:

“The unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers.“

While making this exact same assertion over the past year, I’ve been called crazy, a reactionary, a nutjob, a racist teabagger, a violator of Godwin’s Law, etc. And now a Federal judge who has reviewed this case extensively is coming to the same conclusion. I don’t think people realize how the entire idea of constitutional limits on federal power resides on this case.

Equality Before the Law

John Adams defined a republic as “a government of laws, and not of men.” What this means is that the laws apply equally to all, and are not changed arbitrarily through the whims of some autocrat.

When George W. Bush selectively awarded no-bid contracts to companies that he favored, they called it “crony-capitalism.” So what do you call it when the Health Secretary is selectively choosing which companies the law does and doesn’t apply to? One thing I’m sure it’s not called: “Equality before the law.”

This whole situation reeks of being a “bill of attainder.” If Obama’s health care law doesn’t work unless his health secretary gets to issue waivers from the regulations to favored clients, then the law doesn’t work. Let’s repeal the law and bring back a government of laws, and not of men.

Compulsory Contracts

With the NAACP and other Obama-supporters pulling the race card on the Tea Party, it was only a matter of time before it came back to bite them. Bringing to mind a time when some people were not as free as others, some black Tea Party supporters are linking the compulsory labor and surrender of property rights inherent in Obama’s policies (and especially his health care law) to slavery: [link]

The most important point that video makes is that the horrors of slavery are not about race, but about loss of freedom through compulsory labor. Race-neutral enslavement is still enslavement. And enslavement is not only wrong, but unconstitutional as well, as another eloquent libertarian explains.

And that brings us to the clincher: If the government can force us to buy the product of private health care companies just as a result of being alive, what can’t they do? What is the point of a constitution that allows the government to force you to give up your money to another private party without any sort of consensual agreement or judicial process? Does it give us the right to free speech just so we can complain to ourselves when the government forces us to buy the New York Times, a GM car, and to get a job in the medical industry so that there are people to fill the “right” of health care? That is enslavement.

To interpret the constitution as allowing the government to allow such things is simply incorrect. The 10th Amendment exists to ensure that the document is interpreted as an enumeration of limited powers, rather than as an enumeration of limited freedoms, as the Democrats and authoritarian-leaning judges have interpreted it. This is a debate about the fundamental nature of our Republic, as to whether it should be constitutional, or enslaved by the whims of democratically-elected dictators.

Should America Bid Farewell to Exceptional Freedom?

Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin gave this speech on March 31st:

Last week, on March 21st, Congress enacted a new Intolerable Act. Congress passed the Health Care bill – or I should say, one political party passed it – over a swelling revolt by the American people. The reform is an atrocity. It mandates that every American must buy health insurance, under IRS scrutiny. It sets up an army of federal bureaucrats who ultimately decide for you how you should receive Health Care, what kind, and how much…or whether you don’t qualify at all. Never has our government claimed the power to decide when each of us has lived well enough or long enough to be refused life-saving medical assistance.

This presumptuous reform has put this nation … once dedicated to the life and freedom of every person … on a long decline toward the same mediocrity that the social welfare states of Europe have become.

Americans are preparing to fight another American Revolution, this time, a peaceful one with election ballots…but the “causes” of both are the same:

Should unchecked centralized government be allowed to grow and grow in power … or should its powers be limited and returned to the people?

Should irresponsible leaders in a distant capital be encouraged to run up scandalous debts without limit that crush jobs and stall prosperity … or should the reckless be turned out of office and a new government elected to live within its means?

Should America bid farewell to exceptional freedom and follow the retreat to European social welfare paternalism … or should we make a new start, in the faith that boundless opportunities belong to the workers, the builders, the industrious, and the free?

We are at the beginning of an election campaign like you’ve never seen before!

We are challenged to answer again the momentous questions our Founders raised when they launched mankind’s noblest experiment in human freedom. They made a fundamental choice and changed history for the better. Now it’s our high calling to make that choice: between managed scarcity, or solid growth … between living in dependency on government handouts, or taking responsibility for our lives … between confiscating the earnings of some and spreading them around, or securing everyone’s right to the rewards of their work … between bureaucratic central government, or self-government … between the European social welfare state or the American idea of free market democracy.

What kind of nation do we wish to be? What kind of society will we hand down to our children and future generations? In the coming watershed election, the nature of this unique and exceptional land is at stake. We will choose one of two different paths. And once we make that choice, there’s no going back.

This is not the kind of election I would prefer. But it was forced on us by the leaders of our government.

These leaders are walking America down a new path … creating entitlements and promising benefits that model the United States after the European Union: a welfare state society where most people pay little or no taxes but become dependent on government benefits … where tax reduction is impossible because more people have a stake in the welfare state than in free enterprise … where high unemployment is accepted as a way of life, and the spirit of risk-taking is smothered by a tangle of red tape from an all-providing centralized government.

True, the United States has been moving slowly toward this path a long time. And Democrats and Republicans share the blame. Now we are approaching a “tipping point.” Once we pass it, we will become a different people. Before the “tipping point,” Americans remain independent and take responsibility for their own well-being. Once we have gone beyond the “tipping point,” that self-sufficient outlook will be gradually transformed into a soft despotism a lot like Europe’s social welfare states. Soft despotism isn’t cruel or mean, it’s kindly and sympathetic. It doesn’t help anyone take charge of life, but it does keep everyone in a happy state of childhood. A growing centralized bureaucracy will provide for everyone’s needs, care for everyone’s heath, direct everyone’s career, arrange everyone’s important private affairs, and work for everyone’s pleasure.

The only hitch is, government must be the sole supplier of everyone’s happiness … the shepherd over this flock of sheep.

Am I exaggerating? Are we really reaching this “tipping point”? Exact and precise measures cannot be made, but an eye-opening study by the Tax Foundation, a reliable and non-partisan research group, tells us that in 2004, 20 percent of US households were getting about 75 percent of their income from the federal government. In other words, one out of five families in America is already government dependent. Another 20 percent were receiving almost 40 percent of their income from federal programs, so another one in five has become government reliant for their livelihood.
…

It continues. I urge every American to read the entirety of the article and ask yourself the rhetorical questions posed in it. Paul Ryan is a smart man- he had Obama on his toes at the Health Care Summit  and he’s the one who exposed the deceitful gimmicks used by the Democrats to get the answer they wanted from the CBO. I don’t agree with everything in Rep. Ryan’s proposed solution, but he is right that we are at the tipping point, where we have a choice between a nation built on individual freedom and a nation hanging from the precarious limb of government support. We are approaching the end of an era, and it’s up to all of us to decide what the future will look like.

I, for one, choose freedom.