Choice. Use It or Lose It.

Other than football or Davy Crockett, my favorite topic seems to be choice.  Choice is one of those topics that conservatives or Republicans have done a horrible job of presenting their case.  Choice is not only about the abortion issue.  But because Democrats claim to be the party of choice in the case of allowing a baby to live, they have claimed the mantle of the party of choice.  I would really like to see an instance of Democrats or Progressives actually favoring choice on any issue.  As of last January, they are taking away your choice of health care insurance.  Like it or not, you are going to be paying for Obamacare.  Does your local school district teach your child as well as you would like?  Would you prefer for the money you pay to support public schools to go toward your child's education at a private school or even better toward materials and programs to help you home school your child?  Thanks to your Progressive Democratic party, that's not an option.  In spite of the public support of a voucher system, all of your tax dollars allocated to education goes straight to teacher's unions through your local public school.  If you want to put your child in a private school, or home school your child, you'll be paying extra for that.

Do you want your tax dollars bailing out banks like J.P. Morgan Chase?  Your money being flooded into General Motors and Chrysler?  Do you believe that abortion is not a form of birth control, but is immoral?  Do you want your money going to Planned Parenthood, who in spite of the repeated lies by the president does NOT provide any type of cancer screening?  They are primarily an abortion provider.  Not just primarily, almost exclusively, an abortion provider.  Want your tax dollars going to them, so they can perform an act that you find immoral?  Do you want to invest in solar panel manufacturers with a very questionable chance of success, such as Solyndra?  Would you prefer to invest your hard earned money in proven oil, natural gas, or coal exploration and research?  Well, unfortunately you have absolutely no choice in any of those matters.  If you pay federal income tax, a portion of your money goes to teacher's unions, General Motors, Chrysler, and Planned Parenthood.

Whether you like it or not, your money went to green energy companies like Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, Solyndra, Beacon Power, Ener1, Abound Solar, A123 Systems, Willard & Kelsey Solar, Raser Technologies, and more.  This is just a portion of the list of companies that received YOUR money and later declared bankruptcy.  Here's a complete list of companies that received taxpayer money, including those now bankrupt.    These companies received a total of $80 billion of your money.  Companies that are no longer in business received $8 billion of that total.  Was that your idea?  Did you support that decision?

How about the federal regulations proposed solely by the appointed, not elected, EPA that severely limits the ability of oil companies to provide proven relatively inexpensive sources of energy for you everyday?  Want to eliminate the coal industry entirely?  Your president does.  He's doing it through the Environmental Protection Agency.  You vote for anyone in that agency?  Nope.  You couldn't.  It's staffed by presidential appointees.  Doesn't matter whether you approve or not.  There's absolutely nothing you can do about their actions.

If you think all these decisions that affect you everyday of your life are frustrating, just wait until Obamacare is fully implemented.  The federal government makes all these decisions on your behalf with really no justification.  Some, like many of the investments in green energy, were payback to donors to the president's campaign.  Some, like the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler were payback to unions for their support.  What do you think the federal government will do to your individual choice, your freedom, your bank account, using the cost of healthcare as justification?  Think Mayor Bloomberg in New York City has been heavy-handed by outlawing sugary drinks of more than 16 ounces?

Imagine that policy on a national level.  Think it will end there?  Or do you think that's just the start?  Is it more likely that, first sizes, then the availability altogether of candy, energy drinks, alcohol, fast food, snack food will be limited?  What about other things on the Progressive wish list that can be even remotely linked to healthcare costs?  Except for their own personal use (ever see how Al Gore gets to any of those climate change conferences?), Progressives absolutely hate big SUV's.  They emit too much CO2, right?  That's bad for your health.  If you must drive, your only choice will be to pay $40,000 for a Volt.  Do you own a gun?  It is a right guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment, but how long will it take to make it a right regulated by healthcare policies?  The government could eliminate hunting accidents by eliminating firearms, right?  If you really don't think that's not only a possibility, but a likely outcome just find a single instance in the past century  where the federal government exercised a newly gained power responsibly.  No, history shows that with power and the government, not just ours, but any government, the phrase "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" is actually an understatement.

I believe this sense of helplessly watching the federal government taking more and more of our choices away is the basis of the secession craze that took hold after the reelection of President Obama.  One positive of the past two election cycles is the return to office of Republican governors, even in traditional Democratic strongholds like Wisconsin and Ohio.  Governors and states need to find a backbone and stand up to the federal government as it grabs all this power.  Out of all the programs I have mentioned, how many are a power given to the federal government in our Constitution?  I'll give you a minute to do a little research.  You back yet?  Still looking?  I'll give you a hint how many.  The answer rhymes with "hero."  Or "done."  That's right zero.  None.  Zip.  Nada.  The federal government, mainly over the past 100 years, has just taken these programs upon themselves.  The programs, if they are to be implemented at all, are the right or responsibility of the individual states to implement.  Article I Section 8 of the Constitution lists 18 powers that We the People granted to our federal government.  By design, this is a short list.  The 10th Amendment to the Constitution reserves any other power, not part of this list of 18, to either the people or the states.

The states are supposed to be, as Mitt Romney said in one of the debates, the "laboratories of ideas."  Massachusetts can try a state run healthcare.  If it's successful, other states will follow suit.  If it's not, citizens of Massachusetts will have a choice, either end the experiment or move to a state without the policy.  Same with green energy projects, environmental regulations, land use restrictions, public education.  These policies should be state mandated.  Allow the citizens of the United States to vote with their feet.  They will move to a state that is successful, has jobs available, has affordable housing, and good schools.  Voters in other states will elect state officials that will bring successful policies to their state.  Even in times like now where the federal government has taken control and mandated so many of these failed policies nationally, there examples of states succeeding with their own policies.  See the gas boom in South Dakota for an obvious example.  Unemployment is almost non-existent in the state, the housing industry is booming, the  state is bringing in record amounts of tax revenue, not by raising tax rates, but because the citizens are prospering.  So if it is spent wisely, their education will improve and they will be a model for other states to look toward.

But as is usually the case, the federal government rarely celebrates success by an individual or a state.  Rather they seek to punish it.  Watch for the EPA's report on fracking, a main component of the success of the gas industry in South Dakota.  If past behavior is a predictor of future actions, the EPA will crack down on the practice.  States have been negligent in standing up to the federal government's power grabs.  I think that whether consciously or just intuitively, we the people, know these powers have been granted to us by our Creator, by Nature, or Nature's god as stated in the Declaration of Independence.  We failed to push our states to stand up to the federal government as it took more and more of our choices away.  The deep divisions in our society that seem to become so prominent in the past 10 years are a result of our choices being eliminated.  The current secession phenomenon is the latest consequence.  I hope our states push their Constitution-granted rights and that the Supreme Court is still responsible enough to uphold the Constitution. If not the next step is up to the we the people and our choices are becoming more limited by the day.