Wednesday, August 5, 2009
New Gallup Poll Information Added
You can now get the latest Gallup Poll results straight from The Common Free Man. We have added a widget to the site that will give you a daily update on everything from Presidential approval to the current evaluation of standards of living.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Health Care Reform Link
Hi Guys,
My apologies for spamming but I thought this might be of interest. I have put up a pdf of the proposed health care bill. This is not exactly easy bedtime reading to don't expect to be done in one sitting.
Current Health Care Proposal
My apologies for spamming but I thought this might be of interest. I have put up a pdf of the proposed health care bill. This is not exactly easy bedtime reading to don't expect to be done in one sitting.
Current Health Care Proposal
An Unhealthy Idea
It cannot have escaped your notice that health care is the current hot topic across the nation. It was one of the key issues that then Senator Barack Obama ran his campaign on. Now, as promised, he has, with the help of other leading Democrats, put forward the plan for socialized health care for the American people. "Fantastic" many will shout; "No thanks" will be the response from others.
So why the opposing views? Free health care for all is a good thing isn't it?
Well first we need to get past this notion that anything in this new legislation is going to be free. Most, if not all the conversations I have had with supporters of nationalized health care have used that term. Each time I hear it I pose the question:
"If it's free for everyone then who is paying for it?"
The answer I normally get actually frightens me more than anything I have seen in ObamaCare. "Oh government is going to pay". Huh? Remember the lady on election night who was all excited because "Obama is going to pay my mortgage and all my bills"? This is similar thinking. There seems to be a mental block in our nation when it comes to government spending. The only money government has is that which it takes from us on the form of taxes (stealth or otherwise).
So if the government gets it's money from your taxes then that must mean that they are spending your money.
The predicted cost is estimated to be in the region of $1.5 Trillion. That's money they don't currently have, so where do you think it is going to come from?
Okay now that we have that little fact sorted out we can move on to the next problem. How many of you reading this do not currently have health insurance because you can't afford it? That has been one of the main concept being brought to the table by the bill supporters. The problem that so many Americans cannot afford health insurance. Now there are many reasons for people to not have their own insurance and I am not going to go into those at this time. If this bill was aimed at helping just those that needed help, when they needed help. Would this not be a better way of doing things?
I say let us, the people, have a choice in what health care we have. Let us choose who our families see without the added (and predictable) government bureaucracy. The only thing the current plans can lead to is health care rationing. Oh you will be offered treatment, just pick a number and wait in line. There you can happily linger in pain until you are eventually seen or until you die. Will we see a change in the quality of healthcare? Yes, but not for the better. I do agree that treatments should be decided by your doctor and not by some insurance guy in a suit. This legislation is not actually going to do anything to change that. Except of course now it will be a government agent in a suit.
What this boils down to is who gets to decide who lives and who dies. There are many things we are not being told. Many details that are not being reported in the media. The bill, which our President is trying to rush through, is over 1000 pages long and written in legalize. How many of your representatives will have had a chance to read through this extremely important piece of legislation properly before a rushed vote? We have seen this tactic before with the bailouts. Don't let that happen again. Write to your congressman, write to your senators and let them know your opinion.
So next time you are at he DMV take a look around. Because that is what life will be like the next time you go to the emergency room under this proposed plan.
So why the opposing views? Free health care for all is a good thing isn't it?
Well first we need to get past this notion that anything in this new legislation is going to be free. Most, if not all the conversations I have had with supporters of nationalized health care have used that term. Each time I hear it I pose the question:
"If it's free for everyone then who is paying for it?"
The answer I normally get actually frightens me more than anything I have seen in ObamaCare. "Oh government is going to pay". Huh? Remember the lady on election night who was all excited because "Obama is going to pay my mortgage and all my bills"? This is similar thinking. There seems to be a mental block in our nation when it comes to government spending. The only money government has is that which it takes from us on the form of taxes (stealth or otherwise).
So if the government gets it's money from your taxes then that must mean that they are spending your money.
The predicted cost is estimated to be in the region of $1.5 Trillion. That's money they don't currently have, so where do you think it is going to come from?
Okay now that we have that little fact sorted out we can move on to the next problem. How many of you reading this do not currently have health insurance because you can't afford it? That has been one of the main concept being brought to the table by the bill supporters. The problem that so many Americans cannot afford health insurance. Now there are many reasons for people to not have their own insurance and I am not going to go into those at this time. If this bill was aimed at helping just those that needed help, when they needed help. Would this not be a better way of doing things?
I say let us, the people, have a choice in what health care we have. Let us choose who our families see without the added (and predictable) government bureaucracy. The only thing the current plans can lead to is health care rationing. Oh you will be offered treatment, just pick a number and wait in line. There you can happily linger in pain until you are eventually seen or until you die. Will we see a change in the quality of healthcare? Yes, but not for the better. I do agree that treatments should be decided by your doctor and not by some insurance guy in a suit. This legislation is not actually going to do anything to change that. Except of course now it will be a government agent in a suit.
What this boils down to is who gets to decide who lives and who dies. There are many things we are not being told. Many details that are not being reported in the media. The bill, which our President is trying to rush through, is over 1000 pages long and written in legalize. How many of your representatives will have had a chance to read through this extremely important piece of legislation properly before a rushed vote? We have seen this tactic before with the bailouts. Don't let that happen again. Write to your congressman, write to your senators and let them know your opinion.
So next time you are at he DMV take a look around. Because that is what life will be like the next time you go to the emergency room under this proposed plan.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Poll of the Week
The subject of this weeks poll is something very close to my heart. Should we be required to have a permit to carry a firearm?
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Letters to Soldiers
It's never easy to leave your loved ones, even harder when you are serving your country overseas and don't know when or if you will be coming back. Morale can get pretty bleak for those serving in the armed forces so let's show our appreciation by taking a little time out of our day to let them know by writing a few lines.
Go to letterstosoldiers.org and drop them a line.
Go to letterstosoldiers.org and drop them a line.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
New Poll - Should we mourn the passing of the constitution?
I recently received a question from a friend on Twitter asking what would happen if we had a funeral service for the constitution. Would it receive as much media attention as the memorial service for Michael Jackson? Would anywhere near as many people care?
To get an idea I have set up a poll here on The Common Free Man to get an idea of what people think. So go ahead and put in your answer, then have all of your friends and colleagues do the same.
To get an idea I have set up a poll here on The Common Free Man to get an idea of what people think. So go ahead and put in your answer, then have all of your friends and colleagues do the same.
Friday, July 3, 2009
July 4th
Nothing from me today. I will leave this post in the hands of men a lot more capable than I am at putting across what July 4th truly stands for.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
For imposing taxes on us without our consent;
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;
For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
[Signed by] JOHN HANCOCK [President]
New Hampshire
JOSIAH BARTLETT,
WM. WHIPPLE,
MATTHEW THORNTON.
Massachusetts Bay
SAML. ADAMS,
JOHN ADAMS,
ROBT. TREAT PAINE,
ELBRIDGE GERRY
Rhode Island
STEP. HOPKINS,
WILLIAM ELLERY.
Connecticut
ROGER SHERMAN,
SAM'EL HUNTINGTON,
WM. WILLIAMS,
OLIVER WOLCOTT.
New York
WM. FLOYD,
PHIL. LIVINGSTON,
FRANS. LEWIS,
LEWIS MORRIS.
New Jersey
RICHD. STOCKTON,
JNO. WITHERSPOON,
FRAS. HOPKINSON,
JOHN HART,
ABRA. CLARK.
Pennsylvania
ROBT. MORRIS
BENJAMIN RUSH,
BENJA. FRANKLIN,
JOHN MORTON,
GEO. CLYMER,
JAS. SMITH,
GEO. TAYLOR,
JAMES WILSON,
GEO. ROSS.
Delaware
CAESAR RODNEY,
GEO. READ,
THO. M'KEAN.
Maryland
SAMUEL CHASE,
WM. PACA,
THOS. STONE,
CHARLES CARROLL of Carrollton.
Virginia
GEORGE WYTHE,
RICHARD HENRY LEE,
TH. JEFFERSON,
BENJA. HARRISON,
THS. NELSON, JR.,
FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE,
CARTER BRAXTON.
North Carolina
WM. HOOPER,
JOSEPH HEWES,
JOHN PENN.
South Carolina
EDWARD RUTLEDGE,
THOS. HAYWARD, JUNR.,
THOMAS LYNCH, JUNR.,
ARTHUR MIDDLETON.
Georgia
BUTTON GWINNETT,
LYMAN HALL,
GEO. WALTON.
Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
For imposing taxes on us without our consent;
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;
For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
[Signed by] JOHN HANCOCK [President]
New Hampshire
JOSIAH BARTLETT,
WM. WHIPPLE,
MATTHEW THORNTON.
Massachusetts Bay
SAML. ADAMS,
JOHN ADAMS,
ROBT. TREAT PAINE,
ELBRIDGE GERRY
Rhode Island
STEP. HOPKINS,
WILLIAM ELLERY.
Connecticut
ROGER SHERMAN,
SAM'EL HUNTINGTON,
WM. WILLIAMS,
OLIVER WOLCOTT.
New York
WM. FLOYD,
PHIL. LIVINGSTON,
FRANS. LEWIS,
LEWIS MORRIS.
New Jersey
RICHD. STOCKTON,
JNO. WITHERSPOON,
FRAS. HOPKINSON,
JOHN HART,
ABRA. CLARK.
Pennsylvania
ROBT. MORRIS
BENJAMIN RUSH,
BENJA. FRANKLIN,
JOHN MORTON,
GEO. CLYMER,
JAS. SMITH,
GEO. TAYLOR,
JAMES WILSON,
GEO. ROSS.
Delaware
CAESAR RODNEY,
GEO. READ,
THO. M'KEAN.
Maryland
SAMUEL CHASE,
WM. PACA,
THOS. STONE,
CHARLES CARROLL of Carrollton.
Virginia
GEORGE WYTHE,
RICHARD HENRY LEE,
TH. JEFFERSON,
BENJA. HARRISON,
THS. NELSON, JR.,
FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE,
CARTER BRAXTON.
North Carolina
WM. HOOPER,
JOSEPH HEWES,
JOHN PENN.
South Carolina
EDWARD RUTLEDGE,
THOS. HAYWARD, JUNR.,
THOMAS LYNCH, JUNR.,
ARTHUR MIDDLETON.
Georgia
BUTTON GWINNETT,
LYMAN HALL,
GEO. WALTON.
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